AIO Water Cooler - Pull air into case or exhaust air out of case

Just curious how you are linking push/pull to intake/exhaust? I would consider my installation to be push - intake. My two fans draw air directly in from the top of the case and push it through the radiator. My fans are sandwiched between the case and radiator.

This is from Corsair's website:

The Fan Installation Can Be Done In Multiple Ways, But By Default We Would Recommend Having The Fans Mounted On The Bottom Of The Unit Exhausting Air Up Through The Radiator Towards The Outside Of The Case. If Your System Is Already Set Up To Have Sufficient Exhaust, Then You Can Experiment With Mounting The Fans On Top Of The Radiator Where They Can Push Cooler Air From Outside Of The Case Down Through The Radiator. If You Mount The Radiator With The Fans On The Bottom, Then It Might Be Easiest To Mount The Fans To The Radiator Before Installing The Radiator Into The Case, Which Is What I Did For This Installation.

With The Fans Mounted Below The Radiator You Will Want To Use The 8x 10mm Screws (The Shorter Set Of Screws) To Secure The Radiator To The Case. If You Are Going To Set Up A Push Pull Configuration (Fans Mounted On Both Sides Of The Radiator), Or You Are Mounting The Fans On Top Of The Radiator Then You Will Want To Use The Longer Mounting Screws In The Following Order: Screw > Washer > Case > Fan > Radiator.

Let me tell you, it was an adventure getting the fans between the radiator and the case, I basically had to flip the case upside down, place the fans in place so the holes lined up, then carefully placed the radiator "on top" of the fans. Then tip the case just slightly enough to put in a couple screws through each fan hand tight into the radiator. Flip every over right side up and then insert the remaining screws and tighten them all down. This is in a Corsiar Obsidian 450d case.

My Cooler Master H500M with two front 200mm fans, one rear 140mm fan, and an AIO Corsair H115i AIO cooler (with two 140mm fans) at top pushes air through the radiator and exhausts out the top of the case.

My Phanteks Enthoo Luxe case has one front 200mm fan, one rear 140mm fan, and a Corsair H100i AIO cooler (with two 120mm fans) pushes air through the radiator and exhausts out the top of that case as well.

In short I always push air through the radiator and exhaust at top.

Superfly said:

I go with the Push/Exhaust on the basis of physics - hot air rising and path of least resistance - but then I don't have a multitude of fans - I suspect that could sway one to consider the Push/Pull setup.

It could also depend on case. I've both a Cooler Master HAF X and H500M which are vented cases with unobstructed front fan openings. In this configuration I only use 2 or 3 case fans plus the 2 AIO cooler fans giving me a total of 4-5 fans minus the GPU and PS fans. This minimalistic approach leads to a quieter system with good cooling if not highly overclocking.

Outside of hard gaming you'd never hear my system running sitting next to it. I don't even have HDD drives installed.