Silent 120mm Case Fans

[StarsFan4Life]

I need 4 silent 120mm fans with reliable air flow. What do you guys recommend?

 

[Operandi]

120mm low speed Yate Loon. I put them in all the systems I build.

 

[StarsFan4Life]

Newegg link?

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: StarsFan4Life

with reliable air flow.

????

How would a fan have unreliable air flow?

And the quieter a fan is, the less air at moves and the hotter your case (and CPU, and Video card) will be.

 

[Operandi]

Newegg doesn't carry them, I get my mine from SVC but there are other good vendors.

Air flow noise is only one component of what you hear, there is also bearing and motor noise. The Yate Loons are some of the smoothest fans you can get.

 

[StarsFan4Life]

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: StarsFan4Life

with reliable air flow.

????

How would a fan have unreliable air flow?

And the quieter a fan is, the less air at moves and the hotter your case (and CPU, and Video card) will be.

Dude....there are some fans at 3500rpm that move NO AIR....poor design and such. Yes....it's possible..

 

[Zepper]

The only silent fans are ones that have stopped spinning... ;-) I get my Yate Loon fans from jab-tech.com. Good prices (usually) on Q3 or more at a time.

.bh.

 

[Piano Man]

For me personally I found the Scythe S-Flex "E" Version to be a great quiet fan with decent airflow. And by quiet I mean the only thing you hear is a whisper "whoosh" of air, no vibration from the bearing/fan itself.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: StarsFan4Life

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: StarsFan4Life

with reliable air flow.

????

How would a fan have unreliable air flow?

And the quieter a fan is, the less air at moves and the hotter your case (and CPU, and Video card) will be.

Dude....there are some fans at 3500rpm that move NO AIR....poor design and such. Yes....it's possible..

That's not unreliable, it's reliably low.

And jab-tech has good prices but then it spoons you on shipping. Well, I guess ultimately its still not too bad, but those prices are misleading.

 

[jhansman]

Take a look at the Noctua NF-P12-1300 (Noctua product info). For about $20 you get a case fan that is virtually dead silent at it's lowest speed, and near silent at its highest. Newegg and SilentPC have them. Read the reviews. Several of the previous comments re: silence=low air flow are balderdash.

 

[cdnbum88]

+1 on Noctua fans. I have them in my case.

 

[aigomorla]

Yates

http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-L...-D12SL-12-pr-3009.html

U cant beat them for the price and performance. And there quiet also.

Originally posted by: Eureka

And jab-tech has good prices but then it spoons you on shipping. Well, I guess ultimately its still not too bad, but those prices are misleading.

How do they spoon you on shipping? There pretty fair on shipping.

 

[zagood]

FYI - xoxide has the best shipping rates. Standard USPS was $2.36 for a 120mm fan and 140mm grill to CA.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
Yates

http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-L...-D12SL-12-pr-3009.html

U cant beat them for the price and performance. And there quiet also.

Originally posted by: Eureka

And jab-tech has good prices but then it spoons you on shipping. Well, I guess ultimately its still not too bad, but those prices are misleading.

How do they spoon you on shipping? There pretty fair on shipping.

Well it depends on how much you're buying. It seems like its a $6 flat rate... so if you buy 2 fans, that's almost double the cost.

 

[Beanie46]

Originally posted by: Eureka

Well it depends on how much you're buying. It seems like its a $6 flat rate... so if you buy 2 fans, that's almost double the cost.

I don't know what you're looking at, but with 3 YL's in my cart, Fedex shipping is $4.70; with 6 YL's in my cart, shipping is $6.09, a whopping $1.39 increase.

So, I don't know where you get "it seems to be a flat $6/fan rate for shipping" nonsense.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: Beanie46

Originally posted by: Eureka

Well it depends on how much you're buying. It seems like its a $6 flat rate... so if you buy 2 fans, that's almost double the cost.

I don't know what you're looking at, but with 3 YL's in my cart, Fedex shipping is $4.70; with 6 YL's in my cart, shipping is $6.09, a whopping $1.39 increase.

So, I don't know where you get "it seems to be a flat $6/fan rate for shipping" nonsense.

For me it's 1 fan for $5.70, and 3 fans for $5.70 shipping.

Perhaps they have cheaper shipping by area...

 

[deimos3428]

+1 on the Noctua NF-P12-1300. These are incredibly quiet, well-engineered fans -- but with a price to match, unfortunately.

 

[RussianSensation]

120 MM case fan roundup

"These are first of all

- Noiseblocker fans from NB-Multiframe and NB-BlackSilent series
- Scythe Gentle Typhoon and
- S-FLEX fans,
- Thermalright TR-FDB (the specific model we tested) and
- Nexus Basic."

 

[wolfman11]

Originally posted by: Piano Man
For me personally I found the Scythe S-Flex "E" Version to be a great quiet fan with decent airflow. And by quiet I mean the only thing you hear is a whisper "whoosh" of air, no vibration from the bearing/fan itself.

This is right on based on my experience. Replaced the Antec Tri-cool fan running on low in the back of my case with an Scythe S-Flex E mounted with rubber grommets and the noise reduction was quite noticeable while temps dropped 1C (a freebie as I was hoping for the same temps and less noise).

 

[Rubycon]

Gentle Typhoons are incredibly well built. They are Nidec motors and look like they will last forever. Good balance of noise and airflow. They are not very tolerant of intake restriction, however. (1800 RPM model used here)

 

[Skott]

The Scythe S-Flex fans are really good and quiet. The E model is probably their most popular model but I'm using two F models in a Silverstone SG03 rig and they are very quiet as well. I chose the F model for the SG03 build to get more airflow into the case and I'm not disappointed one bit. I would highly recommend anyone wanting cooling and quiet to look at Scythe's S-Flex models as a consideration.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: jhansman
Take a look at the Noctua NF-P12-1300 (Noctua product info). For about $20 you get a case fan that is virtually dead silent at it's lowest speed, and near silent at its highest. Newegg and SilentPC have them. Read the reviews. Several of the previous comments re: silence=low air flow are balderdash.

Well SilentPC redid their testing procedures to introduce some actual weightage to static pressure and the Noctua fell down. They exaggerate their CFM like crazy, go back and read the article and pay attention to the May 2008 revisions.

 

[sxr7171]

Personally I would go for Scythe Ultra Kaze, because you are not blowing air into the great wide open. There is resistance inside a case and you need to flow through that resistance and not just cause the fan to wimp out as the Noctuas do. There's a reason why they are so quiet, they are pretty much not performing to spec.

Check out:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...howthread.php?t=162737

http://www.overclock3d.net/rev...ltra_kaze_120mm_fans/1

If you don't read the whole article at least look at this:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...0-fans-roundup_28.html

Also they are dirt cheap:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835185054


I would attach them to fan controllers to make them quiet, but when you need some real airflow, you can get them going with the turn of a knob.

If you have lots of money then look into: http://www.frozencpu.com/produ...1800_RPM_-_27_dBA.html


Scythe S-flex is a great option also if you lean towards not getting a fan controller.