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What's your opinion on 1x200mm vs 2x140mm fans?

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NewbieOneKenobi

Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2006
Location
Warsaw/Poland
As per title. Phanteks Enthoo Pro most preferably, but not necessarily.

Personally, I'm becoming a little skeptical about 200mm fans compared to smaller diameters. And I've had some strong but inaudible 12cm fans, not necessarily from the most expensive range. I'll need to be replacing the default 20cm fan in my Phanteks case anyway, only not sure about 1x20mm vs 2x14mm.

I'm leaning 2x14 because there are more to choose from, and some can be quite strong while being quite silent — no such variety or competition in the 20 range, comparatively. Plus, the 20 is a bit too large for the air duct anyway (the solid metal frame on the HDD section of the case is not removable); it seems to me 14 would be more focused. Some of the most advanced 14's seem to go up to 100 CFM or beyond while staying under 20 dbA on paper. Perhaps not going to be equally impressive in real applications but still. By contrast, anything 200mm I can buy looks like your typical stock fan from a reliable manufacturer, so not bad but likely not that much better than the Phanteks.

I'll be replacing rear exhaust too, so that could make 3x14 from the same vendor in a single purchase. Or more. Not decided about bottom intake and/or top exhaust yet. I could also theoretically go for a larger number of weaker/slower, quieter fans to reduce the woosh, but I don't have much experience with that sort of config yet — so far I've only ever run fewer but stronger fans.

Thoughts?

On a different note, I have a hot M2 drive under my graphics card. Typical VRAM heatsinks would be too tall for the remaining clearance, unfortunately, at least halfway through the surface. Are there any reasonable alternatives? Should I consider taking a RAM heatsink and cutting it to size instead? What else could I do?
 
200mm fans typically don't move a lot of air with a lot of pressure. I would go 2 140 or 2x120 (not a lot of choices at 140mm).
 
200mm fans typically don't move a lot of air with a lot of pressure. I would go 2 140 or 2x120 (not a lot of choices at 140mm).

I find there are lots of choices at 140 mm.

My suggestion, go 140 mm and get PWM fans so you can control them.
This way you can set the fan curve so they aren't loud to you.
 
Not compared to 140mm was the point. barely any choices at 200mm, more at 140mm, and anything you want at 120mm.
 
200mm fans typically don't move a lot of air with a lot of pressure. I would go 2 140 or 2x120 (not a lot of choices at 140mm).

^this^

There was a large difference (I dropped 5 or more degrees C) in my system when I changed out 120mm for 140mm fans, so much that I started looking at 200mm + and the specs I found didnt seem worth the bucks. The 200mm had a small percentage increase in CFM and were nearly equal for noise output. IIRC they were priced accordingly.

I enjoyed reading through this one here and this other one quite a bit. Once you settle on a brand and model be sure to read up on it to make sure that there hasnt been another revision done since the article though (Bitfenix Spectre/Bitfenix Spectre Pro is how I learned) Good luck
 
You can always do this, go to Lowes or Home Depot pick up some short straight metal brackets so you can mount a 180mm fan in a 200mm mounting hole and run the fan below. (You'd have to take measurements and shop for the best brackets or break out a drill and mod them yourself, that's what I would do anyway.)

I am presently using one of them to cool an Alphacool 180 NexXxos Monsta radiator and at around 1200rpm there is good airflow out the center of the rad with the air penetrator design the static pressure of this fan is amazing.

Plus it comes with it's own speed controller, at it 2000rpm max airflow it outputs 170cfm and is still noise tolerable, especially when gaming, but at around 1200rpm it outputs 130cfm and you barely notice it running, it will output some serious airflow if you need it to.

Only take a very small amount of modding skills to mount this fan suggestion and I promise you won't regret its performance capabilities!

My wife has the Phantek Enthoo Pro. it is a very good case.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/silv...w-adustable-speed-control.html#Specifications
 
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There isn't a lot.. there is more than 200mm, but not as many as 120mm!

Not really sure what isn't covered in a 140 mm flavor these days. There's RGB LED, high/low speed, PWM, high/low pressure, high/low noise, etc.
 
Thanks, dudes. 14 or 12 it is. I'm looking at Akasa Apache or Viper, Prolimatech Blue Vortex or something from AAB (a local company).

My inclination is to go with either Prolimatech (87 CFM @ 1100 rpm @ 18,9 dbA, normal sleeve) or AAB (better stats on paper but cheaper, so a bit of a gamble; fluid-dynamic, so the claim to low noise seems a little bit more credible).
 
Fractal Design HP14s are great; can be mounted on 120mm spots with the removable rubber corners and comes with 2 to 1 PWM splitter which comes in handy if you don't have enough mobo fan headers.
 
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