best quiet 120 mm Fans with decent airflow

[kopite]

Hey all,

I`m looking at getting some quiet fans for my Silverstone Fortress FT03B.

Whilst the fans in there atm are ok they do get a bit noisy.

So what do you all recomend?

Also I have the Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced cooler. Would the fan on that be worth changing as well?

Also also I have a PowerColor HD 6950 PCS++ graphics card. and recomendations on 3rd party coolers for it that would help reduce noise further?

Thanks in advance

[GoNz0]

noctua if you can afford them.

[kopite]

Which one?

Looking at scan there is Noctua NF-S12B and Noctua NF-P12

[GoNz0]

p12's

[Barrichello]

I have the S12, whisper quiet....

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...29-cooling-fan

[GoNz0]

i prefer the 9 blade p 12 as its got much better airflow under pressure.

[Pob255]

Personally I find them a bit overrated, they are good build quality but I wasn't massively impressed.
The S12 (older non-B version) is low noise at 1200rpm, but not really that much quieter than any other fan at 1200rpm, drop the speed and it's near silent, but again so is almost any other fan below 1000rpm.

Below 1200rpm and motor/bearing noise is louder than the fan air flow noise, my S12 does have a very slight ticking when slowed, which means it's quieter than most of the other fans I've looked at/tested, this is one area where cost and quality do show, still it's a lot of money for a small improvement.

I'd start off by slowing the fans down slightly and seeing what effect that has on both sound and air flow.

I'm guessing it's using the basic Silverstone FN121, newer version 1200rpm.
(I've got a couple of the original FN121 and they used to be 1600rpm and molex only.)
They are a decent basic 9 bladed sleeve bearing fan, know down the rpm a bit and they get very quiet.

PS kopite, I posted on your screw thread, if none of them are any good for your needs let me know and I'll have another dig.

[kopite]

I`m not sure if I can change the speed of fans in the bios on my motherboard but i`ll have a look.

If I can do that then it will be a good solution

[Pob255]

Well a simple slot controller should work fine (it's only two fans isn't it?) http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asete...otherboard-kit
or some resistor adaptors http://www.scan.co.uk/products/zalma...r-3-pin-fan%29 or http://www.scan.co.uk/products/shark...m-and-noise%29
I'd go with the sharkoon 9.5v over the zalman 5v because going to 5v is a big drop, around a 50-60% drop in rpm, if it was a 1600-2000rpm fan it would be ok, but for a 1200rpm fan that's a bit too aggressive and would cost too much air flow.
Of course an adjustable controller would be best

[kopite]

Just been looking at the manual for my mobo and it comes with a bit of software called Fan Xpert.

There are 3 case fans in the case and then a fan on the CPU cooler and the GPU coolers.

I`m gonna have a mess about with the fan xpert software tomorrow when I get home.

if I can get those fans slowed down all thats left then is the gpu cooler.

[kopite]

Well I`ve used Face xpert that came with my motherboard and have all my fans running much quieter now. THere is still some noise so Its looking like the GPU cooler is making the racket hmmmm

[bobfoc]

Look into the Scythe Gentle Typhoon range.

Got six 1450rpm ones in my system and they're quieter than my cat wearing slippers!

They also push a decent amount of air and aren't too mental in price.

Never been a big fan of Noctua fans though as several I've bought started becoming noisy after a year and although extremely quiet, pushed as much air as a mouse farting