Revenance

A nooby question, but hey - we're all at this stage sometime in our life.

Which would be more effective for a single fan cooler - a Push fan or Pull fan? I can see the Push being more effective as it's actually pushing (durr) the air through the cooler, forcing air into it. The Pull, however, would be able to suck air from 3 sides instead of just pushing it through one. For a ThermalRight Ultra-120 extreme, I don't think the sides would give much space for a Pull fan to suck air from, whereas the Mugen for example would give a larger area for air to be sucked through.

Thoughts?

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imadude10

I would think that push would give better temps as the air would flow all the way through the heatsink. In a pull configuration, the air will travel path of least resistance to the fan, which isn't through the heatsink, but rather sideways to the fan, only touching ~5% of the fin surface area.

MintMouse

Basically you're not going to notice any difference. There is going to be a little more turbulence from pulling through the fins, so push will offer any improvement available(which is probably negligible).

Well, when you push through you're going to have the same effect unless the heat sink is shrouded.

XiZeL

i say push sounds more logical...

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EntropyTTU

Both should be about the same.

Just try both, and see which is the best, if either. Wouldn't be a hard experiment at all.

The only application that it would make a difference in is boiler air intake, MAJOR cooling apparatuses (power plant heat exchangers) etc...

Here is a good read for you if you are interested in the difference between forced vs induced draft.

Forced vs Induced Draft

Also, the shape of the heat exchanger's (your CPU heat sink's) intake makes a difference as to whether you use forced or induced; however, most CPU heat sinks don't use nozzle like or diffuser types of intakes, and therefore, once again, shouldn't make a lot of difference what you choose.

In major air intake, or major cooling application as listed above, you will sometimes see nozzles, and diffusers used as part of the ducts, or channeling for the heat exchangers, this is where it will make a fairly large difference sometimes.

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Reflux

Off topic: There's a loose bit of BBCode in your sig Entropy

On topic: I like push, if you have a fan at the back of the case that can effectively be a pull that isn't attatched by my logic.

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Say "Thank you" with rep.

EntropyTTU

Thanks. I had missed that.

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