Shoutout to Marcus at the Austin Micro Center who said my intake fans were doing nothing
I ran 3 intake fans on the front of my Corsair 4000D for 8 months and swore my temps were fine, until Marcus pointed out my top exhaust was pulling hot air right back through them. Now I'm seeing the back and forth in every build thread: some folks say positive pressure is king and you should stack intakes, others say exhaust-heavy is the way. My CPU went from 82C to 71C in Cinebench after I flipped one fan, so I'm team balanced now. Where do you all land on intake vs exhaust, or does it just depend on the case?