120mm fans for case and heatsink
I would like to replace the fans in my case with some newer and better versions.
1 for outtake and 2 on the heatsink, all 120mm's, does anyone have suggestions please?
I have three of these in my saved basket now, I selected them because they are transparent, red lights, airflow is high and has an fair noise ratio compared to the others, 3 of these was like £21
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...af0030-1800rpm
While this one is a lot cheaper and still has a good airflow, but loses out in everything else, but three of these are only £10.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...fdb%29-1000rpm
Finally we have this one, it has a red light but has a black cage which I don't think will look good on the heatsink as the clear one, it's airflow and noise is good and it's cheaper then the first one listed.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...quiet-case-fan
This is a picture of my PC, few months old now, the 2 fan unit is bolted inside now, feeding air to my 6950. The main intake fan is disconnected since it's making a huge noise, that needs replacing as well, but that's for an other day since I need to strip the HDD cage out to get to the top screws to remove the front. :/
I was thinking with 2 on the heatsink all sucking with the rear case fan sucking as well, it should reduce temps really well, currently my Q6660 is about 47"c to 51"c idling.
http://www.game-maps.net/staff/iron/.../Sdc10676a.jpg
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
If it were me pal first thing I'd do sort out your cable management as it's none existent, It is disrupting your airflow.
Also I would discard that two fan thingy-me-bob and get a quality intake fan instead.
For intake/outake fans these would be a good choice
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...blades-1300rpm
For your heatink these
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...pm-cooling-fan
Maybe you could reapply some quality thermal paste and reseat your cooler while your at it.
Doing the above and having a tidy case should help you in keeping your temps down.
Just my 2 cents.:)
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
I have owned several thunderblades over the years and they are not silent, quiet but not silent.
I currently runt he bitfenix spectres on my case and water cooling and they are brilliant for the money. The sythe gentle typhoon would be better for your heatsink though but costs way more.
I have to agree with Pooley as to tidy up your cables and resteat your heatsik with some fresh thermal paste and that will make a difference to your temps as well
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
Scythe Slipstreams are good according to SPCR, I ran them with 5V adapters and they ran completely silently - can't testify to airflow but it's all about the speed they run at ultimately.
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
I just purchased 2x Alpenfohn wingboost 120mm fans for my Corsair H60, They offer a great noise to airflow ratio
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
SPCR is very good reading esp on fans.
One thing that their 2 big reviews showed up is rpm is the key factor, in both air flow and noise
As part of their tests they run all the tested fans at a fixed CFM and record the speed and noise.
the lowest was 740rpm and the highest was 860rpm, sound levels went from 19db to 25db, now granted the fans in a pc are generally running at a fixed voltage not rpm, but the point is still there, rpm is the primary factor that effects noise and CFM
So a fan with a higher rpm will move more air but will also make more noise.
Older fans actually tend to have better air flow but are noisier than newer fans because the current trend is lower rpm for less noise.
These combined with better ventilated cases means you can lower the noise without greatly impacting cooling.
A new case might be a better move looking at how much stuff you're packing into that relatively small case.
The BitFenix fans are great value for money but depending on what your current fans are you may well reduce the cooling in your current case.
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
I do plan on upgrading to a newer case later in the year, something like the Fractal Design Define XL, Consair 800D or the Cooler Master HAF X, still undecided yet, but one of them will allow me to change my motherboard and parts later.
The fans I have now are pretty much your standard everyday case fans, at the moment, there is only two 120mm fans, one rear fan and the heatsink, the two 80mms's are feeding air to the fan for the 6950 and that's it! The intake fan is disconnected since it was making a nasty noise but even then, the whole front is taken up with HDD's, other then three empty slots at the top.
The case itself has no cable management aspects, so I have to make the best of it, but I hid most of the wires behind the motherboard and HDD cage.
I brought 12 80mm fans a while ago on eBay for like £12 and plan on using them soon as I get the cables to power them, plan on using them like this.
http://www.game-maps.net/staff/iron/.../SDC10693a.jpg Also had a idea of putting two at the top, but I still haven't worked out how to remove the top yet.
Thanks for the suggestions, still waiting for a item or two to come into stock at scan before I can place some orders.
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
I find the sharkoon golf ball type silent eagle fans brilliant. Bought them after reading a custom pc review a few years back and they move a huge volume of air. Very quiet little things too.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm...quiet-case-fan
I dont know if new fans are any better but I find these second to none. Drastically reduced the noise in my rig.
PS: It's like a rat's nest in your case, like someone mentioned, you'd probably be better off getting a new larger case with better cable management. At the moment the amount of hardware and wayward wires are severely hampering your airflow. My old Antec P182 was brilliant and one of the first for the cable management partition but many cases these days have it as standard now, in fact my new Lancool K60 also has it!
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
I just noticed something, does it matter if the fans on the CPU are 4pins or not so the motherboard can control the fan speed when it needs too instead of it being 3pin and running at full speed?
This has put a spanner in what to buy now. :s
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
Ahhh the golf ball, there we has a great example of fudging numbers.
That's not to say it's a bad fan, it's not, however it's also not 2000rpm it's about 1600rpm, but they claim that the blade design gives it the equivalent air flow of a 2000rpm fan and went so far as to adjust the rpm sensor feed as well, this also happens with some 11 bladed fans too.
This is one major factor with fans, you cannot trust the manufactures numbers for CFM and dBA.
CFM and dBA are very bad because there's no one definate test for them and the numbers can be greatly altered depending on the testing setup.
Use them as very rough guides and most fans from the same company can be compaired to other fans from the same company, but not always.
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
Quote:
Originally Posted by
IronWarrior
I just noticed something, does it matter if the fans on the CPU are 4pins or not so the motherboard can control the fan speed when it needs too instead of it being 3pin and running at full speed?
This has put a spanner in what to buy now. :s
3pin vs 4pin PWM fan
It depends, I see you have an ASUS motherboard, most Asus motherboards can control a 3pin fan as well (check your BIOS)
a 4pin PWM fan should have a far greater level of control and will not suffer from motor whine (which is caused by reduced voltages)
However I say "should" because it depends on the level of PWM control in the BIOS and or software.
It's common on many new board now that BIOS PWM control is very rough with fine control done via software from within the OS
The two main down sides of a 3pin control is because it's done by reducing the voltage to the fan you can get motor whine and there is a minimum voltage thresh hold, below which the fan doesn't start.
The Akasa Apache is still the best PWM fan I've used to date, I've got a pair of them on my hyper212+ atm
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pob255
Ahhh the golf ball, there we has a great example of fudging numbers.
That's not to say it's a bad fan, it's not, however it's also not 2000rpm it's about 1600rpm, but they claim that the blade design gives it the equivalent air flow of a 2000rpm fan and went so far as to adjust the rpm sensor feed as well, this also happens with some 11 bladed fans too.
This is one major factor with fans, you cannot trust the manufactures numbers for CFM and dBA.
CFM and dBA are very bad because there's no one definate test for them and the numbers can be greatly altered depending on the testing setup.
Use them as very rough guides and most fans from the same company can be compaired to other fans from the same company, but not always.
Interesting information there Pob. I bought them on the basis of a group test article in a copy of custompc a few years back where they tested a range of fans on the same rig. It seemed to out perform every other fan in the group test which is why I decided to go for them, it's not so much manufacturers figures that I relied on. Nonetheless regardless of 1600 or 2000rpm I still stand by the product, it's a great fan and is a hell of a lot quieter than the stock fans I had with the case at the time.
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
RichieLee, do you find your Golfs to be loud?
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
Back when I built my intel rig I put the main culprit of noise in my standard rig to be the standard CPU cooler I had at the time, the thing made a racket. The standard supplied case fans were quite loud too.
I upgraded to an arctic cooler 7pro and a couple of the sharkoon golf ball fans. Sound was then very quiet and nigh on non existent. Of course it's not completely silent, but no noticeable whining or any annoying noise from the fans really. I'd comfortably sleep with the pc left on. Even at full load whilst playing games it wasn't very loud at all, even then it was the heatsink fan that made the most noticable noise, the golfball fans are great imo.
Also Bear in mind I had all this in an antec p182 case. It's a very well enclosed and sound proofed case to be honest and more aimed towards a quiet system as opposed to a gamer's system which is designed for max airflow. I've now got a Lancool case which I'm interested to compare noise levels because there's a lot of mesh in the front of the case, hopefully wont get as dusty as the antec though!
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pob255
A new case might be a better move looking at how much stuff you're packing into that relatively small case. ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
IronWarrior
I do plan on upgrading to a newer case later in the year ...
Then don't upgrade your fans and cooling now - wait to see how much of an impact the new case has when you move over. I honestly don't think new fans are going to help much: with that cooler and any fan you should be idling well under 50c - my old Q6600 on an intel stock cooler, in a cheap mid-tower with a single 80mm rear exhaust fan ran cooler than that at idle. Actaully, I'd be tempted to reseat the cooler just to be sure it's on properly. Either way, if you're going to be significantly changing the environment the components are in it makes no sense to spend more money now on fans that you might not need or want in a new case. Hold off for a bit, keep that money in the bank, and it'll pay for a reasonable chunk of the new case when the time comes.
Re: 120mm fans for case and heatsink
I have to concur with Jim. I think the best way to go about it is a larger case first. Really, you seem to have plenty enough fans as it is, if temps aren't getting any better then more fans wont solve the problem. With a bigger space, better cable management and therefore airflow I'd say the temps would drop much more than just a couple of fans. It's pretty bunched up and crammed in there IronWarrior.