Morning, As summer approaches (finally), I am finding my computer getting a little bit more toasty than wanted(I would rather not down clock or open the case) As I know virtually nothing about fans, 120mm to be exact, I was wondering who could help me recommend some really good quietish but powerful fans for my case. I need one for the side panel, 2/3 for the back and top on the case, and 2 for the front of the case. I would prefer not to spend £20 for fan. But you can convince me then I will
This is also handy - sort by price, CFM or noise. Nanonixa deep silence seem great at £9, 60 CFM and 14dBA.
this is the way IMHO the case cooling should be handled (No PSU involved and CPU cooling flow bottom to top ) 1 single fan: at the front blowing in 2 fan system: 1 front + 1 top sucking out 3 fan system: as above but with 2 front fan basically you want positive pressure so the air in should be driven by more powerful models. thermocontrolled fans like the inexpensive Arctic TC are worth a try, alternatively you can use the MB sensors to drive a PWM model...
Placement is really important. I find it best to have all the air moving one direction. Which direction works best to each case can vary... but generally I find that with most boards having the majority of components in east/west that having the airflow the same works best. If you can use PWM fan, then use them as they are much better at being variably controlled (though some motherboard have AWFUL fan curves which are often not user configurable). Always more intake fan than outtake fan, or when it's not possible have a stronger and/or larger intake than outtake at least. Following those guidelines, even my current home server which has only a passive heatsink on it's Xeon x3460 is quite happy temp wise with some bitfenix BFF-BLF-P12025G-RP in 2 in 1 out in a Raidmax Hyperion case. Most of the time they are running on low speed and are pretty much silent. At load when the temp rise they spin up to full and have little hum but are still more than reasonable. I have a similar set up on my sig rig... though in a rush I just got some of the cheap nzxt fans 2x140 for the front and used the 120 the case came with for the rear. Those fans do adequate job cooling, but are very noisy compared to the bitfenix in my server. I think I will be replacing them soon.
Yeah, that is also pretty cool (no pun), but aren't they just using manufacturers ratings? Those don't really mean a thing compared to a standardised across the board test.
Quite possibly. I just use the tables to identify fans that might be reasonable, then look at detailed reviews elsewhere .
