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Thread: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

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    What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    I have been doing research upon research but I am starting to feel overwhelmed. I intend to get the Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 Window soon and want to buy approximately 8 fans for it, preferably with blue LEDs to light up the inside of the case. What I am looking out for is airflow and noise although longer warranties and such are always nice. I am currently considering the following fans:

    Aerocool Shark 14cm Quad LED 15 Blade Fluid Dynamic Bearing Fan - Blue

    Phanteks PH-F140SP 140mm Black Frame White Blade Blue LED Fan

    NZXT FZ-140mm LED Airflow Fan Blue Quiet

    Enermax Apolish Vegas UCAPV14A-BL 140mm Fan

    Am I missing a fan that trumps all of the above? Is there some crucial detail I should pay more attention to?

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Was looking at fans my self the other day and the Silverstone AP123.
    It focuses the air flow and their new fan blade design is suppose to reduce noise.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Quote Originally Posted by eyezpy View Post
    Was looking at fans my self the other day and the Silverstone AP123.
    It focuses the air flow and their new fan blade design is suppose to reduce noise.
    Unless I completely misunderstand how fans are supposed to work, aren't the airflow and sound level of that fan rubbish?

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeven View Post
    Unless I completely misunderstand how fans are supposed to work, aren't the airflow and sound level of that fan rubbish?
    Why do you say they're rubbish?

    And the main problem with these is that no-one does a particularly good job of reviewing fans and coolers, apart from SPCR, and they don't seem particularly proficient at doing new reviews sadly. My personal opinion is that as long as a heatsink is well-designed, the main driver of performance is going to be the quantity of metal and the quality of the fans. And the latter is primarily driven by RPM anyway.

    Also, you can invest for as long as you want in a really quiet CPU fan, but the GPU will almost always be louder so you have to question how much it's worth worrying about. Having said that, I appreciate that you'll still want to make sure you get a decent cooler for your money.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    I rate noctua fans as the best, but that's just because they've been so reliable for me. I would probably go with corsair on enermax though because they look good :$ *and perform really well
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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    The really big Noctuas are rated pretty highly across all reputable review sites, just gotta make sure your case can take it!

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    What is it that you're after?
    The thread title suggests a cpu heat sink/cooler but your post reads more like you're after case fans.

    There is no one best fan, because there are different tyoes of fans for different uses/requirements.
    The silverstone air penetrator fans are great if you need to push a path of air over a distance, the special grill on the back "shapes" the air vortex of the exhaust of the fan to create a long narrow cone.
    Silverstone did a great video to show the effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fC809TK0
    So what this type of fan is good for is as an intake that has to blow air across a relatively open area and at longer distances, eg in the front of a case that does not have hard drive bays or on the back side of hard drive bays, so it can blow that focused cone of air over the motherboard.
    As a case exhaust fan or a cpu cooler or radiator fan they are not so good, they are not bad but the air grill is doing nothing for it as you're blowing air into a restricted area (for cpu cooler/rad) or into empty space that doesn't need a narrow cone (case exhaust)
    The 2nd factor with them is that they have to run faster to get the air flow up to the speed that the effect occurs, slowing down the fan reduces the effect and the added restriction of the grill actually has a slight negative overall performance of them.

    Air flow, speed and noise are generally directly correlated, the faster the fan the more the air flow and the more the noise.
    However there are lots of other factors that get mixed in, one of them being that sound is subjective, what you call "too loud" someone else might call "acceptable" and vis versa, on top of that you have background noise, I hardly notice my fans a 6pm on a weekday but I'll notice the noise at 1am on a sunday, the fans are not any louder just the difference in background noise.
    Even the placement of your case an the fans within it have an effect.

    The Deep Silence 6 comes with 5 low rpm 140mm fans, so I'd suggest giveing them a try first before you consider replacing them, to light it up I think the best bet is to get some LED ribbon lights http://www.scan.co.uk/products/phoby...nnection-cable and just stick them in.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Quote Originally Posted by jim View Post
    Why do you say they're rubbish?

    And the main problem with these is that no-one does a particularly good job of reviewing fans and coolers, apart from SPCR, and they don't seem particularly proficient at doing new reviews sadly. My personal opinion is that as long as a heatsink is well-designed, the main driver of performance is going to be the quantity of metal and the quality of the fans. And the latter is primarily driven by RPM anyway.

    Also, you can invest for as long as you want in a really quiet CPU fan, but the GPU will almost always be louder so you have to question how much it's worth worrying about. Having said that, I appreciate that you'll still want to make sure you get a decent cooler for your money.
    Well, compared to fans like the Nanoxia Deep Silence 120mm Ultra Quiet PC Fan which, according to the specifications, has far higher airflow and far lower noise levels, it does make that Silverstone fan look a bit rubbish, no? Like I said, there may be something about air coolers/fans that I do not understand, so please correct me if I am wrong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pob255 View Post
    What is it that you're after?
    The thread title suggests a cpu heat sink/cooler but your post reads more like you're after case fans.

    There is no one best fan, because there are different tyoes of fans for different uses/requirements.
    The silverstone air penetrator fans are great if you need to push a path of air over a distance, the special grill on the back "shapes" the air vortex of the exhaust of the fan to create a long narrow cone.
    Silverstone did a great video to show the effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fC809TK0
    So what this type of fan is good for is as an intake that has to blow air across a relatively open area and at longer distances, eg in the front of a case that does not have hard drive bays or on the back side of hard drive bays, so it can blow that focused cone of air over the motherboard.
    As a case exhaust fan or a cpu cooler or radiator fan they are not so good, they are not bad but the air grill is doing nothing for it as you're blowing air into a restricted area (for cpu cooler/rad) or into empty space that doesn't need a narrow cone (case exhaust)
    The 2nd factor with them is that they have to run faster to get the air flow up to the speed that the effect occurs, slowing down the fan reduces the effect and the added restriction of the grill actually has a slight negative overall performance of them.

    Air flow, speed and noise are generally directly correlated, the faster the fan the more the air flow and the more the noise.
    However there are lots of other factors that get mixed in, one of them being that sound is subjective, what you call "too loud" someone else might call "acceptable" and vis versa, on top of that you have background noise, I hardly notice my fans a 6pm on a weekday but I'll notice the noise at 1am on a sunday, the fans are not any louder just the difference in background noise.
    Even the placement of your case an the fans within it have an effect.

    The Deep Silence 6 comes with 5 low rpm 140mm fans, so I'd suggest giveing them a try first before you consider replacing them, to light it up I think the best bet is to get some LED ribbon lights http://www.scan.co.uk/products/phoby...nnection-cable and just stick them in.
    Just a bunch of case fans for now. The CPU cooler will come soon enough!

    Thank you for your input. That video was quite informative, as was everything else you posted.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeven View Post
    Well, compared to fans like the Nanoxia Deep Silence 120mm Ultra Quiet PC Fan which, according to the specifications, has far higher airflow and far lower noise levels, it does make that Silverstone fan look a bit rubbish, no? Like I said, there may be something about air coolers/fans that I do not understand, so please correct me if I am wrong.
    I would ignore the specifications, they very rarely correlate to actual performance levels. Unless there's a very good quality review, i.e. SPCR, as I mentioned, then it's very difficult to compare fans with each other.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Ok there's a key point to manufactures specs on fans you haves to understand, they are near meaningless
    There are some that are ok eg physical size and rpm (although not always) but noise and airflow are not.

    The problem with cfm and dba ratings is that there is no standardized test or test environment for them, so different manufactures use different tests and get different results.

    Generally you can compare two fans from the same manufacture as they are likely to have been tested in the same way in the same environment, however many "brands" are not the actual manufacture so the might be tested in different ways.

    Go look at the SPCR reviews of fans, they are one of the best websites when it comes to fans, although I think there current 2010 test setup is more geared to cpu heatsink cooling than case fans, I think the older 2007 test setup with a sealed case and hot wire anemometer was better for comparing fans for case use.
    Here on of the key things they found time and again is that size*rpm = air flow in a relatively low restricted environment (ie a case) fancy blade shapes and such do little for cfm.
    SPCR do focus on noise over airflow and not just the dba but also the tone and pitch, as well as other sounds.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Here's some pictures of my intstalling a Noctua NH-D14 (considered one of the best air coolers as of September 2012). I must say it's a great cooler, albeit huge and pig ugly (beige and brown, seriously? )

    http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware-...-inc-pics.html

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    I wouldn't recommend an Aerocool shark except for exhaust. Doesn't seem to do very well if any pressure is needed. Also mostly blows air at the sides and little at the centre.

    I agree it's very easy to get overwhelmed searching for good fans. The specs are normally rubbish and reviews are often conflicting or hard to find.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Thank you all for the wonderful advice. I guess I won't go for any of the fans I mentioned, except maybe the Phanteks PH-F140SP. It sucks that there aren't any standardised tests for us to go by. I now have my eye on the Nanoxia Deep Silence 140 mm - 1.800 RPM fan and will probably stick with it.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Frostytech is good for cooler performance.

    Roundup here from hardware.fr

    http://www.hardware.fr/articles/874-...-120mm-dc.html

    I think I would go for scythe GTs if I was buying new fans.

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Silent PC did a two part round-up of 140mm case fans and they're only £6.39/ea on Amazon (make sure it's the 140mm though, apparently the 120mm version isn't so good and you'd have to look elsewhere).

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    Re: What is the definitive air cooler to get at the moment?

    Noctua fans are excellent, but the colour is butt-fugly. I've used Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000s in my 120mm slots for years and they've done a sterling job, but I have no idea if the 140mm version is as good - anyone know?

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