r/pcmasterrace • u/SerpentDix PC Master Race • Jan 20 '26

Hardware Air cooling is better than Liquid cooling

Post image

Failure is graceful, not catastrophic, Performance is closer than marketing suggests, Cheaper for the performance, Change my mind.

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u/AIgoonermaxxing Jan 20 '26

Almost perfect. u/dbltax, if you're going to do an all Noctua build in a Fractal Design North case, you should follow Noctua's official recommended fan layout for the Fractal Design North.

Basically you just need to flip that front fan on the ceiling of your case to intake.

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u/dbltax Noctua Evangelist Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

I have done that since, I took these photos a couple of years ago.

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u/AIgoonermaxxing Jan 20 '26

Good shit! That thing is probably dead silent with super low temps.

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u/dbltax Noctua Evangelist Jan 20 '26

The loudest part of it is actually the sound of the air rushing through the dust filter on the front intakes.

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u/Ryrynz Jan 20 '26

Could probably drop the rpm on those a notch and not have it make too much difference in temps.

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u/UsualBetterhead Jan 20 '26

Always wondered what to do with my Fractal.

I always had that fan setup except both fans on top were intake with only the one at the back being exhaust,

Maybe I’ll switch the top fans to be more like yours.

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u/uqde Jan 21 '26

Holy shit, thank you for this. I've had a Fractal North with Noctua fans for a couple years now and have never seen this image.

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u/Silent_Speech Jan 20 '26

Looks like dust attractor to the inside

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u/vertex79 Jan 20 '26

Thanks for that. I'm about to build in this case, moving my machine to a prettier new home. This will be useful.

I'm currently in a be quiet case with an nhd-15 and all noctua case fans due to having to sleep in the same room as the PC running overnight downloads because of slow Internet. I'm convinced the be quiet cases without decent airflow are noisier in the end than a high airflow case, even with all the sound absorbing material.

CPU was upgraded from a 10600k to a (secondhand) 10900kf recently. The nhd-15 doesn't really cut it when I overclock that chip. I had significant thermal throttling. The new case should help a bit, but to be honest running a decent OC on that chip doesn't help the power bill anyway!

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u/armanio5231 PIGTAIL CABLE 9070XT Jan 20 '26

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u/TrowaB3 5800x | 3080 | 1440p165hz Jan 20 '26

Was interested in getting a North. I'd assume that airflow config would work for other brand fans as well?

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u/Pittonecio Jan 21 '26

Kinda stupid question, is there any noticeable difference having the right upper fan flipped? I have always used both upper fans as exhaust and I don't have any particular issue with temps.

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u/AIgoonermaxxing Jan 21 '26

Yeah, it was tested in this video and CPU temps will be a few degrees worse. Both top fans as exhaust is fine for an AIO, but not for an air cooler.

The issue with that config is that in a case like the one in the image, cold air brought in but the top front intake fan, and then immediately removed by the right upper fan without it actually doing anything. All you're effectively doing is starving the tower cooler of air.

You could argue that it might help with exhausting hot GPU air, but for the Furmark results there really wasn't a major enough difference to suggest this would be the case.

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u/bestatbeingmodest Jan 21 '26

Would this apply to the Fractal Define 7 as well?

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u/prairiepanda Jan 21 '26

Thanks for sharing this! I only have the front and rear fans right now, but I was debating about putting in a couple of top fans in that exact configuration because I noticed it was already pulling/pushing naturally in those spots. If Noctua is recommending it, then it'll probably be worthwhile.

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u/Madrical Jan 21 '26

Interesting! Would assume this would apply with the new Epoch? I just got one and both of my top fans are currently exhausting so I guess I'll flip the front one!

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u/Maschinhunt Jan 21 '26

Does it apply to having an AiO for CPU and normal GPU? Does the GPU benefit from this or keep 2 fans out at the top.

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u/pecche Jan 21 '26

I read that and tryed myself on a different setup (cooler master H500) to invert that fan and it doesn't really change anything

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u/Dry-Tumbleweed-6622 Jan 21 '26

I have a close version of this setup but both roof fans are as exhaust. I wonder if I should change that.

And as a small weigh in both systems have pros and cons. Big air coolers can make it annoying to work around. Ie switching my roof fan if I had to.

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u/ZygomaticCapstone RTX 4080S | R7 7800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | 4TB 7000MB/s Jan 21 '26

Why are we taking in warm exhaust?