Silverstone CW02 mods + best filter medium + DIY filtration box

[Hannibal Lecter]

The real question to ask is how often do you want to clean your system? Because air filters will delay dust accumulation on your rads, fans and inside the case but they will certainly not prevent it.

And just for the record, "positive pressure" doesn't prevent dust from entering the case!

So basically with filters you will have to clean up less often, maybe once instead of twice a year without filters. However you'll get less performance from your radiators or you'll need to rev up your fans to compensate for the loss of airflow every day of the year.

As far as I am concerned I'd rather clean my rig a little more often and enjoy the better performance and silence everyday

[Sideroxylon]

As far as I am concerned I'd rather clean my rig a little more often and enjoy the better performance and silence everyday

Agreed.

As soon as you put a filter on your fans you lose performance. And you lose more with every bit of dust it gathers. For some it might be worth it to have a clean(er) rig but I'll take the performance and having to blow it out a bit more often.

[eth0s]

The real question to ask is how often do you want to clean your system? Because air filters will delay dust accumulation on your rads, fans and inside the case but they will certainly not prevent it.

And just for the record, "positive pressure" doesn't prevent dust from entering the case!

So basically with filters you will have to clean up less often, maybe once instead of twice a year without filters. However you'll get less performance from your radiators or you'll need to rev up your fans to compensate for the loss of airflow every day of the year.

As far as I am concerned I'd rather clean my rig a little more often and enjoy the better performance and silence everyday

This is true. However, I don't think there is a universal "right answer" here, because I think the decision on whether or not to use fan filters comes down to a personal balancing test of noise vs. performance vs dust. Everybody has to find their own comfort level with respect to balancing these three variables. Personally, I hate dust, but I hate noise even more, and I am willing to give up some cooling performance to cut down on both. So in my current rig, I tried to find filters on the intake fans that cut down on the dust, but won't necessarily eliminate it either, since that would restrict airflow (and thus cooling) too much. So that leaves me with a computer case that now collects a very small amount of very fine particles of dust. After 5-6 months I have to clean out this very fine dust, but certainly not as often as I would with no filters at all (actually I could wait a year or more between cleanings, if I wasn't a neat freak, i guess). I am losing some small amount of cooling performance, but not as much as I would have with ultra-dense HEPA-style air purifying filters, which would presumably block much more dust. The only bad part is cleaning the fan blades as they get coated with ultra-fine dust, especially on the windward edge of the blades. I would like to get rid of that phenomenon, but haven't found a suitable solution yet. Well anyway, what I am trying to say is that there is probably no way to eliminate 100% of the dust in your case, as it will always find a way in. The best you can do is to limit the amount of dust that comes into your computer case, and how much of a dust barrier you use depends on how much performance you are willing to give up, or fan noise you are willing to accept.

[dasa]

The real question to ask is how often do you want to clean your system? Because air filters will delay dust accumulation on your rads, fans and inside the case but they will certainly not prevent it.

And just for the record, "positive pressure" doesn't prevent dust from entering the case!

So basically with filters you will have to clean up less often, maybe once instead of twice a year without filters. However you'll get less performance from your radiators or you'll need to rev up your fans to compensate for the loss of airflow every day of the year.

As far as I am concerned I'd rather clean my rig a little more often and enjoy the better performance and silence everyday

positive pressure can stop dust entering if the inlet is filtered well enough but the kind of filter that could stop all the dust like whats on a engine would be far to restrictive
by comparison negative presure will suck a lot more dust in threw every little gap in the case

but i agree with you about small filters hard agaisnt fans i would rather not have them and just use the air compressor to clean the case more often