Replacement fans

Ch3m1c4L · 20 Jun 2012 at 11:32

Ok, so a year ago when I replaced most of my system I also swapped from yateloon 120's to enermax UCTB12 because of the similar airflow and massively lower noise.
At this point I noticed that it barely reduced overall system noise at all, because the whirring sound i get is from pumps/10 mechanical hdd's and not fans lol.

This has meant that basically I have to have my window open, at least in summer, in order for my PC (i7 930 @ 4Ghz 1.3v) to not overheat where as before on a q9450 at 3.2 ghz i wouldnt see anything higher than around 50c load temps.

Rads are black ice stealth gt 240 (30FPI) and a thermaltake 120.3. Seperate loops both with mcp355's? With xspc tops. These cool the mobo and cpu in one loop and up to 3 gtx480s in the other loop.
While I knew that low rpm fans didnt do "that" well with high fpi i thought id give it a go and the silence was more important to me, but since it didnt reduce noise i no longer care as when I am at a LAN where it will be warm, I wont be able to play

So, which fans to get, I do want minimum noise from them still, but its no longer the only concern. GT 1450/1850's? Is there something better/cheaper out there? Or black and red liek the xilence ones so that it matches the color scheme, or black and white to match the other fans and cables? I do have a fan controller with splitters on it so I can easily control each "set" of fans

While im here, im not sure which internal plate I should be using on my EK supreme HF block, just left in the standard as I am not sure what is classed as "high flow" and what is classed as not high flow

Old pics are old - white nzxt cable extenders on everything now, the pink was a test as it was bought as "red" but something was obviously wrong lol. You get the idea of space (no more than standard size 120mm

Ch3m1c4L · 25 Jun 2012 at 12:25

no one?

spixelspixel · 25 Jun 2012 at 13:00

With a 30fpi rad your not going to get a quiet fan that will let the rad perform at its best. Over ~1000rpm all fans will make noise because of moving air. I'd look for something around 2000rpm.

Ch3m1c4L · 26 Jun 2012 at 15:04

ok cool. gives me a nice number to work with.
Was a shame there wasnt really any other option on that rad at the time, due to the thinness required. And im too cheap to buy a new one lol.

Things dont have to be silent, as the hum from the HDD's and pumps is somewhat loud and will drown out some fan noise (~20-25db), Just may as well get quietish ones that will do the job so its not super loud when trying to sleep

Biffa · 26 Jun 2012 at 19:17

Get the GT1850's they aren't that loud and they just work, period.

Ch3m1c4L · 27 Jun 2012 at 11:03

Ordered 2 Gt1850's for the cpu loop as they are better for the way the rad is mounted up there, Got 3 of the Corsair SP120's for the gpu loop. 2350 rpm, 3.1mm static pressure @ 35db, and can always turn them down lower when im not in a hot room or something.

Even with my current fans as long as my window is open the pc is fine 99% of the time, just that it reaches up to self imposed limits on cpu temp and gpus can get up to like 75 after hours of bf3, and i figure at lan its going to get super super warm so i need better cooling rather than having hot rads that arent dumping their heat lol.

Thanks for the help guys.

Ch3m1c4L · 2 Jul 2012 at 15:13

Even with only 2 of the corsair SP120's running on the gpu rad (awaiting a new fan controller as mine doesn't give enough watts or something to spin them all up and I haven't got enough 3-4pin adapters) my temps on the hottest card dropped from 76 while playing bf3 to 51 which is only 6 higher than idle.

So yes, low rpm, albeit it with decent airflow but only having static pressure of 1.2mmH20 suck on a densely finned radiator

Knew I should have researched more into it when I bought them before, and found out more about static pressure on fans and what sort of rad's I had been supplied with years before.