Quality 92mm, 45CFM Fan - For TX3 Evo?

[MajinCry]

'Ey lads, in a bit of a bind.

See, the 92mm fan supplied with the TX3 Evo isn't exactly...Good. I've just about reached it's actual life expectancy (bought it in early 2012), and oh god does it make a racket when my CPU is being put through it's paces.

Trouble is, there aren't any decent 92mm fans kicking about on my usual haunts. Novatech, Kikatek, CCLOnline, and Scan. Best I could find were the Be Silent! 92mm fans, but they're average in terms of CFM and noise. The 120mm versions are amazing though, got one in my case and another badly zip-tied to my graphics card.

So aye. Looking for a proper replacement fan is pretty hard. Specs of the supplied TX3 Evo fan are:

RPM - 800-2200
CFM - 43.1
FLE - 40k hours
dBA - 30

'Owever, I did find this on Ebay, being sold by Lambdatek. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ARCTIC-AFACO-090P2-GBA01-F9-PWM-/351877047911?

£10 seems a bit...Luxurious, for a fan. There any better 92mm ones going at that price, or is that as good as it gets?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I can't tell myself whether I'm being really serious about this, and people are going to climb all over me about the dBA of 53 (!!!) But if your mobo allows for thermal control of either PWM or 3-pin fans from the CPU_FAN header, you could try it.

Delta 92x25mm

You'd want to isolate the fan with rubber, and control it so it only ranges up to about 3,000 instead of the top-end of 4800 RPM. In fact -- I have two that are brand new and I'll sell them for $5 each if the buyer pays postage.

I'd also think there are some much better 92mm options available. However, one think I'd noticed about Delta fans I've used is that they may not have a motor whine at lower RPMs. I once built a system with a high-output Tri-Blade Delta on my CPU cooler, and thermal control kept it as quiet as anyone would want.

 

[MajinCry]

Alas, my motherboard is only able to set a vague "ideal temperature", with the CPU fan's speed being tailored towards that. It's not of any use, really. I did try Speedfan, but that program did nothing for controlling any of my fan speeds.

Me mobo is an ASRock AM3 M3N78D. Super budget thing, so not really much of a surprise there.

Alas. That fan does seem rather cool.

 

[Valantar]

Noctua has always been, and will probably always be my go-to fan (for anything besides radiators). In my HTPC (Fractal Node 304 case, CM Hyper TX3 cooler) I have three Noctua 92mm fans, and they are a dream. Two run as intakes, one on the CPU cooler. The CPU is an A8-7600, so not the hottest running CPU ever.


My fans are NF-B9 PWM and NF-B9 PWM REDUX (the only difference between these are that the Redux fans are grey, not beige, and the Redux has a stripped-down bundle (no extension cable, PWM splitter, rubber mounting thingies). They perform slightly below your specs (1600rpm, 37.8 CFM), but are inaudible (specs say 17.6dB(A)). My two intakes run at ~800rpm, the CPU fan runs at around 1000 while idle/normal desktop use (CPU around 38 degrees), neither are audible from three meters away). The Redux PWM version is £9.99 at SCAN.

They also have a higher-end 92mm version, the NF-A9 PWM, which goes to 2000rpm, hits 46.4 CFM, and is specced to 22.8dB(A). Couldn't find this at SCAN, but it should be possible to find somewhere, and shouldn't be noticeably more expensive.

Also, these come with 6-year warranties, so longevity really shouldn't be a problem.

 

[MajinCry]

-snip-

I'm stuck on an old 965 BE, so it's a pretty hot chip, and begins to throttle at around 56C. Took a bit of tweaking to get it to stay below the throttling point with me TX3 Evo.

I did find that 92mm thing, but it's another £5 on top o' that. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Noctua-NF-A9-PWM-Fan-Cooler-Radiator/dp/B00RUZ059O

Seems a wee bit pricey just for a fan, and is just a couple more decibels quieter than the Arctic thingy. Warranty is the same as well. Think I'll nab the wee doozey from Lambdatek, and suffer having a 5dba quieter fan, rather than 7dba.

Much appreciated lads.

 

[lehtv]

Shouldn't put much stock into dBa specs. They just don't hold up in objective comparisons.

That Arctic F9 should be decent enough, but at its current price of £9.31 it's a little pricey. Amazon.co.uk has it for £3.74.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I know that when my OCZ Vendetta fan (92mm) failed, I went looking at Newegg, and settled on an
"Arctic F9 PWM PST CO" fan. Says "6 year warranty" on it, that seemed pretty decent to me.
Haven't put the Vendetta with that fan back into service yet though, still using a stock AMD heatpipe heatsink, and the Thuban 1045T is running stock. (Or really, not running, haven't had it powered-up in months.)

 

[MajinCry]

Shouldn't put much stock into dBa specs. They just don't hold up in objective comparisons.

That Arctic F9 should be decent enough, but at its current price of £9.31 it's a little pricey. Amazon.co.uk has it for £3.74.

Oof, good catch. I'll cancel me order.

Dunno why I didn't find any other retailers selling the arctic fan when I google'd around. Must be some incremental version number difference.

@VirtualLarry I don't know how you can handle a Phenom II running on the stock cooler. That thing is as noisy as my fudded GPU fan.

 

[lehtv]

Dunno why I didn't find any other retailers selling the arctic fan when I google'd around. Must be some incremental version number difference.

I used http://uk.pcpartpicker.com. Sometimes works for UK parts, sometimes not.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I dunno, I have room fans going most of the time, so I don't even notice my PC's fan noises (much).