Need help finding the best PWM 120mm fans

I am going to soon be getting rid of my old Q6600 rig and getting an Ivy Bridge setup. My current rig is a Lian-Li V1200 PlusII with Petra's Yate Loon fans all around. L-rated ones for intake/exhaust and a M-rated one for the CPU. The CPU cooler is a Thermalright 120-extreme.

These fans are not PWM and over the years my thoughts on computing have changed a bit...no longer so I want bleeding performance as much as a quiet and cool, yet powerful rig. Currently the PC isn't THAT loud but I'd like to get it a little more quiet while retaining cooling efficiency when needed.

This is why I am on the search for some PWM fans, specially for the CPU. My understanding is most new mobos have support for PWM CPU fans at the very least and a lot have several for different case fans. I really love my Yate Loons but I am wondering ifthere is something better out there now and one that supports PWM. Any suggestions? Am I going to find anything better than my Yates? Are quieter fans even going to matter considering the GPU that will be in it (7970)? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

You don't have to go with PWM fans to get as good or better performance for the heatsink with quieter noise levels on the cpu, man. I would suggest a couple of Gentle Typhoon AP-15 fans in push pull on your TRUE. Those will be much quieter than the Yate medium fans and still give outstanding performance.

Well currently it's one Yate Loon and my CPU is OC'd to 3.4. No matter how hard I try I cannot get this thing over 40-41c so it runs cool enough. The IB proc should run even cooler. I imagine that 1 push fan should suffice.

How do those gentle typhoon's compare to Petra's Yate Loons?

Those look to have no PWM, which is fine, assuming they are more silent yet perform the same or better than my Yates. It is a 4-pin connector though so I am slightly confused...PWM on those or naw?

Going off of specs the Yates are 28db with ~1300-1400 RPM for the L rated ones. The AP-15 does 28db BUT also spins at 1,850RPM. No CFM rating but I assume it'd be better than the Yate. About 4x the price of the Yates too

I lied, 57.7 CFM on that AP-15

The specs on the GT AP-15 are as follows:

Speed - 1850 rpm
CFM - 58
Noise - 26.0
Max static pressure - 0.081 inches water
Wattage - 1.0

Specs from the Nidec Servo Corporation, who actually manufactures the fans. Scythe merely buys them and relabels them. Specs for GT fans

Believe me, the sound from them is quieter and different from a Yate Low. The actual tone is less obnoxious, besides being quieter than a Yate Low. The Yate Low isn't by any means, but the GT is quieter and a better built fan.

I'd love to pick up a couple of AP-15s for my TRUE(s) but they're so damned expensive...

What about buying from Aquatuning.de, Lenny? Are they that expensive to order from in the UK?

muddocktor said:

What about buying from Aquatuning.de, Lenny? Are they that expensive to order from in the UK?

Click to expand...

Better yet... Try http://www.aquatuning.co.uk/

Aquqtuning are cheap but charge extra for postage; the cheapest I can get them elsewhere is about £12 per fan delivered, which is roughly $20 for you chaps across the pond. £25 for two fans... that's what I paid for my TRUE lol!

I got a better deal from a bit-tech forum member who sold me two AP-15s for £15 including postage. I also bought two Delta AFB1212M (120x120x25, only £6 each delivered) in the hope that they have the same pleasing noise profile and performance as their 38mm siblings. When I buy fans to test I try to keep the expense as low as possible.

Since moving over to the Rampage III Extreme I can't use 38mm fans towards the front of the case because the DIMMs are closer to the CPU cooler, and I'm going to see what kind of cooling performance I can from two top quality 25mm fans in push/pull. I need good cooling because the 990X is running at 4.7GHz with 1.43v, so it gets hot hot hot under load (85C above ambient in LinX, but that was a once-off stability test with -2C outside air LOL )

See if you can find a couple of AP-31 fans then, Lenny. They are kind of screachy at full blast, but you can also easily mod them into PWM fans too. I actually did it with 1 of mine and it works fine. Seems that when Scythe ordered the fans from Nidec Servo, they sent fans with the PWM PCB on them and just didn't connect the PWM wire to the pad on the PCB. All you have to do it peel up the label a bit and solder on a wire to the PWM pad in order to convert it to a true PWM fan. That also goes for the other 2 7 blade Gentle Typhoon fans. the AP-29 and AP-30 too. I first read about this mod on overclock.net. Ehume was the one that did it I believe.