Quiet case fans

vertano

I'm looking for quiet 120mm and 140mm case fans that
are cheaper than Noctua fans.
Any suggestions?

spix

Be Quiet SilentWings 2 are the best quiet fans and generally cheaper than noctua. Only priced reasonably in Germany ( about 15 euro each )

Gumbi

spix wrote: »

Be Quiet SilentWings 2 are the best quiet fans and generally cheaper than noctua. Only priced reasonably in Germany ( about 15 euro each )

The best? I imagine they're good but what justifies this statement?

spix

Gumbi wrote: »

The best? I imagine they're good but what justifies this statement?

I try to have my pc as quiet as possible so have tested loads of fans from many companies. These are simply the best

I have 4 of the 140mm, 1 of them makes a slight bearing noise which is barely audible unless your ear is against the motor, the other 3 are completely silent. You hear nothing but airflow no matter how close you get to the fan.

They are a bit loud for me at max rpm (1,000 on the 140 and 1,500 on the 120) When undervolted they are literally inaudible. No other fan is as quiet as these at the same rpm.

Gumbi

spix wrote: »

I try to have my pc as quiet as possible so have tested loads of fans from many companies. These are simply the best

I have 4 of the 140mm, 1 of them makes a slight bearing noise which is barely audible unless your ear is against the motor, the other 3 are completely silent. You hear nothing but airflow no matter how close you get to the fan.

They are a bit loud for me at max rpm (1,000 on the 140 and 1,500 on the 120) When undervolted they are literally inaudible. No other fan is as quiet as these at the same rpm.

Fair enough.

Tea_Bag

What other fans have you tested?

Serephucus

From SPCR's review, the Silent Wings are good - quieter than most - but they don't push as much air. After testing a bunch, they still recommend Gentle Typhoons as the best noise/performance fan.

Gumbi

I grabbed 2 x 140mm 800RPM Glide Streams, and a 140mm Glide Stream PWM (max 1300RPPM) fan. I'll let OP know how they perform when I build my rig tomorrow/Monday.

spix

I have some of the glide streams with the rubber pieces on the edges?

They are very good for sleeve bearing fans and can run either horizontal/vertical without any change in noise. The rubber definitely works stopping vibrations. The bearing has some clicking though but isn't too bad.

Tea_Bag wrote: »

What other fans have you tested?

Noctua nf p14 (and nf p12), thermalright ty 147, enermax tb silence, be quiet shadow wings, scythe gentle typhoon 800rpm (not a fan of the hiss from the ball bearings), deepcool uf120, scythe glidestream, fractal silent series, arctic f12, phobya g silent, bitfenix spectre, phanteks phf140-ts .

Probably a couple more, these are off the top of my head.

The fans used in the be quiet cpu coolers aren't as good as the silent wings 2. I've tried the c1 advanced and dark rock pro2. They use the older 1st version of the silentwings and have some bearing vibration but still very quiet.

vertano

The Silent Wings 2 fans seem to be more or less the same price as the Noctua fans.

spix

vertano wrote: »

The Silent Wings 2 fans seem to be more or less the same price as the Noctua fans.

What's your budget?

I paid 15 for the silent wings fans but 20 for noctua so they are a bit cheaper but still expensive. They're worth though in my opinion.

vertano

I dont have a set budget but I was hoping to get fans as quiet as the Noctua
ones for around half the price.

spix

Noctua fans are overrated tbh. The bearings are high quality but performance/noise ratio isn't anything special. These reviews confirm it (at least for the fans they tested)

http://martinsliquidlab.org/2013/05/07/fan-testing-round-12/

The loudest fan at 400FPM is the Noctua NF-F12 at around 48dBA

I don’t understand why they are so often so highly recommended except I know of a few reviews done out there without proper tools that are likely spreading bad information as usual.

Also

http://hardwarereports.de/Teiltests/Luefter/7/Noctua_NF-P12/
http://hardwarereports.de/Teiltests/Luefter/8/Noctua_NF-S12B_FLX/



Unless you're really picky about noise then any half decent fan with a moderate max RPM will be fine.

If you are really picky about noise then the only ones I can recommend are the silent wings 2. The be quiet shadow wings are cheaper, they use the same blade design so airflow noise is just as low but the bearings have an intermittent rustling noise (hard to explain) It's barely noticeable at distance though.

Here's 3 other good fan roundup reviews

http://translate.google.ie/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fhardwarereports.de%2FTestberichte%2FLuefter%2F22%2FLuefter_RoundUp_2011%2F&act=url

http://translate.google.co.ma/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fextreme.pcgameshardware.de%2Fluftkuehlung%2F110082-roundup-das-grosse-pcghx-luefter-roundup-2010-update-58x-120mm-140mm-luefter-im-test.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.ie&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.hardware.fr/articles/874-36/conclusion.html&usg=ALkJrhhWKiKcz2QAG1orObDNrzZDAeAIvA