In your experience how effective are side panel fans for cooling your system?
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In your experience how effective are side panel fans for cooling your system?
I like side panel fans near the bottom area to help pull cooler air into the section below the graphics cards. This helps keep the GPU and PSU a little bit cooler since both pull from the same general area. Without a fan letting air get into that specific area then it tends to stagnate, as with a long GPU it tends to block the primary airflow path from reaching down there.
They're not really needed anymore, provided there's good support for fans in the front/top/rear. Side panels are for sound deadening material or windows.
The side panel is the finest example of where manufacturers should offer options
Plain, windowed, small fan, large fan, row of fans all come to mind.
What would also be interesting to see is somebody building a side box option, eg a side panel say 50+mm thick, for watercooling guys to place rads and fans in.
For air rigs I would say that side fan position should enhance the front fans by adding flow where they are weakest. this is often over the memory area of the board