I'm using a Corsair 4000D Airflow with an MSI RTX 5070 Ti and a DeepCool LS720 SE 360mm AIO. The current setup has three front intake fans and the radiator mounted at the top with three exhaust fans, but no rear exhaust fan. Should I add a 120mm rear exhaust, or is the existing airflow already sufficient? I'm also interested in the best fan arrangement and whether I should adjust the fan curves for positive pressure.
3 Answers
If you want to optimize the build, you could use three front intakes, the 360mm radiator at the top as exhaust, and one rear exhaust. Some cases also benefit from bottom intake fans aimed toward the graphics card, but that’s optional and unnecessary unless GPU temperatures become a problem. The most important thing is balancing the fan curves so intake airflow is equal to or slightly greater than exhaust airflow.
A rear 120mm exhaust is a very common setup: three front intakes, three top radiator exhaust fans, and one rear exhaust. It probably won’t make a dramatic difference, but it helps guide airflow out of the case and prevents stagnant pockets of warm air. Make sure the intake fans run slightly faster than the exhaust fans so the case maintains mild positive pressure and collects less dust.
Those temperatures are already excellent, so there’s no urgent reason to add another fan. The top-mounted radiator is exhausting warm air, and an extra rear fan may only change temperatures by a negligible amount. Check your temperatures under sustained workloads before spending money on additional airflow.
That makes sense. Since the CPU and GPU stay around 50–55°C during gaming, I’ll probably monitor them before changing the layout.
My temperatures seem pretty good already: around 44°C CPU and 35°C GPU at idle, and roughly 50–55°C on both while playing Cyberpunk at maximum settings. I haven’t tuned the fan curves yet.