I have recently put together the rig in my signature but it is not as quiet as I would like. This I think is because I do not have enough control over the three fans. Using Speed fan I can lower the speed temporarily but as soon as I restart then I need to adjust again. Hence I am looking for three PWM fans to give me hopefully better control over speed . And they are: 1 x 140mm Blue LED PWM (4 pin) and 1 x 120 mm Blue LED PWM (4 pin). Suggestions are very welcome.
My vote would go for the BitFenix Spectre PWM models which can be found here; 120mm and 140mm. I've got the non-PWM versions of the 120mm and I find them very good. Just on the border of being noticeable but they still move a good bit of air.
I'm a big fan of the Sharkoon Silent Eagle fans here You can either use them PWM or, as I do, just plug them into a molex using one of the 4 other supplied cables to run them slower - there's "Standard" "Low Noise" "Silent" (which is the one that I use) or "Ultra Silent"
The enermax tb silence and tb abollish fans are brilliant, i got the 120mm pwm included with the t40 heatsink and it is almost silent (from 1 foot away) unless I am stress testing. They do 120mm and 140mm fans with blue LEDs so could be an option. http://www.enermax.co.uk/products/fans/tbapollish.html?L=2%2Fsearch.php
quiet at idle or quiet when doing stuff. The gpu is creating more noise than most of the rest of your build put together. That + the cpu cooler will be 90% of the total noise once the system is under load. No build should be silent under full load though, even water is not at that level. Cheapest way to fix it if you think its the case fans is to buy a speed fan controller they are about £8 for cheap ones that would do the job. Cheaper than buying 3 new fans at £10 a pop thats for sure. Personally think its the cpu fans and the gpu fans under load. The asus direct cu2 is not silent under load whatever it might say plenty of reviews on youtube prove that point once the fan hits 60% its producing plenty of noise. Same with the cpu cooler. But once again whats classed as quiet is really open to debate here. Below the noise barrier of 35db is virtually impossible in a system with moving parts. As you will still here the HDD if nothing else. Fans id buy if it was my money Noctua NF-F12 (120mm), they are virtually silent in my water cooling loop. The only disadvantage they have is cost at £15 a pop they are pretty expensive. NF-P14 ( 140mm ), Same as above, similar cost as well £15 a pop. but when you have already spent a small fortune to buy the case replacing the fans that came with it seems like a liberty to me. Quick edit Also of note when reading some reviews they all say the front 2 fans dont do alot of actual cooling, Resulting in higher fan speeds on graphics cards and Cpus, and thus creating more noise.
