Fan procurement and placement recomendations

ginjaninja

ginjaninja

ginjaninja

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30 Jul 2007
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I inherited a Phanteks Elite case with no fans. It has a dizzying array of 140mm fans positions.
4 in front
3 in floir
2 in mid plate
2 in rear
3 in top

The case comes with 2 moveable fan hubs (4 pin pwm connection to mboard and 6 3pin fan).
The motherboard (asus x670e tuf) has 4 4pin chasis fan headers.

The PC is:
a cpu with 7800x3d with an noctua nh-d15 (2 fans) pointing at rear.
a gen 5.0 ssd under heatsink
an asus tuf 4090.

my goals are:
silent in idle and in movie playback
quiet as possible under gaming load without hampering performance/longevity due to heat.
not spending more than needed.
achieving a useful level of fan controllability
minimizing dust build up is nice to have

I am seeking advice of what fans to buy in what positions please.

I am thinking of buying 2x 5pack of artic p14 3pins and putting
4 in front (on 1 fan hub) (in)
3 in top,1 in rear (on 2nd fan hub) (out)
0 in mid plate
0 in floor

Alternatively 1x5pack p14s, loose 2 accross front/top and get an extra single 4 pin for the rear.

thank you.
 
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You'd want to run the fans at the lowest possible speed if you want it to run quiet.
Arctic p14 are good value fans with decent performance. Not a bad choice at all
 
tamzzy said:
You'd want to run the fans at the lowest possible speed if you want it to run quiet.
Arctic p14 are good value fans with decent performance. Not a bad choice at all
Click to expand...
thanks, i've never installed/used a pwm fan or hub or ever controlled a fan (beyond a notuca cpu low power adapter 10 years ago). Ive heard of fan profiles but never used.
Is controlling fans a matter of software running in windows or configuration in the bios? are you able to bullet point the steps to go through please (i can google the detail)....
(all things being equal i would lean towards "set and forget in bios" if thats possible....rather than 'dodgy' software in OS (ive heard they are bad))
 
ginjaninja said:
The case comes with 2 moveable fan hubs (4 pin pwm connection to mboard and 6 3pin fan).
Click to expand...

Ditch these and replace them with hubs that support PWM fans.

ginjaninja said:
4 in front (on 1 fan hub) (in)
Click to expand...

These (well, 4 pin PWM fans) should be all you need. You don't need fans on the top: hot air rises naturally, they will steal air from the CPU fans and you want positive air pressure. You won't need a rear fan as air will be getting pushed out by the CPU fan anyway.
 
thanks for advice, interesting the fan hubs are only ~£15 so opting for PWM is not exorbitant; is there a big advantage to PWM? I read online they can spin lower but the lower limit of 3pin is possibly already silent, so does it really matter?

EDIT
actually PWM fan hubs are only £6..so its a no brainer...to have fans that can plug into hub or motherboard...nice shout
 
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thanks for advice. finished build
went for 4 fans in the front on ASUS 'silent' fan profile on an artic 10 port pwm fan hub.
The artic 5 pack p14s pwms seems good value/cheap and cheerful, but the screws don't fit nicely and the metal of screw head easily fatigues.
Time will tell how well the fans last, but i cant complain about the silence.
(if getting 5 pack from ocuk check the mfr part number the title is pwm but the mfr part number is 3 pin.)
The artic fan hub does what it says on the tin....
 
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