Advice needed for Corsair H50 radiator/fan placement

[bedhead75]

I just bought a Corsair H50 cooler for use in a CM690 case in which I'll have 5 case fans (not including the one that comes with the cooler) to play with. After looking around online, it seems the Corsair radiator should be positioned at the back of the case, with the fan pushing air in (or two fans push/pulling air in). My concern is that both my power supply and GTX260 card exhaust hot air out the back at locations below the rear intake. If I pull air in from the back for the cooler, won't this just mean that the hot air from the graphics card and power supply will pulled back into the case? Either way, I present two scenarios for radiator fan in or out.

 

 

Radiator fan out:

 

Fan In: front, side bottom, side top

Fan Out: push air across radiator to back, top rear, top front

 

 

Radiator fan in:

 

Fan In: push air across radiator from back, side bottom, front

Fan Out: top front, top back, side top

 

 

Your feedback is appreciated and I'm open to other fan placement options too.

[ebarone]

Its tough to say. I would try both orientations and see which one yields better results, but I have my H50 pulling into the case from above the hot air coming out of the video cards, and its fine for me. You can skirt the whole issue by somehow putting the radiator somewhere else in the case, like the top or front. If worse comes to worse, get some dryer air ducts and redirect outside airflow a little bit. Something like this maybe. Hope that helped a little

[ccokeman]

Pushing outside cool air through the radiator will provide better cooling but heat up the components inside the case. Pushing the warmer internal case air out of the the case through the radiator will give you slightly warmer temps but keep the rest of the components cooler.

[Nicckko]

Hello,

 

I have a Corsair H50 cooling an i7 920 on a Cooler Master Storm Scout case. I tried all possible configurations and the best result was archived mounting the H50 as an exhaust at the back of the case using push / pull configuration.

 

When I mount it as an intake as Corsair suggests, my temperatures were a lot higher. Using push / pull configuration as an intake cores temperatures were 5 - 8 ° C higher and my Northbridge temperature around 13 ° C higher.

 

.