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120mm fan for thermalright xp-120

B

BigHurt

Senior member
ok, so im as indecisive as they come....

I cannot decide on which 120mm fan to stick on my thermalright xp-120.
I was looking at panaflo H1, U1 etc, but they dont have rpm sensor which i would find nice.
I dont want insanely noisy like i hear thermaltakes are (and from my volcano experiences on previous systems) but i want decent cfm, say 80+
Anyone have some good suggestions for me?

Thanks in advance..
 
More than one person besides myself has tried the SUNON KD1212PMB1-6A. It's a 120x38mm fan and a little on the heavy side, at 326 grams.

The "noise thing" is often a matter of subjective evaluation, but the SUNON offered top speed of 3,100 rpm and 108 CFM -- which prove to be accurate in their specs. There is just the slightest motor-noise at their top end, but I believe you can either resolve this with the slightest dab of teflon grease in the bearing access-hole, or it may just go away after being run for a couple days.

For the XP120, the thermal resistance is around 0.16 or 0.17 C/W, and load temperatures are effectively clamped by fans running in the low to upper 2,000-rpm range (below 3,000). I found that my chipset goes to a minimum temperature with the rpm's of my fan set to around 2,800 at idle.

You don't really need speed monitoring, and I forgot to say that the SUNON doesn't have it. Current vendors of the Panaflo 120x38mm "U" (Ultra-High) fan also state that their stock does not include tachometer monitoring.

Fans that DO include speed monitoring:

ThermalTake 120x25mm 94CFM Blue LED -- motor-whine at top end.
Silverstone 120x25mm 104CFM -- slightly less motor whine than the TT, but you can still hear something
The Enermax that Akira34 recommends.

I don't like the Enermax much, but Akira34 would be correct in saying it's quiet and adequate, as well as providing tach monitoring. I just want a bigger range of throughput myself, and the Enermax only draws 0.30 Amp. Further, it seems to fall short of its RPM rating, which implies with great certainty that it would also fall short on its CFM rating. That is, the two Enermaxes I tested were at least 200 or 300 rpm short of the stated specification, and I tested them on three different computers using both the motherboard fan headers and four-pin Molex PSU connectors.

Many people recommend Panaflo L1 or M1 120mm fans, and you may find tach monitoring there. But they don't offer as wide (high) a range of speed or throughput. You can control the speed with a utility like SpeedFan without having the speed-monitoring feature: selecting a fan speed of 60% at a certain temperature level and range controls the fan according to pulse-width-modulation, and the "control" does not utilize the fan-speed monitoring in any way.

I'm currently using a Delta triple-blade 120x38mm (for exact model name/number, see Sidewinder Computers at their web site). This fan may seem slightly noisy if you aren't using PaxMate and a motherboard duct, but under those circumstances, I cannot hear it at 2,800 rpm. It will run up to 3,700 rpm and 142 CFM at the top end, but I limit it to 88% of that speed and throughput -- the idle setting at 70%. It is too noisy even for me at top-end; I don't NEED 142 CFM to balance case exhaust. It DOES have tach monitoring, may be safe for control from some motherboards at a current-draw of 0.80 Amp. It weighs less than the SUNON mentioned above, at about 290 grams.

A light-weight 120x38mm fan is the YS-Tech (see FrozenCPU's ad). I THINK it had tach monitoring. It is rated to provide 125.5 CFM at top speed, but this is a lie, and I say that emphatically. Even so, it is reasonably quiet. There IS a motor-whine, but we have seen this disappear after a day or two's continuous operation, and barring that, a dab of teflon grease should help in the bearing-access hole. . . .
 
JBDan and readers:

I think you will find that a fan on the XP120 with rpm and throughput as low as that Silenx will give you chipset temperatures in excess of 4 or 5C higher than a fan running above 2000 rpm. Also, throughput below a certain level on a given cooler will effectively increase the thermal resistance of the cooler, for lack of sufficient air-flow, thus leading to higher load temperatures. On the other hand, throughput-increases for fans and a given heatsink can exceed a level where load temperature cannot be reduced further even if you double the throughput, revealing the themal resistance limitations of the heatsink itself. No matter how much in air molecules that you push through the fins per unit time, the heatsink itself will only remove so much thermal wattage (per unit time).

The Panaflo shown by JBDan looks pretty good for use with the XP120, given its wider range of throughputs.

Keep in mind that if you purchase a fan that gives you 105 CFM at 45 dBA, you can configure that fan to run at a speed yielding 80 CFM and a dBA level in the 30's of dBA's, or even lower than that. Sometimes, the noise has a high motor-whine component, which is both more irritating and MEASURABLY noisier, but at lower RPMs, there is no motor-whine, and there is certainly less air-turbulence.

If you configure the fan to run 90% to 100% of full-throttle over a certain temperature, than you have still effectively mitigated noise at CPU idle or something below 50% usage, and the noise occurs only at load temperatures. Again, there are various things about cases which will (a) transmit the noise and make it louder, (b) muffle the noise and make it quieter, and things that can be added to cases which will (c) muffle the noise further.

That is why I say I am using a Delta Tri-blade 120x38mm fan and the noise level is mostly air-turbulence from my exhaust fans. And that external air-turbulence is barely evident, even so.
 
Assuming your computer is near silent by all your other components, get a Yate Loon Low speed, or Nexus for ultimate quiet.

If your gpu fan is noisy, or you have a noisy harddrive, Panaflo L1A 120x38 should be fine

The Enermax that Akira linked is very versatile if you want to be able to crank that baby up when doing stuff like folding@home or, turn it down when you sleep.
 
Originally posted by: Tiamat
Assuming your computer is near silent by all your other components, get a Yate Loon Low speed, or Nexus for ultimate quiet.

If your gpu fan is noisy, or you have a noisy harddrive, Panaflo L1A 120x38 should be fine

The Enermax that Akira linked is very versatile if you want to be able to crank that baby up when doing stuff like folding@home or, turn it down when you sleep.
Click to expand...

im runnin an a64 3500+ which i plan to overclock, and a 6800gt pci-e so my system isnt silent by any means, i just want the best cfm 80+ with as quiet as i can get it, not looking for silence.

any other fans worth lookin at aside from the Panaflo M1A 120? That or the H1A is what im leadin towards.

also, anyone know who sells the panaflo fans? so many computer sites out there...

thanks
 
Also take a look at Sidewinder Computers in Illinois.

Although I've made some recent pronouncements that there is a limit to higher and higher air-flow beyond which a cooler will not cool to any lower temperature, I temporarily ran my Delta Tri-Blade 120mm CPU fan up to its full 3,700 rpm today and noticed a 2F drop in CPU idle temperature and about a 2F drop in load temperature over my Speed-Fan-enforced 3,300 upper limit. But ultimately, any heatsink design has a rock-bottom thermal resistance for use with a fan.

3,700 with the Delta is a bit loud. 3,300 while gaming is tolerable, and software-controlled idle speed of 2,800 is pretty quiet.

You should find a range of Panaflo's, Sunon's, Delta's, etc. at Sidewinder, and their tech-guy was very helpful to me -- responding by e-mail.

I'm not going to make up your mind for you. The misgivings about the ThermalTake fans would seem to derive from the 80mm "Smart" fan whine at 6,000 rpm -- which was my own experience with a Banshee. The Blue LED fans (92mm and 120mm) are not that noisy. If you get one that has any motor-whine at the top end, a dab of Teflon grease should work. But these fans are combination ball and sleeve bearing, with only a 30,000 to 50,000 hour MTBF.

I had very good luck with the SUNON KD1212PMB1-6A and bought it for around $9 on sale. It will push 108 CFM at 3,100 rpm top-end, and while rated at something like 42 dBA at that speed is lacking in motor-whine, or what residual whine there is can be lubricated into silence. So the 42 dBA or whatever it really is -- is air-turbulence. You can control this 0.56 Amp fan from the mobo fan-header. The only drawback is probably not a significant drawback -- the fan's weight is 326 grams making the total for your XP120 almost exactly 700 grams. This is still about 75 grams less than a Zalman CNPS-7000-Cu, and ThermalRight told me there should not be a problem using the SUNON. BUT -- as I said in my post earlier -- it does not have a tach-monitoring capability or wire. And as I also said, you can still accurately control the speed of this fan automatically from the motherboard without READING the speed in your monitoring software.

Again, you also have a choice of three or so Panaflo 120mm models. The "U" (Ultra-high-speed) model advertised at SideWinder supposedly does not have a speed monitoring capability, yet it ships with the yellow wire connected to the fan and motherboard plug, so their advertisement may need updating. This "U" fan (120x38mm) top-ends at about 2,800 rpm, which in my book makes "ultra-high-speed" a real exaggeration. You could run it at CPU idle to rpms matching the "L" or "M" models, and it would be just as quiet at those speeds -- with comparable throughput. Panaflo specifies a throughput for the "U" fan of about 114 CFM. I am guessing that it does as well -- or comes close to -- the SUNON KD1212PMB1-6A at its rated 108 CFM. The Panaflo should weigh about 50 to 70 grams less than the SUNON.

If you say you want at least 80 CFM, then, like me, I would guess you want the flexibility to run at higher (therefore noisier) speeds, as well as lower (more quiet) speeds that would indeed give you something in a range around 80 CFM.

I rather doubt that any model of Panaflo fan has as much motor-whine as other makes, but the units in a shipment vary, and there are the possible options of Teflon grease lubrication and noise-deadening case-panel matting to consider, so . . . .
 
Originally posted by: BigHurt
Originally posted by: Tiamat
Assuming your computer is near silent by all your other components, get a Yate Loon Low speed, or Nexus for ultimate quiet.

If your gpu fan is noisy, or you have a noisy harddrive, Panaflo L1A 120x38 should be fine

The Enermax that Akira linked is very versatile if you want to be able to crank that baby up when doing stuff like folding@home or, turn it down when you sleep.
Click to expand...

im runnin an a64 3500+ which i plan to overclock, and a 6800gt pci-e so my system isnt silent by any means, i just want the best cfm 80+ with as quiet as i can get it, not looking for silence.

any other fans worth lookin at aside from the Panaflo M1A 120? That or the H1A is what im leadin towards.

also, anyone know who sells the panaflo fans? so many computer sites out there...

thanks
Click to expand...

www.directron.com has some pretty good deals on pannies. 3dcool has some as well. For the CFM to dba ratio the pannies are tough to beat.
 
. . And JBDan provides two more reputable sources. :thumbsup:

I can assure you of this with regard to choosing fans without the tach-monitoring wire and capability. I have tested many, many fans in the last year. Of these, 50% or more included tach-wires, and the remainder did not include them.

From working with both categories of fans, it is quite certain that two fans running at top-end T rpms, one without tach-monitoring and the other with monitoring, if you set them both to 75% under SpeedFan, they will both be running at (0.75)*T rpms. The pulse-width-modulation of of fan-header power will be the same and it will have exactly the same effect on the fans.

The only difference in using the fan without the tach-wire is that if you want to know at what speed it is spinning, you will have to mentally multiply the SpeedFan setting by the fan-spec top-end, as opposed to reading it off the monitoring software. And we agree that some fan-manufacturers are unscrupulous about their fan specs. However, I'm sure that when SUNON says 3,100 rpm, that's what you get. When Delta says 3,100 rpm, that's what you get. When ThermalTake says 3,100 rpm, you get 3,100 rpm. With some "Pannies", you can read "what you get", and with others, I'm sure they fall into the same category as these others.

As for the usefulness of fan-monitoring on various motherboards. Some mobos may require a signal from the monitoring wire before they will boot, but I have yet to find an Intel P4 or ASUS P4 mobo that imposes this limitation. Instead, their safety features rely on temperature -- not fan-speed. I see no reason why this observation would not also apply to AMD versions of Intel or ASUS mobos, either.

I could be wrong, but it is an easy thing to ascertain.
 
Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
As for the usefulness of fan-monitoring on various motherboards. Some mobos may require a signal from the monitoring wire before they will boot, but I have yet to find an Intel P4 or ASUS P4 mobo that imposes this limitation. Instead, their safety features rely on temperature -- not fan-speed. I see no reason why this observation would not also apply to AMD versions of Intel or ASUS mobos, either.

I could be wrong, but it is an easy thing to ascertain.
Click to expand...

Well I believe most motherboards have this feature simply as a safety precaution, making sure the fan is spinning.
If you detect solely on the cpu temp, then by the time the motherboard shuts down the system, the amount of heat left on the processor could be damaging, since the heatsink is not cooling off at the rate it should.

Not that big of an issue to me either, its just nice to know the rpm of the fan and whether it is consistent with specs, etc.
Accountability is difficult to test if your 6 months old fan is only revolving at 1500rpm when it should be 2100..

Looking at either:
Panaflo 120mm U1A 16.99 + 6.35 = 23.34
Panaflo 120mm M1A 8.99 + 6.99 = 15.98


What about these silica gel washers for 120mm fans, have any of you guys tried em out?
 
I wouldn't split hairs over $10 on something like this. If you get the fan with higher output (U1A) instead of the M1A, you can moderate its speed as a "case" fan through a front-panel controller. As a "CPU_fan", you can control its speed through the motherboard and make it shift automatically at a thermal threshold.

Even at full speed in a case enclosure, you could probably run the U1A at top speed and hear nothing more than a little air turbulence, if that.

Per the "monitoring". Neither the 800FSB Intel boards that I know of nor the ASUS boards do anything but check the thermal limit, and they shut down when the limit is reached. Neither has any requirement that the machine won't boot without a fan on the CPU-fan header.

The thing to look at in this regard -- if it worries you -- is the MTBF promised by the manufacturer. For instance, that Sunon I mentioned has an MTBF of 100,000 hours. Before you even get close to that, your machine should be sold as "rare-metal scrap" and appear in diverse markets as several new reincarnations.

However, I do admit that it is "nice" to have. The sort of failures you mention are not one of the ways a fan is going to fail, however. But I can tell you for sure -- where I say so above, you ARE getting fans that meet the RPM spec. Some here, like Operandi, are skeptical about the noise (dBA) specs, but lower or higher dBA's don't "cause" higher or lower CFM throughput -- RPMs do, and higher CFM (under higher RPM) will cause more noise. It is a sure thing if a fan with a monitoring tail shows top-end of 2,800 rpm and a CPU load temperature of 44C, that a another fan with no monitoring tail promised to run at 3,100 and showing you a CPU load temperature of 41 or 42C is actually meeting the RPM spec.

You might want to check the online catalogs for SUNON, Panaflo, Delta and other manufacturers to see if there is a model number comparable in performance and operation to one you see in an ad without the monitoring tail, which does have the monitoring feature. Then run a web search on the precise model number to see who's selling it.
 
BonzaiDuck -- you seem to know more about various fans than anyone I have seen on this board (but I have only begun to research fans, as will soon be evident when I explain my purchase mishap).

I bought all new components for my first new system in years (and first build-it-myself ever). The relevant parts here are Athlon64 3200+ (90nm Winchester), Thermalright XP-120 heatsink, and Asus A8N-SLI mobo.

Along with my XP-120, I purchased the Panaflo 120x38mm Fan, FBA12G12H1A, High RPM, Bare Wires -- 103.8CFM
http://bestbyteinc.com/prodinf...tion=&aitem=7&mitem=14


I completely didn't realize what "bare wires" meant, and I ALSO thought it was appropriate for mounting on top of my XP-120 for CPU cooling. Turns out it's a case fan, and doesn't even come with a connector (3 pin or 4 pin molex).


So I'm sitting here with all my components, just dying to get them running, but now I need a CPU fan. I have looked at FrozenCPU.com, also SVC.com, also Sidewinder. I get very confused because it seems that some of the fans that people are recommending look like case fans, NOT CPU fans. They can't be used for both purposes, can they?

Is there any way to use the Panaflo that I linked above for my CPU? If not I need to order a CPU fan ASAP. Note that I am using the Antec Super Lanboy, which came with front and back 120mm fans, so I don't really need to spend any more on case fans (though I'm sure I could get a quieter or more effective one... right now I just need to get the system running, later I can worry about lowering noise and temperature as much as possible).

Would this Antec fan from Best Buy work on my XP-120? I am at the point where I can't stand waiting another week for a fan to be shipped from an online vendor -- I could pick that up from BB tmrw morning and be running right away (at least I hope, pending all my other components work as expected).
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...=cat01072&type=product


I also posted about this last night (originally the thread was about inserting RAM, which truly was hard to do, but I later asked about my fan problem, and I got a few responses which say that I can only use the Panaflo that I bought for the case). Here is last night's thread (short read):
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=27&threadid=1503348

Thank you very very much!
 
Walkure,

PM's aren't working on my end right now, and Best Buy requires a darn cookie. :|

Three pin fans will fit three pin fan headers. Doesn't matter if it's a Panaflo connector or any other.

As for connectors, the passthrough connectors (which are wonderful to get power from the 12v, and still plug into the motherboard for RPM monitoring) should work with tach enabled Panaflos. They're trickier to find (plenty of Ys, but not many for that task), but speciality online computer parts dealers should carry them. It's the only way extreme overclockers can plug in a fan like a Delta (you have to be extreme to put THAT fan in your case) and still have the motherboard read the RPM.

It's one way to have 3 120mm fans hooked up to the m/b (only thing needed by the motherboard is the RPM signal anyway).

 
Originally posted by: BigHurt
Originally posted by: xbassman
That fan will be fine....

You need a connector like this Panaflo 3pin - Snap on Fan Wiring Harness

You can get 4 pin molex connectors for them also
Click to expand...

im gonna pick it up here:
Inflow Direct comes out to be $11.50 with shipping and includes the 3 pin molex
Click to expand...


BigHurt, this is one of the things that's confusing me. Most fans that I see are labeled as "case fans', which makes me wonder whether I can throw it on top of the XP-120 or not.

Either way, I couldn't wait any longer, so I bought an Antec 120mm (blue LED) fan today at Best Buy. The link (as I posted before) is:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...=cat01072&type=product


Let's all report back our results soon! I hope to get mine running after work late tonight, or maybe tmrw.

 
>>
BigHurt, this is one of the things that's confusing me. Most fans that I see are labeled as "case fans', which makes me wonder whether I can throw it on top of the XP-120 or not.
>>
they're called "case fans" because *usually* the big 120mm fans are used for case ventilation. But nothing speaks against using them as CPU-fans...even the opposite is the case...120mm is better than a 80mm "cpu"-fan...more cfm at less/same noise.

You just need the appropriate sized HS, eg. thermalright XP-120 to fit a big 120mm on it.

Also....well "bare wires" means bare wires..."no plugs provided".

Btw. the bestbuy fan there looks decent...probably not the quitest...but should do the job.
 
Originally posted by: flexy
>>
BigHurt, this is one of the things that's confusing me. Most fans that I see are labeled as "case fans', which makes me wonder whether I can throw it on top of the XP-120 or not.
>>
they're called "case fans" because *usually* the big 120mm fans are used for case ventilation. But nothing speaks against using them as CPU-fans...even the opposite is the case...120mm is better than a 80mm "cpu"-fan...more cfm at less/same noise.

You just need the appropriate sized HS, eg. thermalright XP-120 to fit a big 120mm on it.

Also....well "bare wires" means bare wires..."no plugs provided".

Btw. the bestbuy fan there looks decent...probably not the quitest...but should do the job.
Click to expand...


Well, even though it said "bare wires" on the page, I either didn't pay any attention to it, or I just assumed that however the wires came, there was a way for me to hook it up. I think I did my homework pretty well on every other component I bought (including the XP-120), but I didn't spend much time reading up on fans, so I ended up goofing. Now I know a little more.


Yeah, I'm sure the Antec is not the best. It says only 2300RPM, whereas others like BonzaiDuck were talking about achieving the lowest temps around 3000+ RPM. Plus it may be louder than some other silent enthusiast fans, but I'm not really one of those people (yet). If for some reason I really don't like it or decide that I need better performance, I can always order a high-end one from FrozenCPU, Sidewinder, or whoever. But for now I am just really eager to get the new build running, so I didn't want to wait another week for them to ship me one!


Plus Best Buy has 25 packs of Fuji (Taiyo Yuden -- Made in Japan) DVD+R discs for $9.99 this week, so the trip was very worth it 🙂

 
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