Ed said:
http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=230
They tested everything from no case fans to 5 case fans, and the winner was
the rear fan(s) only. Just amazing.
Actually it was the top/front that performed the best to exhaust the hot
air. However top only and rear only took the number 2 and 3 places
respectively.
Peak CPU and board temps were kept down by top/rear and rear only in the
number 1 and 2 places.
Which has been similar to my experience. I use one exhaust fan in the
case to push out heat, one in the PSU since it gets warm on its own, and
a single fan in the front to draw in cool air and gently blow it around
the case for general hard drive and board cooling.
I found out years ago that running the front case fan at full speed was
detrimental to case cooling. I figured it was too turbulent and hot air
just cycled around the video card and chipset instead of cooling all of
the components and then blown out.
So when I bought my new system, the Antec Sonata II case had an internal
duct to draw in air at the back and dump it over the CPU area. But after
a bit of informal testing, I found it was sucking in warm air that was
just pushed out the back (computer is in a desk with a back wall about
18" from the rear of the case).
So I removed it and blocked off the opening so air was drawn in the
front only, and board temps dropped a couple of degrees.
My current temps are 30c board, 32c CPU at idle. At 100% on both cores I
get 30c board and 47c CPU.
I should mention that I'm overclocking the CPU by 25%, and I'm using a
Zalman 9500 cooler. The 9500 does a great job of blowing the heat right
into the exhaust fan, and out the back.
