120mm quiet fan

passey89 · 27 Jan 2015 at 20:23

I need a quiet 120mm fan to exhaust out the top.

needs to be quiet as the rest of my rig is pretty silent.

I was thinking

Corsair SP120

Any one used these and know how loud they actually are?

Telecaster · 27 Jan 2015 at 20:54

Reasonably quiet upto around 1000rpm, but that is the threshold for most 120mm fans, the difference between a "quiet" fan and a regular one is probably 100-200 or so RPM.

Quiet fans are just slow ones, you have to decide whether a quiet fan still provides sufficient air flow to do it's actual job, I see loads of people say "oh my fans are silent at 600RPM" well, derp, most fans are, question is are they actually doing anything!

snips86x · 27 Jan 2015 at 20:55

Alpenfohn Wingboost 2, thank me later

Relentless81 · 27 Jan 2015 at 20:56

bequiet! Shadow Wings, I have two mid speed versions exhausting out the top and intend to replace all of my fans with them

passey89 · 27 Jan 2015 at 21:15

how about 140mm fans as i do have slots for both of these where i'm planning on placing them

Rroff · 27 Jan 2015 at 21:22

Telecaster said:
Reasonably quiet upto around 1000rpm, but that is the threshold for most 120mm fans, the difference between a "quiet" fan and a regular one is probably 100-200 or so RPM.

Quiet fans are just slow ones, you have to decide whether a quiet fan still provides sufficient air flow to do it's actual job, I see loads of people say "oh my fans are silent at 600RPM" well, derp, most fans are, question is are they actually doing anything!

Indeed - some fans are optimised though to be quieter while still providing good airflow at lower RPMs i.e. apaches sub 1000 rpm they are quieter and provide better airflow rpm for rpm compared to most but as soon as you hit about 1000 rpm they are no different to any other average fan.

I've also found it a bit hit and miss - I've got a fair sized collection of spare fans from over the years and/or usually but a few when I'm buying and generally the performance and loudness varies a lot i.e. about 1/3rd of the apaches I've got (partly why I have a few) aren't quiet at any speed where they are sill moving worthwhile amounts of air but I've managed to pick and choose some from them that do 1k rpm almost entirely silent.

setter · 27 Jan 2015 at 21:46

Alpenfohn red clovers, PWM and max rpm of 1200 rpm. I've yet to use a quieter fan. Had them in the spec in sig for a while, but they were too low a speed for use on my cpu cooler. Excellent as case fans. Swapped the lot out for a mix of corsair sp/af's.