Regular or PWN Fans for my radiator

Bradley1928

Bradley1928

Bradley1928

Associate
Joined
29 Jan 2014
Posts
141
Location
Newcastle Upon Tyne
Hey guys, I'm juggling the idea of using PWN fans hooked upto the motherboard for my radiator fans or keeping them attached to my fan controller system.

Which would be better for my system and temps? Bare in mind my fan controller system has all my fans attached to it and it can't be adjusted individually. I pretty much have them on 50% most of the time at the moment.

What would be the better option?

PS. Its the Corsair SP120's I'll be getting.
 
Performance wise it'll make no difference. In theory you can run PWM fans more slowly before they give up and stop. EK Varders come in an ER (Extended Range) version for this. The Corsair SP120s will run stupidly slowly on voltage control anyway.

There have been some complaints about PWM fans ticking. This may be more the controller than the fan, I'm not sure. The couple of Varders I have on an Aquaero 6 don't seem to do this - although to be fair, they're not in a silent situation.

The deciding factor really has to be what you have to control them with. Most (most, not all) fan controllers still don't do PWM. A lot of motherboards look like they sldo PWM but don't. They have 4-pin headers but only the CPU header does PWM. You can see this in you motherboard manual and also in the bios. If it offers PWM as a setting you might have one of the better boards - there are a few.

SP120s areally great on rads but you do want to be able to turn them down from full blast!
 
I would just go with the 3 pin version and maybe see if you can get a cheap fan controller. I rebuilt a 1155 based system a few weeks back with a mixture or 3 pin and PWM fans. ASUS's Q fan profiling turned out to be a bit of a nightmare and not quite as flexible as I hoped. I ended up adding a fan controller and wish I had from the start.
 
Just chiming in! I've got 3x SP120s on my radiator and have them hooked up to a Lamptron fan controller.

In my experience, it's more about the quality, fin density and surface area of the radiator than the speed of the fans but it's nice to have the option. I've never personally had to speed the fans up as the radiator doesn't require it. I'm cooling an AMD Bulldozer CPU and a GTX 970 and under gaming the temps barely ever rise over 50 Celsius.

Long story short - it's nice to have the option but not necessary.
 
The SP120s have a good static pressure - that's why they blow through a rad well....and they do, even at low speed. Speed control - in my opinion - is more about being able to turn them down than up. I run mine at 7.3V which results in about 740rpm. If I'm honest, running them faster doesn't really achieve much on my rig - a few degrees, yes, but not worth the irritating noise for. It's about balancing the volume you can tolerate (this is very different for different people) with the airflow that you need. Most likely you'll either have them on a fan curve because you can (I do, but it's slow, slow, slow, PANIC!) or you'll set them to a fixed speed and leave them there. There's nothing more irritating that a fan that constantly changes pitch - very difficult to tune it out in your head.
 
Yeah I know the feeling haha. I have a phantom 630 with a in built fan controller and currently have them all at stage 2 which is around 7v. The full 12v is just painfully loud
 
No probs Bradley. Sorry I misread your OP and didn't realise you already had a fan controller. Just to echo the above in regards to the SP120's, if going for the grey and black one voltage control is a must. I couldn't believe how loud mine is at full pelt, I'm sure the performance is amazing but the sound is just unbearable. The LED versions while not being as good are almost silent in comparison. I've got a SP and AF in my current build hooked up via molex. They're quiet enough without a controller :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom