Nzxt H440 Top Fan recommendations

I got my hands on NZXT H440 cabinet, it came with 3 front Fans ( intake) and 1 rear ( out) fan. I have added 3 x 120mm fans on the top. Now should this is be taking air from outside and pushing it into the cabinet or should i keep them as exhaust ?
CPU Cooler is MSI Core Frozr L TORX Tower CPU Cooler 120mm

Go with natural convection. Hot air goes out the top and back.

Maybe play around with fan speeds to get some higher +ve pressure with the intakes.


this is the basic diagram hot air has one rear exit and one top. the other 2 top fans will suck out the air that comes in from front fans.
What i am thinking is top two in front as intake and last one as out.

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The fans next to eachother (in and ex) might just end up recirculating / recycling most of the same air.

Suggestions by noctua:

https://www.noctua.at/en/support/faqs/airflow-guide-next-steps

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You have a classic front to back air flow with say the tower cooler say at 75÷ rear.

Let’s call your fans 1,2,3 looking from front to back

My honest suggestion:

You do not 3 exhausts . Keep the rear most - fan3 - as exhaust. The 2x fans before - 1&2 as exhaust are merely messing up the flow . The intake from front fans never have a chance to move through majority of your case before being expelled by fan3 . In fact fans 1,2 are merely exhausting coldish air and may starve tower cooler.

Experiment :

Start with 1 x fan rear most exhaust - fan 3

Then add fan 1 as intake . Leave out fan 2

I know noctua suggest an exhaust and intake side by side but I feel a loop of hot air . So if we omit fan 2 , you can still have fan 1 as intake and fan3 as exhaust .

Now this would change if you have a predominant bottom to top exhaust where want all 3 on top as exhaust , if you had a strong bottom or lower side intake

In case of no bottom intake and 3 top fan spots, I’d leave the top middle unoccupied, top front as intake and top back as exhaust with 3 or 2 front intakes and one rear exhaust.

Is this needed, and would it make any difference with 3 front intakes already? I’m not sure, but I feel it might slightly hamper the front-to-back (horizontal) airflow by pushing some front intake air down.

I have a 3x front intake, 1x rear exhaust, and 1x top exhaust (close to the rear) config. I do have a spare fan, but I decided against adding it since I couldn’t find an ideal position for it.

That’s a fair shout. I have put one intake in top front but i have 2 front intakes. I tried without top front intakes too but felt like my gpu was running couple of degrees cooler with top front intakes (might have been psychological too). Also I would trust Noctua if they have done research :slight_smile:


this should be correct.
5 In , 2 out.

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