Cooling light gaming HTPC - best 120mm fans?

miceormen

miceormen

miceormen

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Evening All,

I've just dumped the innards of my Ivy Bridge / Z77 system (3570k, 16gb, RX580) along with an Alpine 11 LP cooler into a Jonsbo G3 case and very nicely it all fits indeed.

I've cut some suitably located holes in the tv unit surrounding it so it can breathe (the back is open), and there's currently 1x 120mm intake (Jonsbo PWM), 2x 80mm outlet (Arctic PWM) fans as well as similar holes on the opposite side of the case for the PSU intake fan.

Unfortunately I'm still getting ~80 celsius temps.

What are the best 120mm fans for airflow? Need to be PWM, running off a splitter.

Thanks
 
My three faves:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £60.59 (includes shipping: £8.70)​
​

When there's a tight budget it makes it easy to choose P12 as performance is right up there and humming at certain RPM ranges sometimes is easy to overcome by running them slightly higher or lower than the offending range. Noctua might perform better than the Noiseblocker if there's plenty of obstruction (also when used as static pressure fan on rads/heatsinks). But there's no real reason to pick the more expensive Noctua over the Noiseblocker as a pure case fan, imo. The latter won't suck even if there's some obstruction anyway.

But tell us how many fans and which fans you're running off the same splitter and if the splitter has its own power or not. There might be a better alternative.

Also, a better CPU cooler would help. And under-volting the CPU would help. These two things would impact temps more than improving case fans. If you ditched the internal DVD drive (assuming you have one and that led to the choice of Alpine 11 LP) you could get a better, taller low-profile CPU cooler.
 
notua NF-A12x25 has pitched blades for high air flow this would be perfect for your needs as a static fan would not buy any fan with the blades on a severe angle not flat those ones are static pressure
 
Danny75 said:
My three faves:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £60.59 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

When there's a tight budget it makes it easy to choose P12 as performance is right up there and humming at certain RPM ranges sometimes is easy to overcome by running them slightly higher or lower than the offending range. Noctua might perform better than the Noiseblocker if there's plenty of obstruction (also when used as static pressure fan on rads/heatsinks). But there's no real reason to pick the more expensive Noctua over the Noiseblocker as a pure case fan, imo. The latter won't suck even if there's some obstruction anyway.

But tell us how many fans and which fans you're running off the same splitter and if the splitter has its own power or not. There might be a better alternative.

Also, a better CPU cooler would help. And under-volting the CPU would help. These two things would impact temps more than improving case fans. If you ditched the internal DVD drive (assuming you have one and that led to the choice of Alpine 11 LP) you could get a better, taller low-profile CPU cooler.
Click to expand...

uJamBo said:
notua NF-A12x25 has pitched blades for high air flow this would be perfect for your needs as a static fan would not buy any fan with the blades on a severe angle not flat those ones are static pressure
Click to expand...

Thanks both. Will need to find a middle ground between those very pricey Noctuas and the less efficient Arctics (not saying they're not price efficient) - perhaps the Noiseblockers will do it.

Is fan blade count a factor or is RPM more important for shifting air? I'm less concerned about noise they'll probably be loud only when I'm playing games (usually FPSs so no loss to the ambience).
 
miceormen said:
Thanks both. Will need to find a middle ground between those very pricey Noctuas and the less efficient Arctics (not saying they're not price efficient) - perhaps the Noiseblockers will do it.
Click to expand...



miceormen said:
Is fan blade count a factor or is RPM more important for shifting air? I'm less concerned about noise they'll probably be loud only when I'm playing games (usually FPSs so no loss to the ambience).
Click to expand...

There's different ways to achieve the same thing. For example notice the hub on the Noctua is larger than the other two (for whatever reason, more powerful motor, to drown noise better etc). So by going with more fan blades they are able to create the necessary enough empty space between them. Unless a manufacturer (and usually these are made by a few like Nidex and then rebranded) cocks up in a bad way with design, then RPM is typically the greatest factor. Then things like motor noise comes into play, and exactly how much noise you can put up with. I certainly wouldn't want a 120mm case fan running much more than 1200 RPM (about 1000 RPM for a 140mm). And moreover, there are diminishing returns when you run a case fan higher. As long as the case is receiving enough ventilation then the direct cooling on CPU and GPU is what really matters. Your ears would bleed to achieve maybe 2 degrees cooler.
 
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