Corsair 600t has terrible airflow :(

tuxy

I love my 600t but it has a serious flaw with the default fan setup. Myabe I'm the last 600t owner to realise this but it has a negative pressure issue. The case has a 200mm intake and 200+120 exhausts. This means it tries to push out more air than it takes in and will have to suck in surrounding air to equalise. It ends up sucking back air my GPU is trying to expel. I noticed this because the air coming from the top vent was very hot when gaming.

I'm going to have move my hard drive bays to fit a bitfenix spectre pro to the front of the case. At the moment all fans are connted to the fan controller that comes with the case. I think it will work better if the front fan is on the motherboard and leave the top and rear fan on the controller. This will allow me to have more control over the air flow and get the balance.

I think this should work but all feed back or suggestions are welcome. Airflow is not something I know much about.

For now I have disconnected the top 200 extractor fan and my temps have improved slightly.

challengemaster

What CPU cooler have you and what's that doing?

Are you noticing big differences in temps using CoreTemp/Afterburner/etc or just guessing?

Also any pics of the setup?

tuxy

Well it's just the stock case setup right now with a mugen 3 on the cpu. CPU is 3 degrees lower in prime 95 small fft using real temp to measure with the top extractor turned off.

I just found this on google

stock 600 setup

1 single 200mm INTAKE fan rated at approx 92 CFM at max 1000 RPM @ 12v

2 exhaust fans, 1 200mm like the front take fan, rated at 92 CFM at 1000 RPM and 1 120mm *rated* at 45cfm at whatever max RPM* @ 12v

Intake total = approx 92 CFM
Exhaust total = approx 137 CFM

That's negative pressure, isn't it? Especially if you take into consideration that the gpu is blowing air out the back also.

Or have I miss understood something?

marco_polo

You also need to take into account that if there is negative pressure, the extra airflow will be coming in through the path(s) of least resistance. And the GPU, top and rear vents are pretty much taking air from the center of the case and extracting it out the back and top, so (although I am not familiar with the case) the easiest route for external air back into the center would seem much more likely to be somewhere like the front vent around the drive bays, not fighting it way back in against the air the GPU or extractor fans are expelling.

tuxy

The pci slots at the back have fairly big holes I think it could be taking air back in from the gpu that way.

I'm trying to figure out why corsair went for a negative pressure setup. Is there any advantages in such a setup? I get the feeling I don't fully understand it.

challengemaster

IIRC negative pressure means no/minimal dust. Trying to cover all market aspects I guess. The 500R is positive pressure...

tuxy

challengemaster wrote: »

IIRC negative pressure means no/minimal dust. Trying to cover all market aspects I guess. The 500R is positive pressure...

That doesn't sound right to me. Positive air pressure would mean all air is coming through the filters. Negative would mean air is probably coming in from unfiltered points.

marco_polo

tuxy wrote: »

The pci slots at the back have fairly big holes I think it could be taking air back in from the gpu that way.

I'm trying to figure out why corsair went for a negative pressure setup. Is there any advantages in such a setup? I get the feeling I don't fully understand it.

I think it is easier to get a negative pressure setup right, no chance of 'dead air' hotspots from doing it wrong. Both done well I don't see it makes a whole lot of difference performance wise, and to be honest its not the kind of question that keeps me awake at night.

I'm no theory expert either, I'll freely must confess to being more from 'f*** it thats good enough' school of thought when it comes to case airflow, I don't have the patience required to strive for near perfection.

tuxy

You're right it's probably not worth thinking about.
I'm going to put the upgraded fan in the front and leave it at that.
I still love the case just slightly disappointed that it has a flaw we default setup.

BloodBath

Most cases sold seem to have this problem. Negative pressure with stock setup. This is made worse by gpus exhausting air as well. Equalized pressure is obviously ideal but almost impossible to do.

My thermaltake chaser mk-1 has a 200mm intake, a 200mm exhaust and a 140mm exhaust at stock. It has space for another 200mm exhaust and a side mounted 200 mm intake and a bottom 120mm intake.

I added a side high cfm intake and left it at that. Better to have slightly positive pressure than negative.

It's too hard to calculate proper airflows as static pressure will affect the rated cfm if you are sucking air through a filter.

dwighet

I put 2 120`s on top of mine(600t) Front top fan is intake blowing down on my cooler and rear top exhaust....Works fine for me..

You could try spinning yor top fan around to make it an intake and see how that goes..

Heres a pic of how it looks
[IMG][/img]

marco_polo

Seems a slightly odd choice that there is no side mesh on the standard 600T, testing my HAF 922 which has a similar enough negative pressure fan setup (large bottom front in, top, rear and PSU all extractors), as a result there is very significant air inflow from the side vent (which I don't have a fan on this ATM).

NTMK

marco_polo wrote: »

Seems a slightly odd choice that there is no side mesh on the standard 600T, testing my HAF 922 which has a similar enough negative pressure fan setup (large bottom front in, top, rear and PSU all extractors), as a result there is very significant air inflow from the side vent (which I don't have a fan on this ATM).

There is the option (instead of the Window) on all but the original 600t

Serephucus

Most cases us negative pressure because it tends to be forgiving of hotter components, or bad fan setups, since it's always pulling cooler air in from the outside (assuming it pulls it from anywhere other than right beside the GPU, as yours seems to be doing).

Positive pressure is harder, because air is constantly trying to get pushed out of the case, so if you don't have the fans/components/etc. setup correctly, you can end up with a situation where a lot of the relatively small amount of fresh air being pulled into the case gets forced out again before it can do any real cooling.

Positive pressure results in less dust, as there's no incidental air getting pulled into the case in places where there might not be dust filters.

The stock airflow isn't great. The Spectre Pros help - and they're a tonne quieter than the default Corsair fans - but they're still not great. They're horribly loud in comparison to GTs, even at very low RPMs, but unfortunately they're pretty much the only 200mm option around at the moment.