Hardware What's the best 120mm case fan?

Pretty much confirms that fan stats are waste of space, where do they find the hats that companys pull their figures from ??? Buying fans has always been a crapshoot.

The old standby Thermaltake A1926 for me is sorely missing. Always knew the 31dBA rating at 2000rpm was crap but would like to know if they actually put out the rated 78cfm and how much they drop when rpm lowered.

I do wonder bout the static pressure build up and how it effects your test method tho. So many things effect that, would still be difficult to evaluate I guess. Filters, and spacers come to mind.

And like some others posted, would have been nice to see Enermax Apolish included. Yes, I admit the bling has caught my eye, lol. But also remember how quite the fan was in my Liberty PSU. Defunk now but that was modding mishap, not Enermax fault.

Thanks for the article, look forward to next. Now if companys would just get on the bandwagon and get out more 140mm's and get honest with their specs. Dreaming huh !!

 

On reading your article I browsed scans list of fans and found the noise levels on thier site match your readings, the Noctua NF-S12B ULN are rated at 6.8db 700rpm 56.9cfm which is ridiculously low, are the figures shown on scan, the manufacturers claims or scans claims because this seems like a very bold claim and might not be correct. if they are correct I'm getting some asap.

 

I love fan reviews, but this one is very disappointing. The methodology is clearly flawed. Yes, my favorite fans, the Noctuas, lost miserably, but that's not why The fan has to build up a higher pressure to keep the bag inflated than it does merely to circulate air. What this test is doing is akin to trying to "inflate" a glass bottle by blowing in the mouth, then complaining when not enough air passes.

If you want quiet airflow you need a) quiet fans that, all other things being equal, flow as much more more air as the competition, quieter, and b) unobstructed airflow on the input and output side of the system.

I hope that Bit Tech comes up with a more scientific test. As it stands now I've seen better experiments from high school science classes.

 

Same here. I wasn't totally sure when I ordered them as there are so many options out there, but they seem to do a good job of cooling my pc's without shouting about it. They were a lot cheaper at the time so I fitted them in both pc's and have a couple spare

 

no yate loons.

disappoint.

 

Why no review of coolermaster fans? I jstu recently picked up a 4-pack of 120mm for only 15 bucks here in the us. I was quite pleased with the noise level and it feels like its pulling a decent amount of air to me. All in all though a very interesting article! keep up the good work guys!

 

This article is the worst thing I have ever read... let me explain, I now have no excuse not to buy 2 or 4 scythe GTs. Damn you bit tech!

 

The Nexus Real Silent is a rebranded Yate Loon afaik.

 

Nice article, was actually looking for one to replace the noisy fan on the side of my cm690 case.

 

"Yes there is a slight resistance from the bag, but it's actually very small and far from the glass bottle effect you described, as the bag stays in pretty much the same shape when you turn the fan off."

Weigh the bag on a scale. In your model, probably about 3/4 of that weight must be born by the air column generated by the fan. That weight is pushing back on the air in the bag. I'm not any kind of physicist so I can't comment much more, but I'd think that atmospheric pressure is trying to push the air back out of the bag as well.

Finally, wondering aloud, pulling air through a radiator rather than blowing it through (and into a captive container) as you're doing seems to be unlike what your experiment represents.

 

I'm a bit confused here. Great article. Read it in CPC. Best review yet!

However, i was reading the comments on the article and in CPC #36, you reviewed the S-FLEX E fan from Scythe. According to the mod, he got 61CFM @ 25dB. With that said then, wouldn't that be best recommended over the Gentle Typhoon AP-14 as it had the same CFM, but @ 28dB?

Not too mention the S-FLEX range has a lot better static pressure than the Gentle Typhoons, & "Fluid Dynamic Bearing" technology.

 

The Gentle Typhoons actually produce much better static pressure in real world testing, and while the S-FDB bearings are nice, the GTs have some of the best balanced bearing you'll find anywhere, leading to a much different pitch (a much lower pitch) when compared to most fans, so 28dB doesn't sound anywhere near as loud as the 25dB produced by the S-FLEX fans (this being my own experience, of course).

 

For extreme airflow: Get some delta's and earplugs...

If you have a window, and replace the space with all delta fans pushing air outside, you would probably be suffocated within a hour!

 

Im surprised you didnt hit up any silverstone fans. I swear by them, granted they are a tad noisy. But with a rheostat that mine came with, it is just a turn of the dial and it quiets it right down. Plus these fans move a lot of air.

 

the noctua pf 12 is more silent when its revvin' at max speed?

 

Since the last case fan lab test (not this time), the Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 served me well till to day. Very nice to see it still one of the good fan this time.

 

It would have been nice to see some standard fit fans from different case manufacturers as a base reference, but acknowledge that would have added more work testing, and maybe have been difficult to get hold of.

 

+1! I had two 60mm Delta "Screamers" as heatsink fans on my old VP6 (I was into dual processors before dual cores were cool! ) and the noise they made was horrendous. When they were described as "Screamers", they weren't far wrong. Even at half power on a fanbus they still made a hell of a racket.

 

Good article. I would of liked to have seen the Silent Eagle SE reviewed especially as its the successor to one of your recommended fans. Also it looks like you should have included some models from the last set of tests. “SFF21F moved 76cfm at 33.7dBA” which might beat the Gentle Typhoon 50.2cfm at just 21dbA for best airflow to noise if attached to a fan controller.