Intro to Air Cooling part 2: Fans

 

Ok, so after a short break from Dream Build, we’re back with a vengeance! But today I would like to add to my previous ‘intro to air cooling.’  Previously, I went through the general method to optimal case air flow for maximum cooling. So now that we have determined how we want our air to flow, we will chose the fans to get that air a-flowin’!

In my mind, the most important aspects of a fan are (in no particular order): fan size, amount of air flow, and noise generated by the fans. Features like LED’s and fan color are more for your personal taste. Manual speed control of the fan is also a great feature!

Size:  The general rule of thumb for fan size is smaller fans push less air and are more noisy (which is no good, right?), while bigger fans push more air and are quieter (which IS good).

Amount of Airflow:  This one should be pretty self explanatory, but the more air being pushed (or pulled), the greater the cooling power. Airflow is often measured with the units CFM, or Cubic Feet per Minute.

Noise:  Story time!  When I built my first computer (many moons ago), the biggest fans that I had were 80mm, and I had about 5. Then I added hard drive coolers (more small fans), and a few more 80mm fans because I had no idea what I was doing. When I turned on my computer, it sounded like a hair dryer. I thought that it was worth it because I had so many fans, and thus more cooling. But my airflow design (reference Intro to Air Cooling) was very, very poor, so I could not even reap the benefits of all of the fans. Anyway, moral of the story, no one wants to be around a computer case if they can’t even hear the music, games, etc over the case itself. Less noise is better.

I would like to introduce you to two friends, the Thermaltake ISGC fan, and the Enermax Everest Twister fan.  Both of these are 120mm fans with maximum air flow from 46.1 CFM to 58.3 CFM with a noise rating of about 16 dB and about 10 dB respectively (Click on the links above  for full specifications).  The Thermaltake fan has adjustable speed, while the Enermax fan controls its speed on the basis of the temperature sensor that is on the fan itself (you can’t disable this unless you cut the wires leading to the sensor and use some electrical tape to connect the wires).

I personally bought 2 of the Thermaltake fans for a few reasons; 120mm, low noise, black and white [because I recently painted my case with a black and white theme], and amount of airflow. These two are mounted outside of my case on my radiator (see Intro to Water Co0ling) so it looks just right!

I hope this has shed some light on fan selection and the factors going into choosing the right fan!

-Da DreamBuild Crew

Intro to Water Cooling

An example of a liquid cooled computer.

Finally, right? I know – if you’re into overclocking (and I know you are!) and into performance (and I sure hope you are…) then water cooling is for you! It is a well known fact that the cooler your computer is, the faster and more efficient it can run (hence extreme overclockers using liquid nitrogen, for example, to cool computers; like the people at AMD who overclocked their… well, just watch).

Liquid cooling is far more efficient than air cooling, albeit more expensive (but expensive for all the right reasons). There are a lot of components to water cooling, but this is just an intro, so I’ll keep it simple. Also, there are various tube sizes (and coolers, even UV reactive and glow in the dark for all of you crazy cats out there), so you must be consistent with the tube sizes – I recommend 1/2″ tubing because of the high amount of flow.

Water block: Copper is an amazing metal to use for the water block because it can absorb and radiate heat extremely well. Surface area is important, because more surface area means more points for heat exchange exist. Often within water blocks, you will see pillar-like structures, or in the case of EVGA’s “Hydro Copper 16,” little “E’s” to increase the surface area (how hardcore awesome is that?).

Pumps: Basically the stronger the pump, the more flow you are going to get, which is good – the more flow, the more heat exchange (which is the whole point!)

Coolant: Water can absorb a lot of heat, without changing its temperature very much so water is an amazing coolant. Of course, there are additives-such as anti-corrosives, chemicals that improve the cooling performance.

Reservoirs: Another aspect of cooling, a reservoir helps in filling your cooling system as well as protecting from nasty, nasty air bubbles (everyone, let’s boo air bubbles! C’mon! “Boooooo!!!”)

Radiators: Oh sweet radiators! The radiator is where the coolant dumps its heat and cools down in order to suck out more heat from your processor, graphics card(s), etc.

Water Block: GPU – look up your gpu, because gpu water blocks are very,very specific – and CPU also varies from socket type to socket type, so just keep what I had to say in mind, and you’ll do just fine.

Reservoir

Radiator

Pump

Intro to Air Cooling

Today, the crew would like to take a moment to contemplate the art of cooling – your computer that is. This raises a few questions: water or air cooling? Which case provides great airflow? Which water-block(s) should I get? 1 fan or 2 fan reservoir? Well, let’s back it up a little bit – I’ll take a look at air cooling for now and will tackle water cooling soon. Air cooling is satisfactory for most PC users out there, non-overclockers or extremists (in other words not us), and a great way to start optimizing your cooling system is with a decent case.  If you’re looking for an excellent chassis with superb air flow, my personal favorite (just look at it and you’ll know why) has to be the ABS Canyon 695. With three ‘temperature control zones’ the ABS Canyon 695 provides superior airflow, resulting in optimum cooling. As a ‘full tower’ case, the Canyon has plenty of room for anything and everything that you want to put in it (3X EVGA 295’s anyone?). One of these can be found on the fuel for my obsession: Newegg.com, setting you back 580 smackeroonies (totally worth it in my opinion).

-General Airflow Technique-

OK, I have seen a lot of crazy designs when it comes to airflow management (when I first started experimenting in computers, I used 12 different fans. I was young…), but my general rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Not too many fans, but enough to get some good flow (about 4 I would say), and try to get more air into your case than you push out [logic behind this: if you remove more air than you are bringing into the case, there will be less air to remove the heat produced by your precious cpu, gpu, etc. Therefore your computer will run hotter than it would (or should) otherwise]. I recommend cases with fans in the front of the case (as well as the standard back and side of the case) to cool the hard drives. Plus, it keeps things simple: air comes in one end, and out the other – a straight shot in and out, no crazy redirecting of flow needed).

ABS Canyon 695 full tower

As you can see, the ABS Canyon 695 has a simple airflow design as I described above. With 4X 14cm fans (3 intake, 1 exhaust) and  2X 8cm fans (exhaust) [notice that there is more air being pushed into the case than is flowing out? See? I’m not making stuff up.], I hope you can see why I drooled the first time I gazed upon this case.

Antec came out with a few good cases awhile ago: the Antec 300, 900, and 1200 (mini, medium, and full towers, respectively). Check out Newegg.com for great deals on Antec cases, as well as the featured ABS Canyon 695!