Raizy

I am not sure whether the fan on this 8800 is sucking air in or blowing hot air out. If it's blowing hot air out then my side fan is keeping that hot air inside. The card is not overclocked, should I leave the side fan turned on or off?

Nellys197

Should be sucking air in and spreading through the heatsink fins. I would leave a side fan in for cool fresh air blowing on the card/into fan intake

Texican

I use my side fan as an exhaust. I believe the majority of people here agree that "negative pressure" inside the case creates cooler temps.

Majinwar

The 8800 will be sucking air from the inside of the case, and blowing it out the rear of your case. You want the side fan to pull fresh air from outside into your case.

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Texican

Yes, but much depends on exactly what setup one has. Too many fans sucking air in can create pockets of dead air, thus causing an increase in temps.

Triplesec

This is a beat to death subject. It all depends on your set up. Hardly ever will two systems be alike. For my set up I found that by me having 240CFM intake(Side Bottom,Front) and 265CFM Exhaust( Top, Rear) my case temps are stellar!
As I said before it all depends on your setup.

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Verone

It depends entirely on your setup and what GFX card you're using.

For instance, the 9800 GX2 pushes air out of the side of the card, rather than out of the expansion slot vents on the card's rear.

If your side fan is being used as an intake in this case, your card will run very hot as you're trying to push the exhausted hot air back across the card's surface.

I've found that as a general rule, if you have the airflow of the case moving from front to rear, with the side and top exhausting, you can't really go wrong.

As for any new high end card, i'd reccomend using the side fan to exhaust the hot air from around the cards regardless.

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dr4gon

well I don't know, is it? check your temps, that's the only way to know what's best for you.

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Nefarious79

before I drilled a hole in my window to mount a fan there my gpu core temps were 10C higher in nview monitor than they currently are. Thats with a 92mm vantec stealth blowing on it.

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Gigmaster

Yeah, I had that problem with the 9800gx2 as well, with the 200mm side fan my Cosmos has. Unplugged the fan, an am leaving the side off when I'm using the computer (for now).

Good news is that the card can be moved to the bottom PCI-E x16 2.0 slot on my Mobo, which ALMOST clears the fan... almost. I'm considering doing a simple mod where I just put something over the bottom of my fan that blocks off the portion next to the card, equaling increased air flow over the rest of my mobo. I hope.

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