Recommended case fans

wellmoon

wellmoon

wellmoon

Associate
Joined
25 Nov 2012
Posts
10
Hi,

I'm interested in learning more about fans. I've currently got 8 120mm fans in my moderately OC'd machine:

2 fans in the front/bottom of the case
1 fan in the bottom of the case
1 fan on the back of the HDD compartment
2 fans on the CPU cooler
1 fan on the top of the case
1 fan at the back of the case

All fans except for 1 are Scythe SY1225SL12SL. My machine is a little on the loud side! It's not excessive, but I'm looking to reduce noise as much as possible. I have an NZXT Switch 810 case.

Also, I do currently have a fan controller. It's a basic slider one and has only six sliders, so a couple of the sliders control 2 fans.

Questions:
1) Should I look for the lowest DB rating (e.g. these are 6.9DB http://www.quietpc.com/nf-s12b-redux-700), or should I be looking for fewer fans, with greater airflow, but which have a louder DB rating?

2) Am I best to look for a better fan controller?

3) To ensure the fans are placed correctly, which way round do the fans point? I heard one time that the side of the fan with the label in the middle is the side that the air comes IN at, is this correct?

Thanks :)
 
Well for starters you don't need two fans on CPU cooler, only one that will push the air through heatsink. Two will make a very small difference that won't be noticed anyway.

I go for good mix of airflow and low noise, Akasa Apache is a good all round fan.

You can certainly look at a fan controller or pwm splitter that will allow you to control some of the fans from a motherboard fan header.

You can find out which way air blows by sticker sometimes but this isn't the best way, you can tell from the fan blades or simple way is to put your hand in front to see if you feel the air ;)
 
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I bought an Arctic F12 PWM a while back and it's excellent for the price. They're about £4.50 each last time I checked. The only bad thing about them is the flimsy wire, but it shouldn't be too bad.
 
As someone with 8 F12s in their case, their wires are the most annoying thing I have ever encountered. Ever.

I was looking at the Phanteks PH-F140MP for my H110 and Phanteks PH F120XP for my case - I've heard they're quiet but I haven't heard many people talking about how good they are.
 
Joe! said:
As someone with 8 F12s in their case, their wires are the most annoying thing I have ever encountered. Ever.

I was looking at the Phanteks PH-F140MP for my H110 and Phanteks PH F120XP for my case - I've heard they're quiet but I haven't heard many people talking about how good they are.
Click to expand...

I've got a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe with 5 x PH-F140SP 140mm fans in the roof, bottom and back of the case and a PH-F200SP in the front. That's on top of a PH-TC14PE CPU cooler with two 140mm all in all I don't think the fans are overly noisy. I must admit I'm not a seasoned PC user so maybe to a more noise conscious user it may sound loud. I think the Phanteks kit is pretty good, my only gripe was I didn't order the PWM editions of the 140mm as my case has a built in PWM hub.
 
I see, thanks for your help.

I can't seem to find any relevant information (at least from a user's perspective) of the fans, except for one thread on the LTT forums where they were complaining of a 'hissing' sound of the fans rather than a 'wooshing' sound, so that's put me off a little.
 
Indeed. "hissing" instead of 'wooshing' would really be a big problem.:eek:Wouldn't be able to tell if it was a snake or a bird flapping it's wings. :D

I've used most all of the Phanteks fans and the only one I wasn't happy with is the 200mm. It just doesn't seem to move much air. But all the others are just fine. But then i'm not sure what a 'hiss' is compared to a 'woosh' .. probably just the sounds air makes doing it's job .. which is usually eliminated by slowing the fans down a little. . :p
 
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