How Many Case Fans?

I have an Antec Dark Fleet 85 which come standard with 7 case fans. 3 in the front (with removable filters) - one to each group of 3 hard discs. 2 in the back and 2 huge ones on top. All fans have speed controlers on them :)

I have a 750watt power supply. My case is warm to the touch when running.

"How many case fans?" is a pretty generic question. As a few others have pointed out, it all depends on your intentions. One exhaust fan and the stock CPU cooler work fine for most people. The best thing you can do, is build your PC stock and do what ever activities you plan on doing. Using Hardware Monitor, you can watch pretty much all the temperatures in your system. As your components start reaching temperature outside of the safe operating range, add fan(s) near those components.

Golden Rule about overclocking; make sure you have adequate case/component ventilation.

If you are thinking about overclocking say i5 or i7 then I wouldn't consider the stock cooler. Also if you intend running the CPU flat out for an extended period of time (eg. running Hanbrake encoding). You can buy a decent cooler for ~$40.

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tw33k said:

mickey megabyte said:

why do people need so many fans? just how hot does your case get?

if i were to put my mobo in the oven, i may need five, ten, thirteen fans to keep it cool, but i don't.

maybe too many fans start to cancel each other out? i like quiet pc's, me.

or maybe i'm lucky, and the fact that my psu sits in the bottom of my case really helps air flow a lot, allowing me to run cool with just two fans, even though i overclock and play games?

It's not about "need". Do we "need" to OC our CPUs or graphic cards? Do we "need" more than 1 monitor? Do we need liquid cooling? I could go on and on. We are computer geeks. It's what we do.
My extreme air cooling rivals liquid cooled rigs. Running Prime at 1.48v my cores hit a max of 42c. Try getting those temps with just a front intake, a rear exhaust and 1 fan on the heatsink

Im with ya buddy, Don't you just love adding new stuff and changing stuff on your computer just because you can because I do

adamguk said:

Hey there! Building a new build PC and was just wondering how many case fans people would recommend for it. The hardware and case is as follows,

• Asus M5A78L/USB3 AMD Socket AM3+ 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard
  
• AMD 960T Black Edition 3.0GHz Socket AM3 Processor
  
• XFX HD 5450 Heatsink 1GB DDR3 VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E
  
• Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz XMS3 Memory Kit CL9 1.5V unbuffered
  
• WD 500GB 3.5" SATA 6Gb/s Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 7200RPM 16MB Cach
  
• Samsung Optical Drive

and the case is a Coolermaster Elite 330 with 500w PSU .. and the case has one rear case fan which I think is 120mm.

Thanks for your input in advance!

-Adam

Hi!

Base from your Chassis's Specs, it has the following Fan's slots: 1-Front, 1-Rear, 2-Left Side and 2-Bottom. though for the bottom, the slot will go for your PSU's stock fan.

In other words you can only have the following maximum fan allowance as follows, base from my own recommendation:

Fans as INTAKE:
1 - SP120/SP140 High Performance Static Pressure Fan located in FRONT;
1 - AF120 LED Series High Airflow at the BOTTOM; and,
2 - AF120 LED Series High Air Flow at the Left-Side Panel

Fans as EXHAUST:
1 - AF140 LED Series High Airflow Fan at the REAR


For your CPU Heatsink, if you want LIquid Cooler then I will recommend you this []Redirect Notice. In this scenario, your Radiator with 2-SP140 High Static Presssure Fans will server as your Exhaust.

IF you want Air Cooling, Im ight recommend you this: Noctua NH-D14 Lower Noise Heatsink Review - FrostyTech.com.