I'm wondering if replacing standard fans on my AIO cooler with reverse fans would affect performance. Since standard fans are designed to pull air into the fan and push it out through the radiator, will changing them to reverse fans decrease the cooling efficiency?
2 Answers
It mostly depends on the quality of the fans. If you use reverse fans from the same brand and size, there shouldn’t be much difference at all. If you're upgrading to higher quality reverse fans, you might even see a slight improvement. But, it's important to remember that the reverse feature is often just for looks, not really performance.
Are you more focused on the look or the airflow? If it’s strictly about airflow direction, you could simply flip the existing fans around to reverse the air without buying new ones. But if you're set on reverse fans, keep in mind the airflow setup of your system. I wouldn’t recommend using a radiator as an intake fan. Generally, radiators should work as exhaust to avoid pushing hot air back into your case.
I wanted to switch one of the radiators to intake since I have a dual AIO setup with my GPU. Flipping the radiator around doesn’t fit in my case.