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Fractal Design R4 case airflow

4K views 66 replies 9 participants last post by  DrockinWV 
#1 ·
Hey guys! Thanks for checking out this thread to help me out here. Im still new in understanding how this works so any information will be appreciated! I have been wanting to get better air flow through my Fractal Design R4 case, to lower my temps some. Right now I have the two R2 case fans that come stock with the case (1 front intake 140mm and 1 rear exhaust 140mm). I have been wanting to upgrade the fans and add a few more, I would like to use Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm fans two in the front for intake, one in the rear for exhaust and one on the bottom of the case for either intake or exhaust (not sure which would be best to use). I also have a Corsair H100i at the top of my case with the fans set up for the pull design.
I have read a few threads on how airflow through the case is almost an art/science all in itself and would like a little help for my specific case to make sure I am doing it all correctly and getting proper intake and exhaust through out. I appreciate your answers in advance!
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#2 ·
I have an R4, and in my experience, best overall temperatures, especially with regards to motherboard VRM and GPU, are achieved with five or six intake fans; exhaust fans are redundant.

The two top (or the front top, with the rear top blocked off), the two front, the bottom, and the side...all intakes. Leave the rear fan emplacement empty and remove all the expansion slot covers.
 
#3 ·
Wow so you dont use any exhaust fans at all to suck any of the hot air out? Basically just using the intake fans to blow through the whole case?
 
#4 ·
Yes.

You can feel a firm breeze if you hold your hand up to any opening in the rear of my case, and exhaust fan would to little or nothing to improve airflow.
 
#6 ·
I would definitley say you would get a firm breeze with that cpu cooler set up lol goodness. I still need to pull out one set of my cages for better air flow. Thank you for the information! It will save me some money if I dont have to purchase the exhaust fan!
 
#7 ·
You have more exhaust than intake with the H100.
Even if you didn't, I would put the fan @ the botton as an intake, to shoot some fresh air directly to the GPU.

There is no real "art" in setting up airflow. Just some basic logic of things. Air cooling needs a "logical" path, with a sorta defined path moving from one edge of the case to the other, covering as many hot components as possible. Whether this goes up or down or left or right doesn't really matter - you just have to make sure than fans are not fighting each other, or that you don't "short-circuit" airflow out of the case with an exhaust right next to an intake.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by pcfoo View Post

you just have to make sure than fans are not fighting each other, or that you don't "short-circuit" airflow out of the case with an exhaust right next to an intake.
Generally good advice, though there are some exceptions.

I have my rear-top fan placed as an intake despite being very near the open exhaust of the case because the VRM heatsink and four sticks of memory are getting direct air flow from it, and a small amount of wasted flow is a small price to pay for 20C cooler VRM temps.
 
#9 ·
When you say you have the h100 on pull do you mean pull as in exhaust? If so thats fine, but you may get better cpu temps with it as intake from the outside of the case.

If i were you I would try both intake and exhaust with the h100 and see if it affects your GPU temps to much. Its a case of balancing CPU and GPU temps.

You are right to use the bottom and front as intakes in either situation, also you should remove any unused pci slot covers to let air get out the back more easily.

If you have the h100 as top exhaust its definitely worth trying to rig a fan behind your 5.25 inch bays pulling air from the front there into your h100 as well as making the top rear 'exhaust' an intake to feed cool air from outside straight into the rad, Otherwise its is just competing with the H100 and hindering temps more then anything else

I would also be tempted to try rigging one internally on top of your hdd cage, (I trust you removed the middle cage already?) to blow down the end of the gpu cooler you will almost certainly find that helps your gpu temps with either configuration I have suggested.

If you did this, try and make the side fan(s) an exhaust first off, you would have in effect 2 'loops' inside the case with the hot air from the gpu pulled out the side and pushed out the back by the fan pushing air from the hdd cage area, as well as the H100 up top taking cool air from the front and back top and pulling it straight out.

If you make the H100 an intake I would make the top rear exhaust and the side panel fan(s) exhaust as well to get rid of the hot air being blown in through the rad being pulled into you gpu to much. In this case I would almost definitely rig a fan on the HDD cages blowing down the GPU, but not do the 5.25 fan the other way as that air may get recycled back in.

If I only had 4 fans I would have 1 front intake at the bottom front, bottom intake, side and rear top intake or exhaust depending on what the H100 was doing.

If it was me personally, I would buy a couple more fans
biggrin.gif
Noctuas are good but expensive if you have them already use them in the front of the Fractal, Thermalright TY series are a fiver on Amazon and great fans but I think you have to mod the R4 a bit to fit them in the front should be fine on the bottom, side, back or internally though. I assume youre from UK as you have Clarkson as an avatar
tongue.gif


Experiment a bit every set up is different. And don't get stuck on hot air rising. In a closed PC case air goes where your fans make it
thumb.gif
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by pcfoo View Post

You have more exhaust than intake with the H100.
Even if you didn't, I would put the fan @ the botton as an intake, to shoot some fresh air directly to the GPU.

There is no real "art" in setting up airflow. Just some basic logic of things. Air cooling needs a "logical" path, with a sorta defined path moving from one edge of the case to the other, covering as many hot components as possible. Whether this goes up or down or left or right doesn't really matter - you just have to make sure than fans are not fighting each other, or that you don't "short-circuit" airflow out of the case with an exhaust right next to an intake.
I gotcha, I just wasnt sure with the inake of the H100i on top and intake on the bottom would create turbulent air when mixed with the 2 intake fans on the front of the case.
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrockinWV View Post

I just wasnt sure with the inake of the H100i on top and intake on the bottom would create turbulent air when mixed with the 2 intake fans on the front of the case.
It won't hurt anything this way. You'll get cooler air into the radiator, better flow over the board (very important when watercooling as you don't have air movement from a CPU HS/fan), and more airflow forced in the direction of the GPU.
 
#12 ·
Exceptions prove the rules, only in some ways there are no "rules", just priorities. Some configurations are favoring the cooling in one area and component A, the other might favor component B, and there might be a decent compromise between the two offering better all around cooling.

Also, to avoid confusion, the "pull/push" terms as far as rads go, only refer to fan position in relationship to the rad: doesn't define airflow direction in relation to the environment.
Push = the fan is "before" the rad, and the air gets through the latter after it goes through the fan - i.e. "pushed" by the fan.
Pull = the f an is "behind" the rad, and the air gets pulled through the rad due to the "sucking" of the fan - i.e. pulled by the fan.

Either configuration of the above could be used for intake or exhaust.

Should the H100 be an intake ontop, would not work bad for the most part in theory: cool air gets pulled in and blown on the most critical parts: the rad = CPU gets the freshest, VRMs and RAM get a decent breeze too, maybe better than they would with just the front intakes that don't really "face" them.

Yes, the rear 140mm will "short-circuit" the rear intake on the H100, but so what? Other than the chance for some noise there is no sacrilege doing that in this area. The CPU will probably like it.
I never bought this "intakes facing downwards fight the hot air buoyancy / hot air rises thing". Apples to apples guys, natural air-flow is a joke vs. what a couple of fans do.

That leaves you with the front pumping air solely for the GPU(s) and HDDs. In that case, maybe 3x intake fans (counting the bottom) would be too much.
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blameless View Post

Found an image of my R4 setup from when I was running 7950 Crossfire:

78d91697_DSCN0754.jpeg
I'm not going to question your results of course, but I see you have reference 7950's and a NHd14 there. They would all act as exhausts. OP has an ACX it lets all its heat out into the case.

I would encourage OP to experiment a bit and see what works best for you. Best of luck
smile.gif
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrockinWV View Post

Hey guys! Thanks for checking out this thread to help me out here. Im still new in understanding how this works so any information will be appreciated! I have been wanting to get better air flow through my Fractal Design R4 case, to lower my temps some. Right now I have the two R2 case fans that come stock with the case (1 front intake 140mm and 1 rear exhaust 140mm). I have been wanting to upgrade the fans and add a few more, I would like to use Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm fans two in the front for intake, one in the rear for exhaust and one on the bottom of the case for either intake or exhaust (not sure which would be best to use). I also have a Corsair H100i at the top of my case with the fans set up for the pull design.
I have read a few threads on how airflow through the case is almost an art/science all in itself and would like a little help for my specific case to make sure I am doing it all correctly and getting proper intake and exhaust through out. I appreciate your answers in advance!
thumb.gif
I have an R4 and have experimented with many fan configs, including both the H100 and a bunch of Noctuas. I have not tried the all-intake configuration, but I have tried all the rest I could think of.

Since you have two fans at the top, I would go with:

Front: 2x 140mm air flow fans Intake
Bottom: 1x 140mm air flow fan Intake

Top: 2x 120mm static pressure fans Exhaust
Rear: 1x 140mm air flow fan Exhaust

This will give you a lot of air flow with a slight positive pressure balance.

- samwisekoi
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slink3Slyde View Post

When you say you have the h100 on pull do you mean pull as in exhaust? If so thats fine, but you may get better cpu temps with it as intake from the outside of the case.

If i were you I would try both intake and exhaust with the h100 and see if it affects your GPU temps to much. Its a case of balancing CPU and GPU temps.

You are right to use the bottom and front as intakes in either situation, also you should remove any unused pci slot covers to let air get out the back more easily.

If you have the h100 as top exhaust its definitely worth trying to rig a fan behind your 5.25 inch bays pulling air from the front there into your h100 as well as making the top rear 'exhaust' an intake to feed cool air from outside straight into the rad, Otherwise its is just competing with the H100 and hindering temps more then anything else

I would also be tempted to try rigging one internally on top of your hdd cage, (I trust you removed the middle cage already?) to blow down the end of the gpu cooler you will almost certainly find that helps your gpu temps with either configuration I have suggested.

If you did this, try and make the side fan(s) an exhaust first off, you would have in effect 2 'loops' inside the case with the hot air from the gpu pulled out the side and pushed out the back by the fan pushing air from the hdd cage area, as well as the H100 up top taking cool air from the front and back top and pulling it straight out.

If you make the H100 an intake I would make the top rear exhaust and the side panel fan(s) exhaust as well to get rid of the hot air being blown in through the rad being pulled into you gpu to much. In this case I would almost definitely rig a fan on the HDD cages blowing down the GPU, but not do the 5.25 fan the other way as that air may get recycled back in.

If I only had 4 fans I would have 1 front intake at the bottom front, bottom intake, side and rear top intake or exhaust depending on what the H100 was doing.

If it was me personally, I would buy a couple more fans
biggrin.gif
Noctuas are good but expensive if you have them already use them in the front of the Fractal, Thermalright TY series are a fiver on Amazon and great fans but I think you have to mod the R4 a bit to fit them in the front should be fine on the bottom, side, back or internally though. I assume youre from UK as you have Clarkson as an avatar
tongue.gif


Experiment a bit every set up is different. And don't get stuck on hot air rising. In a closed PC case air goes where your fans make it
thumb.gif
Thanks for all the different ideas on set ups!! The H100i I have up top is set up for intake. I thought it would be best to pull cool air in from around the case into the radiator for the cooling of the CPU, and then into the case. The R4 case that I have is the one with the side window, I dont have the fan hook up on the side. I thought it would be nice in order to show off all my fancy inner workings to people that came over lol. I know the Noctuas are more on the pricey side but I kinda like their odd color scheme to be honest lol.

Not from the UK I do live in the US, but I am a HUGE car fan, and anyone in the know, knows about Mr. Clarkson (basically an idol) lol
biggrin.gif
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by pcfoo View Post

Exceptions prove the rules, only in some ways there are no "rules", just priorities. Some configurations are favoring the cooling in one area and component A, the other might favor component B, and there might be a decent compromise between the two offering better all around cooling.

Also, to avoid confusion, the "pull/push" terms as far as rads go, only refer to fan position in relationship to the rad: doesn't define airflow direction in relation to the environment.
Push = the fan is "before" the rad, and the air gets through the latter after it goes through the fan - i.e. "pushed" by the fan.
Pull = the f an is "behind" the rad, and the air gets pulled through the rad due to the "sucking" of the fan - i.e. pulled by the fan.

Either configuration of the above could be used for intake or exhaust.

Should the H100 be an intake ontop, would not work bad for the most part in theory: cool air gets pulled in and blown on the most critical parts: the rad = CPU gets the freshest, VRMs and RAM get a decent breeze too, maybe better than they would with just the front intakes that don't really "face" them.

Yes, the rear 140mm will "short-circuit" the rear intake on the H100, but so what? Other than the chance for some noise there is no sacrilege doing that in this area. The CPU will probably like it.
I never bought this "intakes facing downwards fight the hot air buoyancy / hot air rises thing". Apples to apples guys, natural air-flow is a joke vs. what a couple of fans do.

That leaves you with the front pumping air solely for the GPU(s) and HDDs. In that case, maybe 3x intake fans (counting the bottom) would be too much.
Thank you for the explaination of push pull, lol like i said Im still new to all this but makes sence to me now. The fans are set up as pull, but as an intake for the case.
 
#17 ·
I've a Define R2 modded to 140 front intakes (sig specs) with PWM control on all case fans. Idles 650rpm @ 24-27c and 950-1050rpm @ 44-49c 100% load. Case air temps are never more than 3c above room. Links in sig might be helpful. I've helped a several others here with Define R4 builds with similar results. All love the cooling and silence.
wink.gif
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by doyll View Post

I've a Define R2 modded to 140 front intakes (sig specs) with PWM control on all case fans. Idles 650rpm @ 24-27c and 950-1050rpm @ 44-49c 100% load. Case air temps are never more than 3c above room. Links in sig might be helpful. I've helped a several others here with Define R4 builds with similar results. All love the cooling and silence.
wink.gif
Thanks for your help doyll, I will check out your links now!!
 
#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrockinWV View Post

Thanks for all the different ideas on set ups!! The H100i I have up top is set up for intake. I thought it would be best to pull cool air in from around the case into the radiator for the cooling of the CPU, and then into the case. The R4 case that I have is the one with the side window, I dont have the fan hook up on the side. I thought it would be nice in order to show off all my fancy inner workings to people that came over lol. I know the Noctuas are more on the pricey side but I kinda like their odd color scheme to be honest lol.

Not from the UK I do live in the US, but I am a HUGE car fan, and anyone in the know, knows about Mr. Clarkson (basically an idol) lol
biggrin.gif
Ahh side window, fair enough, lots of reviews and also people here say the Noctuas are great fans, its the colour scheme thats a bit love or hate. That and the expense are why I haven't tried them yet. Definitely need that rear exhaust and PCI covers off then
smile.gif
Read Doyll's links he knows what he's talking about
wink.gif


I thought you guys had your own version of Top Gear didn't realise Clarkson was known across the pond
smile.gif
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slink3Slyde View Post

Ahh side window, fair enough, lots of reviews and also people here say the Noctuas are great fans, its the colour scheme thats a bit love or hate. That and the expense are why I haven't tried them yet. Definitely need that rear exhaust and PCI covers off then
smile.gif
Read Doyll's links he knows what he's talking about
wink.gif


I thought you guys had your own version of Top Gear didn't realise Clarkson was known across the pond
smile.gif
I had a Noctua NH-U14S CPU cooler before I bought the H100i and thought it did an amazing job with what I was doing at the time, I have been reading through doylls links and it really seems like he has a good idea what is going on with temps inside of these cases.

We do have our own Top Gear but its terrible lol, the cast in the UK with Hammond, May, and Clarkson is a match made in heaven, Ive probably seen every episode. I also have a lot of friends that love Mr. Clarkson as well, he is pretty well known over here!
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slink3Slyde View Post

That NH-U14s is a great cooler there, not far off the H100 if the H100 is not set to aeroplane mode
tongue.gif


Heres a nice pic of Jeremy from the 90's, theres no hiding when you've been on TV that long!


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Yeah that Noctua is a great cooler for sure! I was just hoping this H100i would be better with some OCs, which it has been pretty good so far since I had to fix this Link software.

Hahahaha that is a fantastic picture you have there! He is hilarious, I love his stupid jokes, definitley my favorite show!
 
#23 ·
With H100 in top as exhaust I wouldn't use the rear exhaust.fan.
  • Take out unused PCI-E slot covers,
  • Install 3 good PWM 140mm cooler/radiator fan as intake front and bottom
  • Control them with PWM signal from CPU, maybe use GPU PWM signal for bottom fan;
  • Raise case for 35-40mm bottom clearance for airflow to bottom fans. Reason is:
    • Area of two 140mm fans (PSU and intake) = 284 sq cm of blade area.
    • Area of 2x 140mm fans side by side and 4cm away from another surface = 287.4 sq cm.
    • Give bottom fans as much area to draw air as the blade area is.
This way case fans speed are dependent on cooler fans speeds. When cooler fans idle so will case fans.. and when cooler fans speed up so will case fans.
thumb.gif


Honestly your NH-U14S is just as good as H100, probably better if you used 2500rpm fan on it.
biggrin.gif

With stock fans the difference between H100 and NH-U14S cooling 345w of heat is 24.4c and 27c, but H100 is 51.2dBA loud compared to NH-U14S,s quieter 35.8dBA. H100 is about 3 times as loud.
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by doyll View Post

With H100 in top as exhaust I wouldn't use the rear exhaust.fan.
  • Take out unused PCI-E slot covers,
  • Install 3 good PWM 140mm cooler/radiator fan as intake front and bottom
  • Control them with PWM signal from CPU, maybe use GPU PWM signal for bottom fan;
  • Raise case for 35-40mm bottom clearance for airflow to bottom fans. Reason is:
    • Area of two 140mm fans (PSU and intake) = 284 sq cm of blade area.
    • Area of 2x 140mm fans side by side and 4cm away from another surface = 287.4 sq cm.
    • Give bottom fans as much area to draw air as the blade area is.
This way case fans speed are dependent on cooler fans speeds. When cooler fans idle so will case fans.. and when cooler fans speed up so will case fans.
thumb.gif


Honestly your NH-U14S is just as good as H100, probably better if you used 2500rpm fan on it.
biggrin.gif

With stock fans the difference between H100 and NH-U14S cooling 345w of heat is 24.4c and 27c, but H100 is 51.2dBA loud compared to NH-U14S,s quieter 35.8dBA. H100 is about 3 times as loud.
The H100i is set up as a pull intake at the moment. I did like the Noctua cooler, just had a buddy that actually had a H80i and was telling me how much better the water cooler would be over the air cooled system, so basiclly my fault not doing enough research before buying the Corsair
 
#25 ·
CLC coolers are not better than top air, and with fans making the same amount of noise top air beats CLC. They are cheap. Their total cost is less than a single pump and radiator used in custom loops.
biggrin.gif
 
#26 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by doyll View Post

CLC coolers are not better than top air, and with fans making the same amount of noise top air beats CLC. They are cheap. Their total cost is less than a single pump and radiator used in custom loops.
biggrin.gif
How about replacing the fans on the H100i with Noctua fans like the ones I would like to use for my case fans? After doing a 1.5 hr stress test on x264 last night my CPU temps did seem to be a little cooler than the NH-U14S, Im just hoping the more I OC is when I would really benefit from the H100i
 
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