Best Fans?

Conventional Wisdom:
Best PS --> PCPowerandCooling (try and argue this one)
Best VALUE PS --> Enermax.

For the money, Enermax is pretty darn good. (arguable, but not the point)

Everyone knows that stuff. Now what are those answers but for case fans? Who is the top-of-the-line-but-you-pay-for-it and who is the unless-someone-else-is-paying-for-it-this-is-good-enough?

I bought an Enermax case, and it came with 2 case fans, but they don't seem to push a lot of air. I bought two more Generic 80mm fans and a Sunon 120mm front fan. My mobo temp is usually around 25C and my CPU temp is usually around 45C.

Are the fans doing their job? (Note 25C is close to room temp, I am in the desert, so I know that's not too bad.)

djb23 said:

Conventional Wisdom:
Best PS --> PCPowerandCooling (try and argue this one)
Best VALUE PS --> Enermax.

For the money, Enermax is pretty darn good. (arguable, but not the point)

Everyone knows that stuff. Now what are those answers but for case fans? Who is the top-of-the-line-but-you-pay-for-it and who is the unless-someone-else-is-paying-for-it-this-is-good-enough?

I bought an Enermax case, and it came with 2 case fans, but they don't seem to push a lot of air. I bought two more Generic 80mm fans and a Sunon 120mm front fan. My mobo temp is usually around 25C and my CPU temp is usually around 45C.

Are the fans doing their job? (Note 25C is close to room temp, I am in the desert, so I know that's not too bad.)

Click to expand...

Panaflo is one of the best fan makers in terms of the noise to cfm ratio, they are also high quality fans. Sunon, Delta, Vantec and YS Tech are also other good brands.

Does the large temperature differential between the mobo and the CPU lead you to believe that the fans I have are insufficient?

djb23 said:

Does the large temperature differential between the mobo and the CPU lead you to believe that the fans I have are insufficient?

Click to expand...

The mobo temp should always be much lower than the cpu temp.

Cool. Sounds like the case if fine then. The temperature in the apartment is +80F, so I guess those temps aren't too bad.

Thanks a lot
(my next rig will use those better fans)

Part of your question, too, deals with your goals. There are 3 forms of "best", as far as fans are concerned, and they don't deal with price.

1) Best performance. What pushes the most CFM. Delta is the typical answer you'll get here.

2) Best for being quiet. What's the quietest case fan. You'll usually hear Panaflow, Vantec Stealth fan, and Papst (Pabst?) here.

3) Best for performance with acceptable level of noise. Given a specified tolerance for noise (generally in the 28-35 dBA range), what gives the best performance. As I and others have posted before, it's good to compare fans by taking their total CFM and dividing by dBA to get a CFM / dBA ratio. Compare those to get a feel, while keeping in mind the total dBA range, too.

I've found good resuls with ThermalTake fans (e.g., 37 CFM for 30 dBA), personally, and Panaflow is also good. Vantec also to some extent.

Also notice that if you do a 7V mod or a fanbus, then most regular fans can be brought into this category. In fact, you'll notice when looking at the quieter Papst, Vantec Stealth, and Panaflow fans that they rotate much more slowly than other fans of their size, and get less CFM's. Basically, that's the trick most use -- slow down the fan speed for less noise. So you can essentially attain those results from most fans by doing the same on your own.

I hope this helps for general reference. -- Paul