Case Fans

[OulOat]

Say all you want guys, but Dell uses 2 fans, and they make a whole lot more systems than anyone else.

DrkCloud, Panaflo's are proven to work great and as advertise. Most of the other fans may or may not be exactly truthful about how much noise they make and how much air they move. So if you are planning on spending $2000, you might as well get something that is proven.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: OulOat
Say all you want guys, but Dell uses 2 fans, and they make a whole lot more systems than anyone else.

The overwhelming majority of which aren't expected to do anything other than workstation duty and dust collection. Dell also doesn't produce show-piece gamer boxes, and you won?t be doing much overclocking either because of their proprietary BIOS configurations.

 

[gordanfreeman]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: OulOat
Say all you want guys, but Dell uses 2 fans, and they make a whole lot more systems than anyone else.

Dell also doesn't produce show-piece gamer boxes

i beg to differ:
Dimension XPS

sure its not as great as it could be but i would bet it could be better than a majority of people's 'gaming' computers.

i do agree however, that to most dells more than 2 fans would be useless as they are not used for anything more extreme than watching a movie on it. most are used for word/data processing and other office duties. these things could just as easily be completed on my 5 year old emachine as a brand new dell. that emachine didnt have a case fan in the whole thing... just the tiny little power supply and a cpu fan.

 

[HardWarrior]

Sorry, the XPS may have the horse-power of a true gamer rig (if you're willing to pork out some large $), but it doesn't have the bells and whistles of a hobbyist/show-piece box. In appearance, it's just like any other cookie-cutter computer. As for matching, or exceeding, the majority of so-called gamer boxes, I'd have to agree. I'm constantly amazed at the age of machines people try to shoe-horn contemporary games onto.

BTW, when I say "hobbyist/show-piece box" I mean this:

(hobbyist/show-piece computer)=beauty+flash+redundancy+performance

Sure, I could probably run well with less of everything, but since my main box is also my current passion, why should I?

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior
Sorry, the XPS may have the horse-power of a true gamer rig (if you're willing to pork out some large $), but it doesn't have the bells and whistles of a hobbyist/show-piece box. In appearance, it's just like any other cookie-cutter computer. As for matching, or exceeding, the majority of so-called gamer boxes, I'd have to agree. I'm constantly amazed at the age of machines people try to shoe-horn contemporary games onto.

BTW, when I say "hobbyist/show-piece box" I mean this:

(hobbyist/show-piece computer)=beauty+flash+redundancy+performance

Sure, I could probably run well with less of everything, but since my main box is also my current passion, why should I?

That was my point all along, that all those fans aren't absolutely necessary. Your passion just varies from mine. Mine entails listening for mouse farts.

 

[HardWarrior]

I understood your point all along Nebor. What didn't quite make the translation was that "necessity" is an elastic term that easily expands, or contracts, based on perspective coupled with available resources. If you've noticed, I never offer my configuration as the holy grail of home computers. What I have done is support the idea that overkill/redundancy/wow-factor isn't a sin, and that minimalism is just fine as well. In short, no matter what one decides in terms of FRU's and accessories, it's ALL good. :thumbsup:

BTW, I never hear mouse farts. My 2-year old short-hair LOVES to torture field mice. :evil:

 

[mindless1]

Sadly there are a lot of people here that have no clue about a quiet, well-cooled system.

The only way to have great cooling at very low noise levels is to use 4+ fans, and take control of their RPM so you have each very quiet. You can pretend your 120mm fan is achieving that, but it is not. To achieve max cooling per airflow on the intake, HDD bay, the fan has to be as narrow as the bay such that ALL, 100%, of the airflow passes though that bay. 120mm fan won't do that, quite the opposite, it is inferior for front cooling. So, 80-92mm is optimal for the front, and to have very low noise/flow ratio you'll need two for a mid to full tower case, 3 if you have a lot of HDDs in a full tower.

Then there's exhaust. PSU needs one, preferably two fans for lowest noise and fault tolerance. One fan should be under the power supply in the rear case wall, it is proven by AMD and Intel to be beneficial. so far, for an optimally set-up midtower case that's a minimum of 4 fans. If you have less than 4 fans your cooling is inferior, period. It is impossible to have as good a cooling at same noise level unless you have a smaller system, fewer parts, heat. BTW, I'm not just pulling this out of my arse, I take temps. Multiple fans also help reduce "dead spots", and other lower flow regions are improved.

So if your parts are high-performance, creating a lot of heat, AND your case won't accept rear fans larger than 80mm, you're going to need another fan else run the exhaust fans at higher speed, more noise. If you really don't care that your parts are hotter, it's your call, but you are choosing a sub-optimal system configuration by making that choice and then arguing that nobody needs "X" number of fans because you sub-optimal system doesn't have "X" number.

It is a fact that two fans undervolted to same flow rate as a single, same fan, will be quieter. SO no matter how confident you are with your 2-3 fan cooling, if it had twice as many fans it'd be quieter or cooler running or both. If you like your case and it won't fit that many, there's a good reason to use only as many as possible. If you don't care, so be it, to some people the issue is not important enough to redo a case, but if we want to be anal about it, yes, more fans are decidedly better not even considering the greater fault tolerance of the whole system.

This is not an argument against cases with a rear 120mm fan, that is the best exhaust strategy if you can accept a full-width midtower case.