Favorite fans for various porpoises
 

My immediate reason starting this thread is that after a lengthy search I found a 140mm fan which runs faster than ~1700 rpm. For quite a while the best I had come up with was the Bgears b-blaster, which has the above-mentioned speed in real-world case applications. However, it is more of a airflow design than a static pressure type. Since I filter all of my intakes, and case fan ports tend to be fairly obstructive, static pressure rating is important.

While I could find specs that looked good on manufacturer sites, finding a vendor was much harder. Finally, having perused charts on the Everflow site, I found a very interesting model, and was able to do a specific Google search for it.

This is an unusual (boutique, I guess) company. Their models range from silent desktops and home theatre setups, to gaming rigs, to workstations with [I]dual 12 core Xeons, with up to 256 GB of registered ECC RAM(!). [/I](Note that one could build 5 or 10 more modest, though really powerful systems for just the add on costs of the top CPU and RAM setups.)

Not to plug them too much, since I just wanted a particular fan, but in that regard they beat out FrozenCPU. In any case, [URL="http://www.pugetsystems.com/store/item.php?cat=Additional+Cooling&id=9355&com=d41d8cd9&que=140"]here is the fan[/URL] I came up with for the side intake to blow on the GPUs. In real life it tops out at about 2400 rpm, and it is reasonably quiet, even running flat out.

I'm sure that others must have such stories. Share!

Delta is the #1 high speed that I hear about all the time. And tried to use(but was too loud) in my desktop radiator.

[QUOTE=tului;378627]Delta is the #1 high speed that I hear about all the time. And tried to use(but was too loud) in my desktop radiator.[/QUOTE]

Deltas as pretty easy to find, but they can be nasty sounding: between a snarl and a whine. I think bearing and blade noise play a part with the super high speed models. (Watch out for the wattage ratings of these. Some can blow the fan controller on the motherboard.)

I've found good fans for air coolers and radiators which are much more civilized, and still move lots of air. I've never had a Noctua fan, though they are highly regarded. They are also highly priced.

I like quiet fans, hence: [URL="http://www.silentpcreview.com/article63-page2.html"]SPCR Recommended Fans[/URL]. Noctua and Scythe usually. I have a couple Delta fans from an old HP workstation, and they do move a huge amount of air for their size, at the expense of a huge amount of noise. There's no way I'd use them in a machine in my house unless they were locked away in a server closet.

[URL="http://www.corsair.com/en-us/case-fans/air-series-fans"]Corsair[/URL] has some interesting looking fans (e.g. quiet + high static pressure for pushing through a radiator), but I haven't tried any. SPCR's reviews show them as middle-of-the-road for most purposes, so I'd be considering them for radiator duty. So far I found the Noctua fans, although expensive, do a very good job.

[QUOTE=danaj;378649][snip]
[URL="http://www.corsair.com/en-us/case-fans/air-series-fans"]Corsair[/URL] has some interesting looking fans (e.g. quiet + high static pressure for pushing through a radiator), but I haven't tried any. SPCR's reviews show them as middle-of-the-road for most purposes, so I'd be considering them for radiator duty. So far I found the Noctua fans, although expensive, do a very good job.[/QUOTE]

The two 120mm fans which came with the H100i seem quite good. They are definitely the wide blade static pressure kind. At full speed of 2600-2700 rpm they moan somewhat, but not terribly.

Actually, I've found that there is little gained by running them over 1800-2000 rpm. This is true, independent of how I run the case fans. While I had to crank those with 2 GPUs, I can run them much more moderately with 1.

The attached screenshot pair show the balanced setting I'm running with on one side, versus all fans, case and radiator, going all out. Meanwhile, the GTX 580 actually went up a degree with the other fans maxed out. (I did not change the Afterburner fan curve.) As noted in the graphic, the room was about 27° C at the time.

For looting and hooliganism, I prefer Irish football fans.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;379535]For looting and hooliganism, I prefer Irish football fans.[/QUOTE]

More so than the Liverpudlians?

I've been using different fans over last 15 years: Antec, Arctic Cooling, Bitfenix, Enermax, Noctua, Phanteks, Scythe, Sanyo, Thermalright, Thermaltake, YS Tech... the problem is: sooner or later they all die (e.g. Phanteks PH-F140HP lately died after 15 months of operation, Bitfenix Spectre 120mm just started making strange noises after 6 months, etc.).

My advice: if you want reliability and peace of mind go for PAPST. I am still using 120mm case fans that were bought ~10 years ago :tu:

fans selection
 

i built this current system last year - asrock 970 extreme4, fx4170 amd cpu , msi gtx660tf video, 8 gig crucial ram, 250 gig crucial ssd hd. was not impressed with the stock cpu fan/cooler for the fx series cpus so earlier this year switched out to cool master hyper evo 212.

after about 2 months of use the cool master evo 212 fan sounded like ready to launch itself to the moon ( tech support to exchange fans is horrid from cool master btw you have to send them fan first then they have to test it and may or may not send you a fan fast even at best turn around time to get a fan is 2 weeks from talk i had with tech) cool master fan finally went DOA at 2 months 3 weeks time

so i switch out fan from the stock with claimed 600 to 2000 rpm and would never spin even with forced to max at anything higher then 1845 rpm and a rated max air flow of 83 cfm @ 2.7 mmH2O cpu not over clocked under stress ( torture test ) 122 to 124 degrees f

installed the BGears B-PWM 120mm x 25mm High Static Pressure PWM and saw and instant drop in cpu temps compared to the cool master fan. bgears specs 500-2000 rpm rated 100+ cfm during testing forced max rpm under stress test this fan came in and an outstanding 2145 rpm with no problem and kept cpu and a consistent 114 to 116 degrees f ( single fan in pusher orientation ) i just installed a second fan this morning in pull alignment so push pull dual bgears fans current cpu temps 110 to 112 degrees.

i am running in an older ultra tower case which i switched out the front and rear fans with bgears’ b-Blaster 120 120mm case fan 103 cfm. plus where i had to remove the air intake horn on side of case to clear the cpu cooler i cut full diameter hole and installed another of these fans that blows down on ram and mother board area now ( 2 pushing air in / one exhausting air and 140 mm power supply exhausting) Mother board temps 83 degrees with ambient room temp 74 degrees f.
all fans case fans are filters with 5 micron poly felt with no noticeable loss in air flow i just have to switch out filters more often. ( equal to a hepa filter )

[B] [/B]

I have almost never seen a fan reach its rated RPM. I've always assumed that was because the rating is in free air, while there are probably multiple obstacles to overcome for a mounted fan. The only exception is the Corsair fans on an H100i radiator. The specs say 2600 (I think,) and they come pretty close running flat out.

EDIT: I have several bGears 140 bBlaster fans, and really like them. They offered the highest RPM 140mm I could find, until recently. They are certainly noticeable running full on. However, they are mostly covered by the Asus GTX 580: the loudest thing by far. I have two in the front of a mid tower, hooked up to the built-in 12-7-5 V speed controller.

I bet the rated speeds are in open air.

When the air is impacted by obstruction or there is negative air pressure behind the fan, the air will require more energy to move and the fan's blades' pitch will be too steep for obtaining top speed (it is pushing air more in a circle than blowing it out).

Making airflow as unobstructed as possible is key.

To be honest I have never paid attention to the RPM's beside a simple sanity check. 800 RPM on a 120mm? Hmm.... 2300 RPM max on a 200mm? Hmm...

I pay more attention to the static pressure and flow rate. Unless the fan RPM is listed at 5500 RPM I can be fairly confident of the performance at a reasonable noise level.

AnandTech did a review of 8 radiator fans in 2012:
[URL]http://www.anandtech.com/show/6177/choosing-the-best-120mm-radiator-fan-testing-eight-fans-with-corsairs-h80/5[/URL]

Also keep in mind the difference between CPU/radiator- and casefans.
You want air pressure for pushing air through obstructions (like a radiator) and high air flow for moving a lot of air out of your case (sacrificing a bit on pressure). Of course within a given RPM/noise limit.

Casefans: high air flow, low/medium air pressure
CPU/radiator fans: medium air flow, high air pressure