Radiator Fan Configuration: Does It Matter? - The Workshop
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,528 words · ~7 min read
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welcome back to the workshop today we're going to be investigating radiator fan
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configuration we're using a Corsair h100i GTX it's not a graphics card don't
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know why it has GTX in it but anyways and some Noctua nff 12s in a bunch of
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different configurations so check out the straw pole link down below vote on
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which configuration you think is going to win and let's do this
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Corsair claims unrivaled comfort and Universal compatibility on its new void
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surround headset featuring genuine Dolby 7.1 headphone USB adapter click the link
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in the video description to learn more our first test we're going to have our
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nff 12's pushing air up through the radiator just two fans nothing super
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crazy with push pull configurations or whatever super simple test also in AI
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Suite in the motherboard we have them pinned at 60% with all of these tests
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people go like oh well maybe the fan speed was changing which is why the
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thermal paste application didn't change no the fan speed is static in all these
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tests it's not changing if it changes it might change by like 10 RPM which just
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doesn't at all matter so to Ida 64 we go
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let's test out our first configuration so with the two Noctua n2s pushing up
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through the radiator at an ambient room temperature of 18.1 de the core ran at
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38° this is all done in Celsius we've
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got our good kind of starting number let's move on forward so now the fans
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are configured to pull air down through the radiator and into the case so
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currently the air flow is sucking in that way so running id64 again start
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test and we'll see you in 10 minutes okay so with the Noctua pulling down
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through the rad we had a room ambient temperature of
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18.3 and yet again a core temperature of
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38 so that really didn't make any difference having them push up or pull
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down so moving on we're going to start doing two sets of fans so this would
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increase your costs by a fair amount because a lot of coolers including this
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one will come with two fans but not four so if you want to move up to four your
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costs are going to go up a whole bunch so for this to be worth it we need the
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cooling to have a significant Improvement just something to keep in
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mind all right so now I have two sets of
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fans both pulling down into the case so
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one set pushing down through the radiator another set pulling down
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through the radiator we're going to check in 10 minutes and there we go see
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you later that equaled an ambient temperature of 18.5 de and an actual red
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out from the computer temperature for the core of 35° so we saw an improvement
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of 3° but you did add two n12 fans which
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is like a fair amount of cost so just keep that in mind next up we're going to
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do a pretty stupid configuration we're going to have the fans on top trying to
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pull up through the radiator and we're going to have the fans on the bottom
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trying to push down through the radiator so opposite directions super weird just
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going to see what what it does I guess Workshop yeah okay so short answer don't
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do that long answer the ambient in the room was 18.7 de and the temperature of
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the Cor was 48° so not great it
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increased by like 10° C which is bad so
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yeah don't have it so that the air is being pushed at like itself cuz that's
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just a terrible idea and makes no sense next up what we're going to do is have
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it all the air going up with two layers of fans we're going to have the bottom
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fans pushing air up through the rad and the top fans pushing pulling air up
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through the rat so let's try that one so fairly unsurprisingly with an ambient of
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18.7 De and a core temperature of 35°
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it's exactly the same as having the fans point the other direction so right now
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we have the fans pulling up through the rad for the ones that are on the top and
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we have the pants pushing up through the rad for the ones that are on the bottom
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now we're going to try single layer again but on the top which includes one
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of my favorite configurations but we'll do that one last so with the fans on top
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pushing down through the rad we got a temperature through the computer
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computer of 39° and an ambient of
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18.8 which is about 1° higher than when
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we started with the fans on the bottom in the same type of configuration um but
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also about 1 degree higher ambient so more or less the exact same result okay
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and as I expected last and definitely not least pulling up through the rad
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this is my favorite configuration and our favorite configuration here at lonus
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techtips because of the Dust Management Properties where it will put the Dust on
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the bottom of the radiator where it's very easy to take away instead of sandwiching it somewhere and making it
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very annoying cuz you have to go through the fans and all that crap it at an
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ambient of 18.9 which I would like to point out is almost one full degree
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higher than when we started reached about 39° on the core which is exactly
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one degree higher than the ones we were running when it started so it performs
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just as well as having the fans below the rad and is better for dust
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management a win in my opinion so as is
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seems to be with the workshop the conclusion is it doesn't really matter
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that much in terms of actual cooling
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unless you do something stupid like make them face each other and conflicting
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airflow paths and all that kind of stuff adding another set of fans can improve
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your cooling but not by a huge amount and probably not by an amount in my
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opinion that I would bother getting too more fans for your rad and adding that
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much thickness into the top of your case and having to deal with the them and all
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that kind of crap and last but not least
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I would like to reaffirm that in my opinion the best way to put the fans is
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pulling up through the rad with the fans
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on the top so that the dust will get caked onto the very bottom of the rad
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instead of having it Go in some other direction where the dust is going to get
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onto the fans themselves and onto the rad under where the fans are which is an
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extremely annoying place to clean it off of crunchy roll is a site created by
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again head over to crun world.com Linus and check them out thank you guys for
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