I'm in the process of building a new case which will be also a piece of furniture for the living room. My main consideration at this time is airflow, obviously this room may well be subject to high temperatures during winter time etc. As such I am wondering if there is any design methods that can help with airflow. I will start out by saying I am going to be using the Corsair H105 for the cpu but everything else will be fan cooled. For this design my preferences are as follows in order of importance. 1. Performance 2. Ease of access 3. Sound How the inside looks has zero impact as this will be a fully enclosed system that is only seen for cleaning and upgrades/maintenance. With all this in mind is the standard big open box design that most cases have really the best way to conduct airflow? Would it give better performance if I were to build the design more like a wind tunnel or with chambers around specific areas and forget about airflow over sections that have little or no components in them? Any help offered is much appreciated.
When you say the system will be fully enclosed, do you mean it will be completely within a piece of furniture? If so, would there be air exchange with the room (such as open vents), restricted airflow (such as through the bottom mesh of a couch), or no air flow, with the piece of furniture acting as a big radiator for the air & electronics inside? Tell us about the furniture and we'll go from there.
Bottom Face Vents If it is a piece of furniture, consider what else is in the room, with regard to where you can put vents. If it's boosted up high enough to have ok airflow underneath it, you could stealth the vents to the bottom face. You'd probably need more total opening surface area to do this, and you'll also need easy pull-out screens that you can vacuum off, for the dust. But the upshot should be reduced noise, less random-LED light pollution from your case when watching movies, and maybe aesthetics, if you like a cleaner look. If the piece of furniture or the floor beneath it has much padding, this should help take a lot of higher frequencies out of what sound does make it from your system. Be wary of this approach if it's over a really fluffy rug, and won't be boosted high, or if there's a lot of animal hair that will quickly clog things up. Air Ducts I don't know how big this piece of furniture is, but you're very, very likely to get better results if you duct your airflow's ins and outs. Wider, less bendy ducts will maintain better airflow and improve cooling. Depending on what your ducts are made from, introducing some bending can reduce noise from escaping down through the ducts. That said, better airflow means lower RPM fans, means lower noise. Wider ducts are also a good idea, so that you can use a larger, slower fans. Long ducts may require booster fans, depending on just how big this piece of furniture is. If you get serious about ducting, just make sure anything not ducted still has some way for the heat to drain, though this is not likely a problem.
The advice given thus far is good, but it is also very general. If you share more details of what you are planning then we might be able to get some nice specifics. As it is all I'll add is remember hot air rises, so if you plan to vent down, then you'll need even more air flow to ensure the air moves where desired.
