I am need to purchase three 120mm fans and I am looking for recommendations on brand and models. I am considering the following fans: Silenx IXP-74-14 120x120x25mm rated dba 14 rpm 1400 cfm 72 Silenx XP-76-18 120x120x38mm rated dba 18 rpm 1400 cfm 90
Do NOT buy Silenx fans. I used a few of the 80mm and 92mm fans, and this is what I learned: 1. The rated dba is a whole bunch of BS. When I went only to see why my brand new super silent fans were so loud, I found many complaints about false ratings. 2. Silenx customer service is responsive - up to a point. If you complain about a product, they'll send you a replacement to get rid of you. If you ask any questions, forget about getting any type of informative response. I guess they factor in free replacements into the high cost of the fans. 3. Silenx fans die way too quickly. I've had a video card fan, and ALL my 80mm and 92mm fans die on me. In the same machines, I've had Antec, Zalman, Silverstone, and Yate Loon fans, and not ONE of them died, so it is definitely not the operating conditions or environment of my computers. So, in short, stay away from Silenx. They rip you off with high prices and fake ratings, which wouldn't be terrible if the product was of high quality, but they make junk products. If you want a quiet fan that can provide the flow rate they claim at the dba they quote, look at Yate Loon fans. In the US, jab-tech and petra's tech shop sell them, as do some of the other major modding sites. There are other decent 120mm fans out there, but at higher prices. If you're willing to spend the money, consider Antec or Silverstone 120mm fans. Both of the retailers I mentioned have a decent selection. I also specifically mentioned Yate Loon fans, because you can choose the model you want based on how fast (noisy) you want the fans to operate. I use the slow speed ones, and they are whisper quiet - MUCH quieter than the Silenx fans I had with 14dba rating. So how is it that a 25dba fan is quieter than a 14dba fan under identical conditions? That's something that noone from Silenx will ever offer a straight answer to, although I invite them to try.
Listen to Stuey, he's right on with the Silenx fans. Also, Yate Loons are great. You can also check out some of the Scythe models as well.
Scythe, Nexus, and Yate Loons are all completely brilliant. They don't push a huge amount of air, but they are very quiet and dominate pretty much everything else in terms of airflow to noise ratio. If you want a bit more airflow and aren't obsessing over noise, you might want to grab some Antec Tricools, which are cheap, of pretty tolerable quality, and have a 3-speed switch that ranges from 'moderately quiet' to 'decent airflow.'
INteresting topic to come up since i was just about to start a thread like this to figure out whatfans i should get myself not meaning to thread hijack here either but since i was looking for 120mm fans too i figure it would help you too Anyone got any thoughts on Nocturna fans and Coolermaster fans? , been tossing up between paying extra for one or just going for the cheaper option myself since some of the CM fans have some good specs, stuff like the silent blue led fan is supposed to put out 90CFM at 19dbA http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php...d=8022&zenid=6b8d164a2df742b008720250bec11ee7 thats the fan Ideally the balance would have to be between noise and airflow since ill be moving my PC to near where i sleep soon, and ive considered getting some fan controller and using that to control noise/airflow for what the time calls for, any suggestions for some good cheap controllers? sometihing that can handle 6 fans would be good! Cheers (and sorry for asking in your threa dmate hope you dont mind)
yate-loons if you're cheap, noctuas if you've got the cash. i splurged and got all noctuas for my main rig, it's barely audible right now. just a quality product all round. and for a quarter the price, yate-loon fans are very close to the same performance. i would suggest against antec tricools, they're cheap and move a lot of air, but they don't seem to last very long. the motor gets loose and starts to rattle. it happened on all the fans that came in my p180.
I've not been terribly impressed with the CoolerMaster fans that I have come across. They aren't complete rubbish (fine as stock fans) but I wouldn't actively go out and buy them. Scythe fans are what I tend to use in builds, or if someone doesn't want to spend that much, the Sharkoon Golf Ball range are also very quiet.
I bought a Noctua P12 for my Tuniq and the I personally thought the fan was awsome, bit on the pricey side though. they draw a lot of air through and it quieter than all the other fans in my system even on full power... Crispy: what kind of case do you have? If its got a filter or something infront of the intake you might need a fan with high static pressure, e.g the P12's (this is something that became evident with the P182 the aupplied antec fans draw barely any through the filters compared to the p12 and the stock fan off the tuniq tower)
Some things are just impossible by the laws of physics in this universe; that is one example, if they were testing to the standard specification. As it is, I guess they measure the noise from 10m away, not 1m. Best bet is to get the Yate-Loon 'L' models and a basic fan controller such as the Sunbeam. That way you can tweak to get optimum conditions, summer or winter.
Yes, totally agree. 90 CFM at 19dBA is plain ridiculous. A good site to visit for this stuff is Silent PC Review, and even there the best fans can output no more than 30 CFM at that kind of sound level. To get 90 CFM, a 120 mm fan will have to spin at least 2000 RPM, maybe more, no matter how the blades are designed. At that sort of speed, you'll be getting 30 dBA if you're lucky. @ OP: I second the Yate-Loon fans or the Nexus ones, (which are rebranded Yate-Loons afaik).
Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I looked over some of the suggested brands at both Petra's and Jab-tech and many were cheaper than the ones I had been looking at. I wondered if Silenx was fudging their cfm ratings since I have one and it seems to put out significantly less than the wornout cooler master that it replaced. The pc case in question is an older Cooler Master. The idea is to replace the left side panel with a 3" (75mm) thick fan and filter assembly. The fans will not be tight against the filter so the entire area of the filter will be used to supply the four fans. The output of two of the four fans will directed into plastic duct work that will supply air directly to the cpu cooler, the video card, hard drives and memory. The idea is to eliminate the two fans for the hard drives, the two fans for the memory, the two inlet fans and the one exhaust fan. This will reduce the total fans from 10 to 3 remaining fans (cpu, graphic card and power supply) and reduce the dust inside the pc. This is the filter that I am considering, unless I can find a slightly larger 16x16 (406.4mm x 406.4mm x 25.4mm) BluePoint filter
Yate Loons are definitely one of the best, because they are excellent quality and cheap at the same time. There have been reports of extremely large sample variance, however; apparently, Petra's has better Yates than other stores [something about getting them straight from YL, etc etc. You can look into it if you want Yates]. If you want something even slower/quieter than the D12SL-12 [low speed Yate], the Nexus Real Silent 120mm is a rebranded and recolored Yate Loon at 1000 RPM instead of the 1200 of the SL. Scythe S-Flex and Slipstreams are nice [and come in a lot of speeds], as are Noctuas, but they're both more expensive than Yate Loons. Noctua's fans are supposed to be some of the best fans you can get, but are expensive... $20 each, compared to $5 or less for Yate Loons.
We'll be getting some Enermax ones in. Enermax has its own fan factory now and they are pushing them in a big way (no doubt Mo will be along to pimp them since he works for Enermax UK ). We don't review fans apart from the on our desk and we'll cover them next time for #14 but that's not due for a while yet. Personally I'd get Panaflo (still) because the ones I bought in 2002 are STILL running well, or, Noctua because the quality is second to none and noise rating is genuine. Sythe fans are super super quiet but shift no air what-so-ever. A lot of people rate Nexus fans but I've never used one. Cooler Master are pretty good but feel low quality and Akasa is higher quality, and a sort of mid-range balance between very quiet (not silent), decent but not exceptional quality and good price imo. Other good fan manuf. are Sayno Denki (!!), YS Tech and Delta, but neither specifically manuf. "silent" branded ranges - they're more OEM. My personal favourite of the three is the Denki's for making superb quality, meaty hurricane bad-boys. Deltas are crazy, but SDs have another level of balance and quality imo.
Are Papst still about? Or are they another branding of Panaflo? Have 3 from an abandoned w/c cooling project from years ago still bagged up on my 'mod/junk-shelf'
Panaflo are Panasonic Industrial Fan division. Papst are German and another great fan company, even if I haven't seen them in a while. I think many companies have gone more OEM rather than trying to compete with the cheap Chinese "modding" **** of "lighty fans" everywhere.
I can vouch for the Noctuas, they're not the cheapest out there and I'm not too keen on the colour scheme but they are VERY quiet. I replaced all the standard fans in my Antec p182 and they are a lot quieter and the system temps are the same, just need to sort out the GTX280's jet engine of a fan now....
I'm using zalman fans which aren't silent but they're 2000rpm hooked into my fan controller, out of the choices they seemed the best bet (and cheap too). I've used nexus in the past which are really really quiet but if you have temperature issues or want to overclock maybe not the best choice. I'd recommend them for a HTPC or something. Of course, 2x120 intake and 2x120 going out, I think they'd be fine as long as there was no heatspots in your case of trapped air. As much as I like the noctuas I think it's too much to pay for the relatively small benefits unless you really have a wad of cash to spend.
