Before I started to upgrade the cooling of my XPS 8940 (i5-11400, 3060ti, 16G 2933), I watched a lot of youtube video and read a lot of posts on different forums. The standard practice I see is to throw away that pathetic little pancake cooler and install K CPU cooler, Noctua U9S and some other 3rd party cooler etc. Then upgrade rear fan, add 120mm intake, add 80mm intake. I went all the way. But to my surprise, more fans isn't always better in my case.

The only significant upgrade is from stock CPU cooler to the K CPU tower cooler. Then upgrade the 80mm exhaust fan to a Noctua A9 92mm is also a good move, it lowers noise level quite a bit. However, further upgrades seem to only make a negative impact on the system for me. While I find the top cover and upper side cover section both feel cooler to the touch (lower side panel felt hotter), but the temperature reading of CPU and GPU actually went up. I can only assume that the added intake fan didn't do the job as intended, maybe because the solid upper front cover, instead it created some kind of wall that hinders air circulation inside the case and trapped hot air in some part of the space inside, temperature readings and benchmark result confirms that by adding the intake didn't do much good instead negatively impacted cooling performance for me.

I am not saying adding intake in XPS 8940 is a mistake, it just didn't help me. If someone find the upgrade process didn't go as expected, try removing the intake, may worth a try.