Case Fans - How many should you have?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,782 words · ~13 min read
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There comes a time in every build when you have to ask the question,
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how many case fans do I need?
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How many case fans can this case even take?
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Where should I put them? What types should I get?
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How many are going to be worth it?
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Do I make compromises into other components in order to get these case fans?
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It's kind of annoying and there isn't a ton of clear answers out there,
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so we're going to check that out today.
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Also, like the video if you want to see a bunch of build logs based around gaming fiends.
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Loads of people freak out over their fans, and I mean, I get it.
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It kind of feels like a manual warranty.
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You want your parts to stay cool.
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You just spent a whole bunch of money on this fancy new rig.
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You don't want it to overheat and die.
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It's freaky, I get it.
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But what's the golden rule? What's the sweet spot?
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Honestly, I don't know.
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But that's why we're here today.
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To find out you and I are going to pick a bunch of components,
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put them all in a case and test a whole bunch of different configurations of fans to figure out what you need.
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So let's go.
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So on my personal Twitter, Luke underscore LAFR, I posted a bunch of straw polls asking people what they had in their systems
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in terms of CPU cooler, fans, case and graphics card.
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In terms of graphics card, you guys told me that you had an internal exhaust cooled graphics card.
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So I grabbed a 290 that I've had for a little bit here that has internal exhaust.
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So that should represent.
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That type of heat going into your case.
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In terms of CPU cooler, you guys said an average like single tower cooler.
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So I have a Hyper T4.
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I don't have a Hyper 212 EVO because I still don't know.
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But this will be a pretty good representative of that.
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Motherboard, CPU and RAM all don't really matter that much.
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But I've got a Z170 series deluxe board here from ASUS.
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Some random RAM from ADATA and a 6700K that we'll use to,
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kind of, heat things up.
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In terms of fans, you guys said mid-range.
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So I grabbed some Antec tri-cools here.
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Some just random ones.
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I was actually going to go with Cooler Master because we have somewhat of a theme going on,
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which you'll see here in a moment.
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This is not a Cooler Master sponsored build, by the way.
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But a master case because you guys said about $90 to $150 is what you'd spend on your case.
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And this can fall somewhere in there depending on what configuration you get.
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And we had a Cooler Master cooler already.
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So we're going to go with Cooler Master fans.
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But the spare Cooler Master fans that we have in the office on Newegg are $69 when they're like almost 50% off.
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So there's some pricing error going on there and I don't know how much they're actually worth.
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So I just got some random Antec ones.
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So here we go.
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Let's build the system, put fans all over the place, see how it turns out.
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So I'm taking the Cooler Master fans that are already in the case out,
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which is a little bit silly because I'm going to have to put them back in eventually.
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But,
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the first test that I want to do is actually going to be just with the Hyper T4 running.
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Because I want to see how effective a case is with no fans additional at all.
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Because I think that's, while not entirely representative because your case will basically always come with some amount of fans,
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still an interesting question that we should answer.
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I'm going to install the T4 out of the case because it's not the easiest thing to install.
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And it's in this build, so if I just put it on, it's fine.
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So the back plate for the T4 is just missing.
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So I don't have an option really there,
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but I grabbed the Nefton 280L and got the back plate from that.
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And like the screws are actually compatible.
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So I don't know, I'm going to go this direction.
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I don't know if it's going to work,
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but I kind of really need to use this T4.
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So hopefully I can figure something out.
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Holy crap, it works.
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Thank you 280L.
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All right.
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Okay.
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So we're going to be able to use the Hyper T4.
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We're moving on.
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So there's a lot of variables here
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and I honestly can't answer them all, unfortunately.
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One of them being the power supply.
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You could have it so the power supply is pulling air
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from the inside of the case,
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or you could have it so it's in a basement,
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like in this situation,
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or you could have it so that it's pulling air from the outside
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and then spitting out the power supply.
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And then spitting out the power supply.
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And then putting it back in its own little ecosystem,
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which is also like this situation.
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I went with the power supply not really contributing
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because I actually wanted to remove it as a variable.
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There's no way, like I just said,
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that I can do all the different possible scenarios.
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We'd need an insane amount of cases, different fans,
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all that kind of stuff.
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So I'm trying to take a very average use case.
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And I think either in a basement
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or not contributing to the system's cooling
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is probably more common.
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Okay.
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Most of the way done building the case,
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not 100%, but most of the way.
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Except for monitor, keyboard, and mouse
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so we can check things out.
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I'm going to install the graphics card real quick.
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And then we're going to start our first test.
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All right, graphics card is in.
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Currently we have only one fan and it's on the Hyper T4.
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I'm going to turn the system on
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by turning the power supply on first
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and then turning the power button on the motherboard.
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All right, that's booting up.
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I'm going to get the panels on it.
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And we're ready to test.
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Well, my boot device isn't working.
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Nope, yeah, there's another blue screen.
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So I'll have to find another drive.
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Damn.
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All right, so we are currently running our first test.
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This is with the system closed with only the T4 running.
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I am running IDA64 stress test
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and I'm running Furmark on our 290.
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So that is only one fan.
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I have taken the fans out of the front of the case.
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There is no fans in the top,
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which I can even show you right now.
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There are no fans in the top.
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There are no fans.
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There's no fan, sorry, in the back, nothing.
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We're just testing with just the T4 right now.
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The CPU is only at about 71 degrees Celsius,
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which is actually pretty impressive,
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but Skylake doesn't run that hot, so I'm not too surprised.
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The 290, however, is at 92 degrees Celsius.
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But at the same time, we're slamming it with Furmark
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and a 290 is kind of a hot card.
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So I'm not too surprised.
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So I'm installing one fan in the front here
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and I'm gonna install one fan in the back.
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I think this is a pretty common
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kind of bare bones fan setup
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where the case manufacturer will give you
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one kind of in the middle of the front and one in the back.
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We're giving them benefit of the doubt
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in putting in 140 millimeter fans,
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which are a little bit more common these days.
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Also took out the hard drive cage
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that was sitting right here
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because A, there's a hard drive cage down here
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and a lot of people are opting for, like, just one.
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They're opting for, like, just SSD rigs
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or just one hard drive where you could probably get it
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out of the way of the graphics card
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and that hard drive cage was in the way of the graphics card.
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So we're gonna give it the benefit of the doubt there as well.
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Wow.
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Okay.
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We'll see what it's actually like when it's done heating up,
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but it looks like a huge improvement already.
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Okay, so it's been 10 minutes
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with the one fan in the front, one fan in the back.
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The CPU is running at about 60 degrees,
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which is down from 71
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with just the T4 running
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and the GPU is running at 79 degrees,
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which is down from 92.
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So just adding one fan in the front
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and one fan in the back
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was actually a pretty huge improvement,
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but we haven't really gotten to the point
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where you're actually adding fans to the system yet
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because this is a very common stock setup.
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One fan in the front, one fan in the back
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is usually what you're gonna kind of get
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in terms of fans in your system
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is two that come in the case.
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It's actually very common.
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I don't know if that's usual,
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but at least two in the case is very common.
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All right, so now we're running two fans in the front,
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one fan in the back, no fans in the top.
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And this is our third test.
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So far, we've seen some pretty significant improvements
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from our first test to our second test.
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We're gonna see how much this makes a difference.
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I can already tell it won't be making
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nearly as much of a difference,
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but it does seem to be a little bit better,
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but we do need to let it sit for 10 minutes.
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Okay, so it's been 10 minutes.
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This is again with two fans in the front.
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One fan in the back.
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We've got a CPU temp of about 57 degrees, I'm gonna say.
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58 degrees looks like a better average there.
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I'm taking the second highest number on real temps.
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So we'll take 58 degrees and a GPU temperature of 77,
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which means we went down two for CPU
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and we went down two for GPU,
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which is not a huge improvement, but very noticeable.
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Two degrees in both categories is definitely very noticeable.
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So we're gonna move on and put one fan in the back of the top
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and we'll see how well that does.
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So this is getting to the realm of,
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you might've added a fan or two to your system possibly.
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All right, so it's been 10 more minutes.
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Our CPU temperature is about 55 degrees.
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That's down three, I believe, from our previous number.
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And our GPU temperature is 76,
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which is actually only down one degree
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from our previous temperature.
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Not that surprising, given the position of the fan.
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All right.
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So with all the fan slots filled,
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we're still running at 55 degrees Celsius on the CPU
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and we are still running at 76 degrees on the GPU.
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So there's actually no thermal change
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by adding the last fan,
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which is actually pretty interesting
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and might save some people some money.
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Although that is fairly specific to this setup.
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But yeah, diminishing returns was the point
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and I think we found it.
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Okay, so one of our extra tests is the T4
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and just one fan in the back
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of the case.
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I just kind of wanted to see how much of an impact
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just that back case fan did.
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Okay, so we're done testing just the one in the back.
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For CPU, we got 64 degrees
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and for GPU, we got 85 degrees,
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which is pretty good,
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but I'm very interested to see how it compares
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to the one in the front.
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So let's swap the fan position and move on forward.
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Okay, so I just finished testing
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with only one fan in the front.
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I'm now taking that fan out.
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WAN Show's coming up soon
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and I don't want to be late like we always are,
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so I'm trying to go quickly.
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But with just one fan in the front,
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it got 67 degrees on the CPU and 80 degrees on the GPU,
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meaning that it went up by three degrees for CPU,
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but it went down by five for GPU, which is interesting.
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So you get a trade-off
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depending on where you want to put your fan.
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Maybe something to take note of.
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I'm gonna shove this fan at the top.
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We're gonna see how it goes.
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All right, so our last test, no fans in the front,
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no fans in the back.
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One fan on the T4, one fan in the top,
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gave us 65 degrees on the CPU and 83 degrees on the GPU,
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which lands it kind of right in the middle
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of having one in the back and one in the front,
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which is surprisingly perfect, in my opinion.
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So in conclusion, as we probably knew,
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there are diminishing returns
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when it comes to adding fans to your system.
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Although surprisingly enough, in my opinion,
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once you kind of get past the stock amount of fans
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that come with your case,
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it doesn't really end up
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helping that much anymore.
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One of the most interesting parts to me
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was actually when we started putting single fans
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in different positions in the case,
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because that showed how much different areas
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actually affected different parts of your system.
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As you can kind of see here,
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I need to get ready for a WAN Show,
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and I stole a whole bunch of the monitor, keyboard,
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and mouse and stuff from the WAN Show set,
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so Nick is gonna take those and go work on the WAN Show set.
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But yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed the video.
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It was an interesting look at what case fans kind of do
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