Fan Upgrade Advice

Ph4lanx · 29 May 2010 at 12:04

Guys,

I've been thinking about replacing the fans in my case with better performing ones.

At the moment I have a HAF 922 with the following setup:

1 x 120mm fan exhaust (back)
2 x 200mm fan (1 exhaust at top, 1 intake at side)
1 x 120mm fan intake (front)

Also, with the Noctua cooler I have the default fans that came with the Noctua NH-D14, but I've been thinking of replacing them along with the case fans. What I wanted to do was the following:

1. Keep the two 200mm case fans.
2. Replace the 120mm exhaust fan with one of the two fans below.
3. Replace the 120mm and 140mm Noctua fans with the fans below (120mm and 140mm).

The fans I'm looking to use are as follows:

1. 120mm Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000
2. 120mm Scythe Gentle Typhoon
3. 140mm Sharkoon System Designed

I was wondering what you guys think I should do here? Basically, I want to make the case quieter, but also allow for a decent airflow for overclocking (hence my choices of new fans). Do you think I should go all one brand or mix the brands depending on CPU/case cooling?

el Kuarlos · 29 May 2010 at 12:10

I think you are a bit mad to be replacing noctua fans. If your rear case fan is a tad noisy fair enough, sharkoon silent eagle would be good. But the noctuas, honestly, you are not going to get any form of value for money by trying to replace them.

Ph4lanx · 29 May 2010 at 12:19

The problem I have with the Noctua fans is that they are not PWM fans. They run on a 3pin connector and I have no fan controller. The Scythe and Sharkoon fans on the other hand are PWM. I wanted the CPU fans to spool up and down based on what they read from the motherboard header.

el Kuarlos · 29 May 2010 at 12:23

Fair enough, but you can just use the resistors, the actual loss in cooling performance is not that significant putting them on low speeds.

C64 · 29 May 2010 at 18:54

I have found Scythe 800 rpm pwm fans to be the quietest and are good enough to use as exhausts imo.

Lleot · 29 May 2010 at 20:28

If they are 3 pin just use Speedfan

Exsurgo · 29 May 2010 at 23:48

120mm Scythe Gentle Typhoon are the most impressive fans I have owned. Have a solid heavy feel of complete quality and even at 1850 rpm are almost inaudible. Perfect for a cpu fan. However if they are not pointing at a mobo/GPU/CPU there immense static pressure is wasted a bit.