Well ive read around forums that the bigger the case the better airflow? is this true? CAsue ive been beliveing the opposite.

Like if you think about it, the Antec Super Lanboy is small. Its has a 12cm intake and 12cm exhaust. The case is so small, cool air goes in and it gets sucked out stright away, meaning there is awlays cool air.

Though my vision of a larger case is that the 12cm intake takes cool air in, but the case is so big that the cool air looses its cool while lurking about it the huge space...like i think that the insatnt in and instant out is a better cooling idea? so that means smaller case are better??? but then all the good cases (shark,tsunami etc) are big cases ???

Following probs with the front usb's on my compact cheapo case I changed all my hardware over to a Chenbro one that is about 30% bigger by volume, same two fans (one 80mm and one 92mm) and everything and have dropped 3 deg centigrade under load, and my previous case also had venting behind the board that this one doesn't have (though this one does have quite a lot of drillings everywhere else), so based on that (like so many things, sadly) bigger is best, though you do have a point about throughput velocity.

Some say "positive" air flow is best. For example, an equal amount of intake and exhaust fans. Also, the larger fans (120mm) push more air--and at less decibal levels than their smaller counterparts. I prefer midtowers over all other sized cases.

thats neutral air flow... where u have equal amount..
positive has more intake and less exhaust, forcing hot air out
negative has more exhaust and less intake to kinda suck air in

i think positive is best, but omega defined it wrong

I think the biggest thing is how well your fans reach every part of the case. Such as 2x120mm cools better than 2x80mm because the 120mm blows the air so far into the case and the other 120mm has enough power to pull out a lot of heat.

A good example is the Thermaltake Xaser III and up, it has a lot of 80mm fans, and the Thermaltake Tsunami Dream, it only has three fans but the cooling is still a lot better.

Certain cases have better interior designs for airflow, a straight-thru design is the best, but it makes the hard drives more difficult to mount.

I always get negative or positive airflow mixed up, so I just make a nice balance between exhaust and intake. Seems to work well for me.

I think the way you guys are thinking about this is all wrong. First off, think about the volume of a Mid-Tower. Lets say, 2-4 Cubic Feet. An average 92mm fan blows 50CFM. That means that the air in the case is cycled about 16 times a minute, or once every 4 seconds. So that would be with one 'Average' 92mm intake, and one 'Average' 92mm Exaust. So say you have two 120mm fans that push close to 100 each, you can assume that you'd cycle the air 32 times a minute, or once every 2 seconds. So really, there's not a chance in hell you'd have air 'Lurking around' for very long at all.

The trick is, to make sure you get to cool air to where you need it, and to make sure you don't have a direct intake to exaust line, without it passing right across your CPU.