low cfm fans, or high cfm fans running at a lower voltage?

Opinions?

I've got my Black Ice GT360 here and don't know whether I want to run some low speed fans or run some high speed fans and turn the voltage down lower.

Does anyone know which generally has a better noise/cfm ratio?

The low CFM fans do...

Everyone wants to run high speed fans and volt them down ... but motor noise is worse than air movement noise.

I usually like to get some mid-speed fans (you don't ever need much more than 100cfm) and try to find some that have good reputations with undervolting.

telexen said:

The low CFM fans do...

Everyone wants to run high speed fans and volt them down ... but motor noise is worse than air movement noise.

I usually like to get some mid-speed fans (you don't ever need much more than 100cfm) and try to find some that have good reputations with undervolting.

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my panaflos and sanyo denkis have no motor noise at 7v.

My Nidec Beta 5 is silent at 5volts nad still pushes enough air to blow a napkin of the blow hole with 2 80mm ArcticCooler fans sucking air out

SolidxSnake said:

my panaflos and sanyo denkis have no motor noise at 7v.

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I have 6 (between panaflo and sanyos) that do...and don't get me started on Delta

If you want low noise, then shouldn't you be getting something like a Thermochill instead of a GT? I don't know much about water cooling, but I thought that the GTs had a ton a fins, so they were better for high airflow.

EDIT: Never mind, I just realized you said you already have the GT. In that case, I'd say try some Panaflo M's and see how they undervolt. If they aren't quiet enough, try some L's. And if those aren't quiet enough, try some Nexuses or Yate Loon low speeds. Personally, I would just undervolt some low speed Yate Loons, but it depends on how sensitive you are to noise. It seems like some Panaflo 120mms undervolt well, and others don't. Just try and get good deals on them, so if they don't undervolt well, you didn't waste a ton of money. Again though, Yate Loon low speeds are pretty cheap, which is another reason why they would be a good choice: http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-120mm-Case-Fan-D12SL-12-Orange-pr-3472.html. If you don't think they push enough air, you didn't waste a lot of money buying them. And if they're too loud, they're known to undervolt pretty well, so you'll have that option.

It depends on the fans, I like my Nidec beta Vs undervolted becuase they are quiet and don't make motor noise. However, fans like Delta AFB VHEs produce a fair amount of motor noise when undervolted. So to undervolted really depends on the fans.

As far as fans go I believe that GT360 is more geared toward lower CFM fans with lots of blades to create backpressure. So that could help you narrow it down some as most fans with that sort of design are lower CFM fans or screamers.

Well here's what I've got to toy with:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=474749

I got the Black Ice GTS 360 because it indicates that it has better performance than the BIXIII and BIPIII even at low cfms.

Also, if you want no motor noise you need to use a fan controller that does not use pulse width modulation.

Certain fans hate PWM controllers and will whine.

my panaflos and sanyo denkis have no motor noise at 7v.

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Really? All four of my Sanyo Denkis are unbearable.

If you really want good CFM/noise ratio, you'll want 120x25mm sleeve bearing fans of some kind, like the Yate Loons. That's about as good as it gets. 120x38mm fans of every kind have motor noise based on testing at SPCR, though you may get lucky with Panaflo L1A's. If you really need to do 120x38mm, you could look into AC fans - I don't know of anyone who makes DC 120x38mm sleeve bearing fans.

Yeah I think 120x80mm are all brushless