Quote Originally Posted by NotFred View Post
Have we all completely ignored my post previously where I demonstrated that for a given power draw, and a given airflow, the ambient temperature inside the case is the same? No matter what cooling is going on inside the case.

The heat from the CPU cannot disappear into mysterious magical places; it all has to leave the case once the system is in steady state. The only way to do this is via the airflow (the case itself will never get hot enough to start radiating heat).

If anyone can point out the flaw in this argument I’d appreciate it…

Hot air moves up, you can not stop it. So yeah even with 0 airflow hot air will find a way to escape your case. These things are not air tight. BUT the question is how quick it does it? That's where airflow is getting in to play, if you got good airflow that warm air will go out the case faster thus lowering the overall temperature.