Which is quieter on H100i, Corsair SP120 Quiet or Noctua NF F12

[Mazza]

I'm looking to replace the stock fans on the Corsair H100i with either Corsair SP120 Quiet or Noctua NF F12. Silence is the main criteria. I've been searching to find out which is the quieter. Does anybody know or has seen any reviews as to which one of these is quieter at their full speed of ~1500rpm?

 

[Nec_V20]

Not only is the NF-F12 quieter when I tested the H60 I have with both the SP120 fans and then with the NF-F12 the Noctua fans at 1500 kept the CPU cooler than the SP120 fans running full out at 2700 RPM and making a bloody racket.

As I wrote before:

Corsair has hit the height of lunacy with the fans they supply with their new H60 and H100i. The fans they have included are the SP120 which can spin up to 2,700 RPM. I have tested the fans on the H60 I bought compared to the Noctua NF-F12 fans I bought to replace them (I bought both the H60 and H100i).

Why am I criticising Corsair? First of all the fans they supply are round, then they have some rubber around the mounting points which raises the fan from the cooler ever further. Now what you want if you are using a radiator is a fan that effectively makes a seal around the fan and the square frame of the radiator so that the air being sucked into the fan has nowhere to go except through the radiator. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise this.

Not so however Corsair. Their fans have a round frame, and being raised a bit off the cooler by the rubber around the mounting points they defeat the purpose of having an SP120 fan (SP in this case stands for "Static Pressure") supplied with it. A lot of the airflow generated will take the path of least resistance which is outwards and around rather than through the radiator.

In the test I conducted, with the Noctua NF-F12 fan I use on the H60 compared to the fan supplied with the radiator (AMD A8-5600k running prime95, max CPU load and four videos running just to give the GPU portion of the APU something to do) and the hardware monitoring software AI Suite II version 2.01.02 running I found the following:

With the NF-F12 turned down as far as I could go on my fan controller the CPU only ran just over one degree Celsius hotter than the Corsair fans running full whack. With the Noctua fans running full speed the CPU temperature was around four degrees cooler than the Corsair fans running full speed.

The Noctua fans running either turned down or at full speed were not audible, but the SP120 fan turned up to full speed made a racket.

The only way I can account for this is that a lot of the air the Corsair fan sucks in running at 2,700 RPM is just wasted on doing things other than they job it is supposed to. The Noctua NF-F12 only runs at 1,500 RPM tops so no matter how much better the fan is than the Corsair one, running 1,200 RPM slower it should not even be close, the Corsair fans should be - from the RPM standpoint - blowing the Noctua fans away (I can sense someone loading the pun-gun to take a shot at me).

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I believe the Corsair fans are quieter, but don't take my word for it.

But I would personally go for the NF F12s.

 

[Nec_V20]

I believe the Corsair fans are quieter, but don't take my word for it.

But I would personally go for the NF F12s.

You might be talking about the Corsair Air Seried AF120 Quiet Edition which rotates at 1100 RPM, not however the variant of the SP120 fans that Corsair supplies with their water coolers.

 

[Mazza]

Not only is the NF-F12 quieter when I tested the H60 I have with both the SP120 fans and then with the NF-F12 the Noctua fans at 1500 kept the CPU cooler than the SP120 fans running full out at 2700 RPM and making a bloody racket.

As I wrote before:

The SP120 that come on the H100i are called the SP120 L. They are not the same as the SP120 Quiet with max speed of ~1450rpm or the SP120 Performance with a max of ~2300rpm.

So yes, you will find the Noctua F12's performing much better than the SP120 L stock fan but I'm looking for comparisons with the SP120 Quiet fan.

 

[Nec_V20]

The SP120 that come on the H100i are called the SP120 L. They are not the same as the SP120 Quiet with max speed of ~1450rpm or the SP120 Performance with a max of ~2300rpm.

So yes, you will find the Noctua F12's performing much better than the SP120 L stock fan but I'm looking for comparisons with the SP120 Quiet fan.

Sorry I misread your post originally.

The fans I personally tested were the ones that came with the H60 and H100i. The fact of the matter though is that the system I have built is as good as silent with all six fans running (3*NF-F12, 2*NF-8R PWM, and a CoolerMaster 200mm fans).

The slower rotating Corsair fans will suck even worse at cooling the radiator of the H100i than the ones that came with it because they are of the same design.

 

[Mazza]

...The slower rotating Corsair fans will suck even worse at cooling the radiator of the H100i than the ones that came with it because they are of the same design.

You would presume that would be the case but in this instance extrapolating like that might not be correct. See here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/120mm-fan-roundup-4_25.html#sect0

 

[Nec_V20]

You would presume that would be the case but in this instance extrapolating like that might not be correct. See here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/120mm-fan-roundup-4_25.html#sect0

Thank you for that, the results were interesting in more ways than one.

 

[Face2Face]

I have some SP120 quiet editons on my H100i, they are pretty quiet and go with my color theme. I would have purchased the Noctua, but they are just soo ugly. They are a better fan though..

 

[Mazza]

I've heard from people that have had both that the Corsair is quieter which seems to be borne out by the review I linked with both fans tested.

 

[defy]

I believe the NF-12 is quieter. I got an h100i as a free replacement for my faulty h100, and swapped in Noctua NF-12 120mm fans. Not cheap, but I'm much happier with the noise/cooling ratio now.

 

[Mazza]

I believe the NF-12 is quieter. I got an h100i as a free replacement for my faulty h100, and swapped in Noctua NF-12 120mm fans. Not cheap, but I'm much happier with the noise/cooling ratio now.

The stock fans that come with the h100i are not the ones in question here. They are SP120 L and are much louder and don't have the noise dampening extras that come with the SP120 quiet or the SP120 Performance.

The consensus from other people that have had both is that the SP120 Quiet is slightly quieter. I went with the SP120 Performance in the end as they go down to 700rpm which is where they spend most of the time. Even at 1100rpm they are barely audible. When I need the extra performance I have it on tap.