I have a Silverstone PS07 that comes with two front intake fans. I also added an exhaust fan because it just seems reasonable to forcibly exhaust some of the warm air out the back. I was playing around with SpeedFan and lowered the front fans to 0 and saw no increase in CPU temp - in fact, CPU temp started going down a degree or two. When the fans are set back to 500-600 RPM, CPU temps go up a degree or two. Why might this be? How could the intake actually hurt temps slightly? Are these fans necessary at all? My hard drive is mounted up top so it doesn't benefit from them. I imagine the air might do some good for the SSD, motherboard, and video card, but the video card also has its own pretty beefy cooling. I'm wondering if these fans are worth having.
Regarding the exhaust, using something like the Hyper 212 would allow me to have just one fan that acts as the CPU fan and exhaust at the same time. If I did that and removed the front fans I'd be down to just 1 120mm for the CPU/exhaust, the GPU fans, and the PSU fan, no case-mounted fans at all. Could this be a good way to go?
Regarding the exhaust, using something like the Hyper 212 would allow me to have just one fan that acts as the CPU fan and exhaust at the same time. If I did that and removed the front fans I'd be down to just 1 120mm for the CPU/exhaust, the GPU fans, and the PSU fan, no case-mounted fans at all. Could this be a good way to go?