Advice needed, does your case have a slim front opening?

[JimKiler]

I recently bought a tempered glass case and i settled on the be quiet Pure Base 600 since reviews were solid and it still had two 5.25" bays so i could keep an optical drive and SD card reader. But this case only has openings on the sides of the front for air intake. Not only that but the sides are only about 50% open for air flow which you cannot tell from the pictures.

I have a Intel 4790K CPU and in my old Antec 300 i would idle around 28-32 degrees Celsius and my fans would barely spin and stop often. Now with this pure base 600 i am running all fans at least 600 RPM's and if i plan a game i can easily go up. I am idling around 36 degrees Celsius and i am hitting 60 degrees easily when playing games. I live in MN so in the winters i am not worried but this thing is going to heat up in the summer when i am too cheap to turn the A/C on. i am worried this case is not getting enough air flow. I put an extra 120mm fan to the front under the 140mm the case came with and i added a fan on the top above the CPU and opened the top of the case.
So what would you do? Return this case because airflow is not great? If I put my hand inside with the tempered glass off it feels like a lot of air moving but based on my temps going up i am nervous to use this case. I like everything about it except the temps i am getting. I ran Prime95 and my CPU was hitting 88 degrees which i know is not sustainable. I wish i had ran that benchmark while still in my old case. I can run the CPU-Z benchmark and the temp stays under 60. So am I overreacting? A lot of cases do not have a lot of airflow coming from the front at least not like my good old Antec 300. I am tempted to return this case and get what i originally wanted, a Corsair 460x, which has tempered glass in the front but is open around all four sides of the front so it should have plenty of airflow. Thoughts?

 

[aigomorla]

can you try to have the case draw air in from the top as well, instead of exhaust?
It seems like it can take fans up top no?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

There appears -- from the Newegg photo display for that case -- that there is a vent on the bottom. I'm assuming there is a large chance this vent is monopolized by the power supply as intake. If there is room for an additional fan in the bottom beyond the PSU, use it for intake and filter it.

Looking again at the front-panel, the front cover -- which is solid and not ventilated on the front -- is ventilated on the sides. Correct me if I am wrong. There should also be intake coming from the top of the cover and from the bottom.

I would think the sum of these openings is sufficient so that two front panel intake fans are not much restricted. I built a case like that from an old '95 Compaq ProLiant server. I used fiberglass cutouts to filter these front-panel "edge" vents, and the only trouble I ever had with it was remembering to pull the filters and replace with new ones, or refine the original cutout so that it doesn't fray (a bead of clear silicon automotive adhesive-sealant), and wash it with a garden hose.

Using the top for intake is may second choice. If you want to install a 240mm radiator (or even a 280), you'll need to look at the front panel inside the cover with a metric ruler. The second choice for that is to deploy the radiator at top-panel exhaust. In that case, you would want a double-fan intake at the front panel.

I prefer cases that have more venting options, to include those from either or both side-panels. The tempered glass side panel doesn't allow you to do this, but it looks nice. If I then have vents I don't use for direct intake or direct exhaust, I block them off with foam-art-board cutouts that match the color of the case -- in my situation, black. You can even punch little holes in the art-board to use nylon machine screws and nuts to secure the vent cover.

 

[JimKiler]

can you try to have the case draw air in from the top as well, instead of exhaust?
It seems like it can take fans up top no?

I have one fan blowing out the top and i thought about pulling in but then there is no filter to prevent dust from building up.

There appears -- from the Newegg photo display for that case -- that there is a vent on the bottom. I'm assuming there is a large chance this vent is monopolized by the power supply as intake. If there is room for an additional fan in the bottom beyond the PSU, use it for intake and filter it.

Looking again at the front-panel, the front cover -- which is solid and not ventilated on the front -- is ventilated on the sides. Correct me if I am wrong. There should also be intake coming from the top of the cover and from the bottom.

I would think the sum of these openings is sufficient so that two front panel intake fans are not much restricted. I built a case like that from an old '95 Compaq ProLiant server. I used fiberglass cutouts to filter these front-panel "edge" vents, and the only trouble I ever had with it was remembering to pull the filters and replace with new ones, or refine the original cutout so that it doesn't fray (a bead of clear silicon automotive adhesive-sealant), and wash it with a garden hose.

Using the top for intake is may second choice. If you want to install a 240mm radiator (or even a 280), you'll need to look at the front panel inside the cover with a metric ruler. The second choice for that is to deploy the radiator at top-panel exhaust. In that case, you would want a double-fan intake at the front panel.

I prefer cases that have more venting options, to include those from either or both side-panels. The tempered glass side panel doesn't allow you to do this, but it looks nice. If I then have vents I don't use for direct intake or direct exhaust, I block them off with foam-art-board cutouts that match the color of the case -- in my situation, black. You can even punch little holes in the art-board to use nylon machine screws and nuts to secure the vent cover.

while the bottom is large i cannot get a fan to pull more air in, i would love that. Unfortunately the front panel does not suck air in from the top or bottom, only the restricted sides. While i am not overclocking if i had a cooler running CPU maybe this case would work but i don't want to wait a couple more months to find out it will not work in summer heat. I have decided to order the Corsair 460x which should solve the air intake but will leave me with less hard drive space, 2 instead of 3 based on the pictures, and the back side will be cramped but hopefully it will look nice. The price i pay for tempered glass.

 

[JimKiler]

Update, despite ordering the Corsair 460x i am tweaking this pure base 600. I moved my 3 HDD's down to the bottom and now my start up temp is around 28-32 degrees. I am picking up a second 140mm fan that can do 73 CFM at under 20 DB so i will swap out the 120mm in there and see if that makes a difference. I really do not want to move all my components to a new case. I can refuse the delivery of the 460x if this works out.

 

[davidm71]

I had a similar problem with not enough airflow inside my htpc matx case. Turned out that cooler wasnt making full contact on the cpu thermal heat spreader and that the Heatsink was a budget cooler. If I was you double check your mounting and be more concerned about how much air you air exhausting.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I have one fan blowing out the top and i thought about pulling in but then there is no filter to prevent dust from building up.



while the bottom is large i cannot get a fan to pull more air in, i would love that. Unfortunately the front panel does not suck air in from the top or bottom, only the restricted sides. While i am not overclocking if i had a cooler running CPU maybe this case would work but i don't want to wait a couple more months to find out it will not work in summer heat. I have decided to order the Corsair 460x which should solve the air intake but will leave me with less hard drive space, 2 instead of 3 based on the pictures, and the back side will be cramped but hopefully it will look nice. The price i pay for tempered glass.

I'd consider adding up the sum of the vent area up and down the two sides. Compare them to the intake fan vented area -- compute it for the inner circular diameter of the fans sitting behind the front-panel or door, whichever it is. What is that? Pi x R^2 ? Where R would be 60mm? Or 70?

 

[JimKiler]

The manual for my case was blank on the english pages and i see how to remove the front filter and now that i see the air intake area i am tempted to see if i can get rid of the plastic restricting the airflow. I just don't want to destroy this case. I could do the right hand side which i cannot see anyway. I will discuss with my father in law and see if he has any ideas on how best to do it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The manual for my case was blank on the english pages and i see how to remove the front filter and now that i see the air intake area i am tempted to see if i can get rid of the plastic restricting the airflow. I just don't want to destroy this case. I could do the right hand side which i cannot see anyway. I will discuss with my father in law and see if he has any ideas on how best to do it.

I understand those concerns, especially if it's a brand-new case.

If the case permits installation on the right case side-panel, that offers you some options. No sense in cutting up the tempered glass on the left side. I guess it now depends on how many fans, what size, etc. you can install in front, and whether you can adjust their deployment so there's room for a radiator and fans in front.