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this video was supposed to be so simple how much better is it to go from a solid

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front panel to a mesh front panel when you've got high-end power-hungry hot

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components but then we got some really anomalous data

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how could adding knock to a fans all

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over our mesh case possibly put it in a position where our GPU is running at the

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same temperatures as this here hotbox

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the only way to find out is to use our new smoke machine hit me

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with the smoke poof

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smoke me that is weak

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that's all it's got i told you guys to get the good smoke machine we did the other one

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well anyway there's a dead spot

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you can see it we'll get you more details in a minute

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and this video is brought to you by microcenter who sells of course both

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solid front panel cases and mesh ones so ultimately i guess they don't care which

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one wins which is good no conflict of interest

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to kick off our intended video mash versus solid front panels we turned to

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the nzxt h510 a case that was notorious

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for looking great but having very poor ventilation

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now to their credit nzxt did listen and gave us the h510 flow which is the exact

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same case just with a mesh front panel which means

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should be fine right just drill some sweet speed holes and bang

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boom you're off to the races

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well yes but actually no as you can see despite the flow's

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improved flow of air our core i9 12900k

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hits a hundred degrees on the package with the stock fans and even the mighty

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nhd15 cooler couldn't tame this 250 watt

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beast without us resorting to drastic measures

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we then swapped out the stock fans thinking maybe they were the problem for

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some knock to us which brought us down to 97 degrees which

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well it isn't exactly amazing but it did at least stop the thermal throttling

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that we experienced before unlocking the maximum performance potential of our CPU

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and demonstrating once and for all that mesh front panels are indisputably

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better than solid ones which don't allow any air through them no matter how many

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Noctua fans you install so why is this video only one third over

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let's talk about our GPU yeah we've got one it's an rtx 3090 and it did run a

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little cooler when we switched over to the flow but only by a few degrees

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then our 20 minute furmark soak saw temps rise steadily to roughly 79

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degrees on the stock fans with the solid panel and then 84 degrees with the

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Noctua fans and the wait

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i know what you're thinking that can't be right

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but we triple checked in both cases while the Noctua fans

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markedly improved our CPU thermals they

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actively hindered our GPU thermals and

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there's nothing wrong with our nfa-12s they're great fans and available at your

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local microcenter by the way don't forget they sponsored this video

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so what the devil is going on here to start our investigation we're gonna

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dial things back a little and use a gaming rather than a synthetic load for

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our test we looped our f1 2021 benchmark

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for 30 minutes and we got better results seeing a drop of 6 degrees on the flow

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on our CPU and 7 degrees on the GPU

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so that's a solid improvement going from solid to mesh

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but then again we swap to our noc to a

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fans and the CPU improves while the GPU

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heats up though at least our mesh case still did

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manage to see better numbers than our solid front panel

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guys we are running exactly the same

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components in all of our tests yes we built and rebuilt these pcs

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enough times to need some refreshing ice cold water ltteststore.com and we double

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checked our compatibility with microcenter's custom pc builder tool

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we're gonna have everything in an affiliate link down below

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so what is going on here let's take a look at our smoke test

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with our stock fan setup it's not so bad

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air gets pulled in wafts all around our components with a

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good chunk getting pulled into our CPU cooler and some circulating around our

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GPU then it gets exhausted out the back

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it's clear now though that part of our problem is this huge graphics card in

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such a small case it's almost right up against our fans and you can see that

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the air gets pulled in and hits a wall causing turbulence when we swapped to

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our noctuas we thought wow these things are so quiet we could spin them faster

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while maintaining the same noise level but get this at such a high RPM the

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turbulence becomes even worse and we got small pockets of air in front of and

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underneath the GPU that were just recirculating being heated up multiple

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times before going anywhere you can see our CPU cooler is still

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getting plenty of fresh air so it's fine better than before even but it's pushed

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right up against our 30-90 not quite touching but not much of a gap for air

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to pass through either so almost nothing is able to circulate around the GPU's

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back plate more fans more better though right

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we certainly thought so but since now we have all this air intake but no extra

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exhaust there's only one spot for a fan on the top of the h510 and good luck

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getting a regular thickness one up there with our motherboard all this extra front fan ends up doing

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is putting even more pressure on the top stream

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and since it's blowing too fast for our CPU cooler to keep up with we also get

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some turbulence at the top front of the case where air cycles around for a bit

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before it can be vented out anything trying to come up from the

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bottom is instead constantly pushed toward the back

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so in a nutshell you can pull in all the

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air you want but if it can't leave or if it passes over a hot tower cooler before

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getting pushed down into your GPU you're gonna have a pretty bad time as the air

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heats up inside your case obviously there are a ton of other fan

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configurations cases and hardware to examine so make sure to get subscribed

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so you don't miss our upcoming LTT Labs content where we'll be exploring this in

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much more depth all of the side questing out of the way though it's time to

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revisit our original question mesh or non-mesh

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we chose a bit of an extreme example as the h510 only has this tiny strip on the

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side for airflow but it really was a huge difference

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look how little air we suck in through these side vents even with our intake

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heavy configuration even when we blasted our fogger more

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directly at the side vent it hardly helped so a mesh front panel at this

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point seems pretty obvious but pc building is often about balance

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and your own personal preference the more power you're after for work or

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gaming the stronger the components need to be and the hotter they might get so

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the better cooling solution is obviously going to be the best on the other hand

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if you've got a pc with integrated graphics that's meant for light office

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work or light gaming you probably don't even need to think about what kind of

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case and cooler you buy whatever you need though you can find it

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at today's sponsor micro center if their online builder tool isn't enough just

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head inside and ask for help from any of their knowledgeable staff members their

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stores often have plenty of stock even with the current chip shortages and they

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recently renovated their flagship location in tustin california to make it

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easier to find what you're looking for if you live nearby and you haven't gone

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in yet check them out new customers can get a free 240 gig SSD just by following

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the links below offer valid in store only no purchase necessary if you

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enjoyed this video maybe go check out our one year airflow experiment in the

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stunning conclusion we see which fan configurations result in the most dust

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buildup in your pc