Pob's (mini) LED fan round up

[matty-hodgson]

Sound damping foam, does help reduce the noise, esp resonence within a case and not by a great deal.
It does depend a lot on the fans, case and setup.
The only stuff I've used is Akasa PaxMate, which is not highly rated by reviews as the best of stuff, it's too thin & light density to have that big an effect.
However it is far cheaper than the thicker or higher density stuff like Acoustipack and it is sold is far more places. I've got mine from Scan.
Acoustipack is the stuff spcr recomends for real silence nuts, short of removeing all the fans from a pc in the first place.

so you're saying that your stuff is decent but there's better, but more expensive stuff out there?
i don't mind spending a bit more on the stuff tbh, cos i know i'll be keeping this case for a while.
components will come and go but the fans and stuff will stay, and hopefully be very quiet .

Ooo that's a fairly nice review, they don't go as far into the test setup details as the spcr round ups, but it does include LED fans.

The reason I started this thread was because I wanted some decent & quiet LED fans for my Casecom 6788 and I couldn't find any round ups for LED fans, so I thought that while I was going to buy some anyway I might as well run a test.
I've done this with other fans as well, mainly to show that you don't need to spend £12+ on a fan when you can get some fans which are almost as good for half the price.

yeah, i based my recent fan purchase on that .
decided to go for these for the 120mm's
and this for the 140mm.

they're incredibly quiet when used with my fan controller, even at full whack they're much quieter than my old fans, and they shift more air .

[Pob255]

First round results

Air flow test, same test as before

Original resaults
Antec Tri-cool (low) = 15.5 seconds
Antec Tri-cool (medium) = 7.5 seconds
Antec Tri-cool (high) = 4 seconds
Casecom KM-6788 stock fan = 13 seconds
ACRyan Blackfire4 = 5 seconds
Akasa crystal (ball baring) = 4.5 seconds
ThermalTake Cyclo = 6 seconds
Lian-Li CF-1409A = 13 seconds
Xclio cooling fan extreme = 17.5 seconds

@ 12volts
CoolerMaster = 7 seconds
Xigmatek = 5.5 seconds
Yate Loon = 7 seconds
Xilence = 5 seconds
@5Volts
CoolerMaster = 32 seconds
Xigmatek = 20 seconds
Yate Loon = 34 seconds
Xilence = 18 seconds

Ok I should retest my Tri-cool to make sure there's no other factors coming in here, and I may well do so before I do my audio tests.

I must say these numbers are very promising and I couldn't hear a couple of these at 5v when my head was just 2 feet away duering the test.

One thing that also shows up clearly is that the 9 bladed design of the Xlience can cope far better with the back pressure generated and while very close to the higher rpm Xigmatek at 12v it definately pulls ahead at 5v.

Well I'll be back after dinner at some point with the sound results, unless there's a good film on TV and I cannot get the quiet I need for these tests.

[Pob255]

2nd round tests part two: Sound tests

This has been a real tricky one esp the 5volt tests, I have literally risked my ear and holding a fan right next to each ear to try to tell which of these is the loudest.

12 volt list (loudest to quietest)
Tri-cool (high)
Tri-cool (medium)
Xigmatek
Xilence
Coolermaster
Yate-loon
Tri-cool (low)

Every fan made less noise than the tri-cool on medium, however none could quite match it on low although the Yate-loon and Coolermaster came very close.
There was no noticeable bareing or motor noise from any of them.

5 volt list (loudest to quietest)
Tri-cool (high)
Tri-cool (medium)
Tri-cool (low) / Xigmatek
Yate-loon
Xilence / Coolermaster

At 5 volts they all put the tri-cool to shame, however now bareing and motor noise did start to come in.
It was the Xilence & Coolermaster that gave me the most trouble, I think the Coolermaster should just edge the Xilence out as the Xilence was making a louder Ticking sound, but as I could only hear it when the fan right within a couple of cm to my ear I'm calling it a draw.
One thing to not that while none of the fans had any real feelable vibration both the Xigmatek and Xilence set up resonence Buzz when free standing on there side on my coffee table.

Cooler Master LED Silent Fan - This fan has been a bit of a star in this test on the motor/bareing noise front, It's just not there, at 5v I can just hear a Ticking with my ear almost getting chopped off by the blades.
On oddity, when the fan is horizontal, pointing down (ie blowing air downwards, a rare occurence in a computer case) there is a "Shuff, Shuff, Shuff," noise, hard to describe.
This Shuffing only occured at 12v pointing down, any other angle it didn't happen.
I can only assume that the weight of the blades is pulling the hub down slightly and this Shuffing is caused by the air comming off the blades and hitting the slight rise of the LED's in the Struts, which do stick up slightly.

Xigmatek Crystal - Not much I can say here, The xigmatek was the fan with the highest RPM and is showed, it's not a slient fan but it is quiet, at 12v it could push more air for less noise than the Tri-cool on medium, at the same time it is higher pitched than the tri-cool.
At 5volts there was a definate Buzzing and a Ticking which let the Tri-cool on low draw equal to it, it was the motor and bareing that let's it down.
Also the high pitched resonence buzz at 12v is not great, I'll have to check if this would be an issue when screwed into a case.

Yate Loon D12SL - At full 12v the yate loon just manages to edge out the Coolermaster for the quietest fan and comes close to the Tri-cool on low, of the 4 LED fans this is the lowest in pitch.
Under 5 volts there is a issue, the yate loon developes a loud(ish) Ticking that lets it down, the Tri-cool on low almost catches it, when held right up to the ear the tri-cool does beat it, however that ticking doesn't carry as well and when they are ~30cm from the ear the drone of the tri-cool is more noticeable.

Xilence XPF - The Xilence has surprised me, the best airflow results (not surprising due to the blades) but goign from the 2nd loudest at 12v to the joint quietest at 5v
The Humm from this fan is definately a higher pitch but at 5 volts the sound just melts away, you can only hear a slightl Ticking when your ear is right up close to it.
This fan also has a high pitched resonence buzz at both 12v and 5v, again I'll have to check if this would be an issue when screwed into a case.
Although the use of rubber fan mounting plugs should stop any resonence from both this and the Xigmatek.

[Pob255]

Summery,

These ARE the fan you're looking for.



These 4 fan are indeed what I was after, some thing that can beat the Tri-cool on medium in both airflow and noise, while at the same time having nice pretty glows and not costing over £10 a pop.

I've looked at Agressive and less-agressive shaped and pitched fan blades, while I've not coverend any of the more funky, notched, knobbled or twisted blades out there in the world of fans, these funky blades are far less common on LED fans and tend to belong to the far more expensive fans.
The one thing I have seen is that the less agressive blades do result in a lower pitched air flow sound, but does have a slight impact on air flow,
However more agressive blades can cope with back pressure far better and have much better static pressure.

If you want a quiet 120mm fan then the highest rpm I would consider is 1500rpm, 1200-1300rpm is better and the air flow will not suffer too much.
Dip to 1000rpm and you get near slient, however you do start to lose air flow in a major way and it's here where the bareings and motors on cheap fans can start to show their weekness.
While a low speed cheap fan is still quiet it can sound loud next to an expensive fan and the same sort of speed.
Before you ask where I'm getting that from, it's from fan not hear as they are not led fans, (Scythe S-Flex, Noctua NF-S12-1200, Akasa Apache) on all of them when the speed is knocked right down, there is no nasty Buzz or Ticking.

However all told thoes very expensive fans are for thoes who are chasing down silence and why would you want to have a pc that is slient but is glowing brighter than a xmass tree?

You can still get decent air flow, glowy light without having your pc sound like a vacum cleaner or costing you than your case did.

I'm now going to have to play around with these fan to see which one's I'll put in my Casecom 6788 and which will be apearing in a "forsale section" near hear.

Any questions reguarding these fans just ask.

[guannyeuc]

a quick question! haha funny cause i really wanted to know about the Antec Tricool... XP and that's the one that was least talked about! haha but anyways, ummm so would you consider the antec tricool to be bright? cause i have the Cooler Master Storm Scout case and the LED fans in there are really really dim.. which was quite disappointing... then yesterday, i got the Enermax Apollish.. but silver one... which was EXTREMELY BRIGHT! which is great... but it's still silver which does not suit the theme... >.< and also it's got the auto temp/fan speed control thing... so basically... it's never running at high speed =.=" i had to attach the the thermometer to my Video Card Heatsink to make it run just a little faster >.<

but nevertheless... i might just take the apollish out if the antec Tricool red is nice... and so i just wanted to ask if one of these would light up an entire case? cause the scout window is also minorly tinted black so it's got to be pretty bright inside for it to really show! =P PLEASE HELP! thanks! =)

also, would you know how i could attach the Antec Tricool to the Switch in the font panel of my CM Storm Scout? i really hope i can remove the stock fans and replace it with ANTEC!!! but not lose the option of using the LED on/off control! thanks again

-Guann