SPCR

I've seen a number of people mount their radiator fans so that the hot air in blown into the case. I guess that would optimize the cool air coming against the radiator (there are case fans on the outside of the radiator, giving it push-pull) at the expense of heating up everything else inside the case. They also mention "something something positive pressure something someting dust", but that's even less convincing. Am I right to say that this is a bad, unecessary trade-off?

JJAP wrote:Am I right to say that this is a bad, unecessary trade-off?

I'm not a WC-guy, but I think you've just to try, if possible: if I'm not wrong, it should be mainly based upon the assumption that there's a noticeable and exploitable delta between inner and outer temp, I mean, even before you heat up the internals. Is that true? I don't know.

I would not mount it that way, unless perhaps if it's a second radiator; one in the top with fans blowing out and one in the front with fans blowing in. Normal air path that way and if the front radiator heats up the case a little bit, no matter since airflow is good anyway.

In a single radiator setup.. Well, it's a lazy way to get positive pressure and if that's worth rising case temp then why not?

Is it a good idea? It's not theoretically ideal, but it can be effective in practice. Call it an option to consider and test. The controlling factors are your case's layout, heat load & airflow.

My first WCed experience is detailed here. Full load eventually increased water temps to +11C, while air-exhaust temps were +9C. This was with ~160W and a barely detectable amount of airflow.

I also posted about a rebuild of the same system with WCed GPU.

While these are very old systems (& I haven't used water in years), the fundamentals of wattage versus airflow have not changed. You can calculate this stuff with the specific heats of air & water.

JJAP wrote:I've seen a number of people mount their radiator fans so that the hot air in blown into the case.

What's the definition of hot air?