I fancy getting some 120mm blue LED case fans for my PC as the top inlet fan broke and needs replacing anyway. I have never had to buy case fans before, can anyone shed some light? What makes are good or they all pretty much the same? Any reccomendations? Cheers guys
im running 5 of THESE in my case. dual ball bearing for smoothness and longevity, blue LED, good airflow, and not hugely expensive. whatever you get, dont skimp on them. you can buy fans for 2-3 bucks each, but you get what you pay for.
The main things to look at when considering fans are: Type of Bearings Size (120mm, 140mm, etc) Connector type (3-pin, PWM, Molex) RPM Air Flow (CFM) Air Pressure (mmH20) Current Wattage I'll let someone with more knowledge discuss the finer points of bearings for you Size, basically make sure you get the right size to fit your case. Connector, will you be connecting it to your motherboard headers? If so, do the support PWM fans (ie have 4 pins instead of 3)? RPM, faster speeds will push more air but will also be louder. Air flow, how much air does the fan push out? Typically for a case fan you would want something better than 45 CFM. Air pressure is more important if you are using the fans to cool a cpu heatsink or radiator as you would want more air pressure here. Current and wattage. if you are plugging your fans into the mobo, make sure each header has enough amps to support the fans you are getting. With all that said, I love my Cooler Master SickleFlow 120x25mm Super Silent Fan as they offer a good balance between air flow and low noise levels.
It might be just me, but I've got 2 of those fans sans LEDs and I think they're kind of loud. They do move tons of air though.
I use the anti-vibration silicon pads with mine so I think that helps quite a bit. Plus I have them all plugged into my mobo so they usually aren't running at full power.
You have to determine the perfect balence between taste, CFM, DBA and budjet. If you want blue fan (Or Green, Red, Purple Led): Gelid, Silverstone, Coolermaster, Silenx, Logysis, Zalman etc etc If you want unexpensive fans: Zalman(Respectable), Apevia, Masscool, Coolermaster(Not expensive but quiet and good - R4), Yate Loon (Oldschool), Logysis, Evercool If you want Quiet, reliable and dont care about the price: Noctua(Absolute silence), Papst (Hard to Find but great), Scythe(S-Flex with Sony bearing), Zaward (Discret and tough), Noiseblocker, Xilence, Nexus. 3Pin: The most common, can be plug in any fan controller. PWN 4pin: More accurate control on the RPM, longer life, compatible with 3pin plug. Most of the boards have only 1 or 2 PWN Plug (CPU Cooler), You will need a PWN hub if you have more. Molex: More trouble to have control of the RPM but Well..... at least it work. About the bearings, conventional sleeve will make noise sooner than others, SSO(Noctua), Duro(Zaward), some Dual-Ball, Nb-Nanosli (Noiseblocker), Ceramic Sleeve (Papst) will be more quiet and will live longer (Will cost more too). It's always a matter of taste, maybe what I call noise would be nothing for you & vice versa. PS:Silicon pads are effective if you have some vibrations due to the high RPM. You won't need it, exemple, with a 500 - 800 - 1200 RPM (there is some exception, of course) Now you know the CRUEL truth ^^
Fantastic thanks guys! I think I will go for the cooler master ones that were linked as I was looking at those anyway. They come as a 3 or 4 pin connector, trouble is the inlet fan coming out is 3 pin so thats fine, but the other fan is molex... Is there anything I can do about that? Edit: Found another connector so it's fine! Just order two, great stuff!
