Concept Experimenting with layouts sounds like a good title

[rod]

Hi all. I've got a project with my brother to make a pc case and I would like to hear the opinion of you guys about the layout we've got in mind. The gpu placement kind of worries me, since it could possibly block the air coming into the case from the outside.

Note that the case itself will be using an itx motherboard and we plan on making it as small as we can (~25cm long, ~16cm depth, ~30cm height). On top of the case we planned on closing it with a plate.

Sides will be mesh, front will be glass panel.
Graphics card will be a gigabyte 1070 windforce (about 10cm depth) but I plan on getting a new one (3070 or amd's equivalent)
Cooler I was thinking about a NH-U9S from noctua.
140mm fans (2 intake, 2 exhaust located on the sides).
Only the cpu has been overclocked, the rest is on default settings.

Now, here is what has been on my head:
1. If the gpu blocks ~10 cm of cool air coming from the outside, leaving 2 cm of space on each side of the fan for it, will it be enough to cool it? I know that the card will be exhausting the warm air from the sides, but I don't really think that it will heat the case that much.
2. As far as I am concerned, placing a fan next to a fan won't bring more air into the gpu. Should I just deshroud the gpu?

I have also considered another scenario like this:

In this scenario I figured that the gpu would be using it's own fans to cool itself, leaving some hot air around it. One intake fan and one exhaust on top of the intake to push it out. It doesn't look that good to me but I am open to criticism.

I know that I am clueless and that it would be easier to just buy one but I think this is a great opportunity to spend more time with my brother and I would like to take it .

Thank you in advance!

 

[ignsvn]

Hi all. I've got a project with my brother to make a pc case and I would like to hear the opinion of you guys about the layout we've got in mind. The gpu placement kind of worries me, since it could possibly block the air coming into the case from the outside.

Note that the case itself will be using an itx motherboard and we plan on making it as small as we can (~25cm long, ~16cm depth, ~30cm height). On top of the case we planned on closing it with a plate.

Sides will be mesh, front will be glass panel.
Graphics card will be a gigabyte 1070 windforce (about 10cm depth) but I plan on getting a new one (3070 or amd's equivalent)
Cooler I was thinking about a NH-U9S from noctua.
140mm fans (2 intake, 2 exhaust located on the sides).
Only the cpu has been overclocked, the rest is on default settings.

Now, here is what has been on my head:
1. If the gpu blocks ~10 cm of cool air coming from the outside, leaving 2 cm of space on each side of the fan for it, will it be enough to cool it? I know that the card will be exhausting the warm air from the sides, but I don't really think that it will heat the case that much.
2. As far as I am concerned, placing a fan next to a fan won't bring more air into the gpu. Should I just deshroud the gpu?

I have also considered another scenario like this:

In this scenario I figured that the gpu would be using it's own fans to cool itself, leaving some hot air around it. One intake fan and one exhaust on top of the intake to push it out. It doesn't look that good to me but I am open to criticism.

I know that I am clueless and that it would be easier to just buy one but I think this is a great opportunity to spend more time with my brother and I would like to take it .

Thank you in advance!

This layout is -in a way- similar with Silverstone SG08 but erected in upward position.

You are correct that the intake fans next to the GPU won't do much, and the air will be blocked by the GPU anw.

To mitigate this, SG08 uses another fan located on top of the motherboard, as you can see here.

(pictures taken from the internet, not mine)

Edit: the fan included is pretty big, Air Penetrator 181 (i think). This, plus the ample room for CPU cooler, works well in my situation.

 

[rod]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

I kind of wanted to have a view of the inside of the case. Do you think it could work if I just added a fan, instead of the front, in the back, behind the psu?

2 intake fans on the left side, 1 exhaust fan on the top back.

I assume that even if the gpu is 10cm and the fans are 14cm the 4 spare cm from the fans won't do anything to cool the case?

 

[ignsvn]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

I kind of wanted to have a view of the inside of the case. Do you think it could work if I just added a fan, instead of the front, in the back, behind the psu?

2 intake fans on the left side, 1 exhaust fan on the top back.

I assume that even if the gpu is 10cm and the fans are 14cm the 4 spare cm from the fans won't do anything to cool the case?

My opinion is that, your first airflow layout makes more sense. Again:
1. The exhaust fan next to the PSU is not really necessary. As long as the PSU exhaust is facing that side & close enough to the case ventilation holes, the air pressure from the PSU fan should be enough to blow hot air out of the PSU & out of the case.
2. The intake fan on the bottom left is not really required - think of the CPU cooler you're going to use. If it's a C-type, it's better to just have ventilation holes there, or exhaust fan instead. If you use tower type CPU cooler, well exhaust or intake fan there won't really help I guess.
3. May be overkill, but you may instead want to have an exhaust fan at the bottom of the case, next to motherboard IOs.

I hope my explanation makes sense.

You can see the inside of the case more here https://bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/cases/silverstone-sugo-sg08-review/2/