Originally posted by: daw123
You can always reverse the airflow through the case, by turning the front and rear fans around, so the rear fan (or two fans depending on if you are using the top PSU position) is an intake and the two front fans exhaust.
Several flaws with this idea though:
1. If the rear upper fan was an intake, it would be sucking in hot air from the PSU exhaust below it
2. With a 3x120 rad on top, I'm already starved for intake fans (I like to keep positive case pressure for dust build-up reasons). I even installed an extra 120mm intake fan in three 5.25" drive bays. That gives me 3 intake fans, and 5 exhaust fans total (4 through radiators, 1 through PSU)
Also the noise issue. A rear fan at 1400 RPM and two front fans at 900 RPM produce about the same SPL at my seating position. So the difference in total heat dissipation between a 2x120 up front and a 1x120 in the rear isn't huge once you account for the different fan speeds to keep noise down.