Cooling mastery
Making sure your rig can handle the thermals thrown around inside is imperative, so how can you alleviate these conundrums ahead of time?
TIP 1 Right fan for the right job
If you’re looking at maximising your cooling efficiency, selecting the right fan for the right job is critical. There are two types of fan design: static pressure fans (with fat, thick blades) designed for highpressure environments where they need to push air through radiators or heatsink fins efficiently; and airflow fans (with multiple skinny blades) which are designed to move as much air through a system as quickly as possible, but without the same amount of force as their static pressure cousins. At the very high end, you’ll find some static pressure fans that can shift as much air as an airflow fan, but that comes at a cost. Noise is also a factor. The bigger the fan, the slower the RPM usually, and the less noise. Typically speaking, if you’re after a quiet rig, look for fans that operate below the 1,200rpm mark. You can control faster fans through the BIOS or a fan controller to go slower than the advertised speed, but you may encounter coil whine because of it.
TIP 2 Cooling with style
So how do you cool your processor? Well, it’s down to personal preference and your CPU. With most mainstream locked Intel processors, you can get away with the stock heatsink. If you prefer things more chilled, grab an aftermarket air tower. But there’s nothing to say you can’t use a 240mm AIO on a Core i3 or Ryzen 3. Any Intel K series processor at an i5 level, or Ryzen 5 or higher, should be cooled by a substantial tower solution or a minimum of 120mm liquid cooler ($90 or more). If you intend to overclock, this is a must. For Core i7 or Ryzen 7 and higher, with overclocking, use a 240mm AIO or $90+ air tower. If you’ve not got much space, or limited intake, we recommend an air cooler over the all-in-one.
TIP 3 Air pressure
You’ve got the right fans and CPU cooling; next up is internal case air pressure. There are two trains of thought: balanced and positive. Balanced means you’re drawing (roughly) as much air in as you are pumping out, while a positive setup means you’re drawing more air in than you’re pumping out. Positive, in theory, stops dust entering through unfiltered areas, while a balanced system is better for airflow and temperatures. We’re talking four or five degrees at most. Try both: Using benchmarking tools, put your system under strain, read the resulting temperatures and decide which you prefer.
TIP 4 Fan orientation
Fan orientation — we all slip up from time to time. So what’s in and what’s out? In short, you can always identify the back of the fan (the area air is being pushed out of, as opposed to drawn into) as the part of the fan with the fan guard attached to it. If that doesn’t help, it’s the part that the fan cable typically comes out of.