Need some help with some info on case fans

[moccor]

These two threads will be more than enough for you:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1274407/...d-comprehensive-array-of-tests-and-benchmarks
http://www.overclock.net/t/1321074/tator-tots-big-quiet-120mm-140mm-fan-round-up

Learned a great deal from those guys and Ehume.

Maybe it's just me, but the first link looks unfinished by the creator. Still good enough nonetheless. And the 2nd link does have some really nice info. Luckily for me, minimal sound is the highest priority, so I only need to look at fans 19dba or less haha.

Point is, if they're going to do a restricted flow test, it shouldn't be in a case anyway, it should be with standard parts.

This review is what I mean by that.

Yeah you're right, they aren't gonna do double work. And doing it this way isn't lying or false advertising. I guess its just wishful thinking for them to actually put the fan in a case a record the dba @ 1meter distance.

 

[ivanlabrie]

You gotta read the whole thread to really grasp stuff, the author didn't finish posting his testing yet, and the first one only has graphs for 120 and 140mm fans he tested so far, but aims to test much more.

I got a Gelid Silent 12 pwm based on Tator Tot's reccomendation and I can confirm it's a GREAT silent fan, on par or better than the AP-15's but cheaper.

 

[Conumdrum]

19DBa or less. You want no airflow or no airflow worth mentioning?

Best of luck. This is getting old very fast and making me want to put someone on ignore due to the.... I'm not the best with some types of people.

 

[ivanlabrie]

Sounds like he's not really experienced...19dba or less is marketing noise levels only, manufacturer specs are all lies (most of them are)

 

[moccor]

Sounds like he's not really experienced...19dba or less is marketing noise levels only, manufacturer specs are all lies (most of them are)

Off topic: Well if you read the OP, I could say you sound like you're not very experienced at reading, but does that make it true, though clearly you forgot/didn't read the text.

Edit: never mind I'm more mature than yous. Just remember, I didn't ask you two to post here.

On topic: I run my GPU w/30% fan speed 24/7 with only air cooling

 

[ivanlabrie]

Off topic: Well if you read the OP, I could say you sound like you're not very experienced at reading, but does that make it true, though clearly you forgot/didn't read the text.

Edit: never mind I'm more mature than yous. Just remember, I didn't ask you two to post here.

On topic: I run my GPU w/30% fan speed 24/7 with only air cooling

Ok, first chill.
Second, re read my posts, had useful guides to quench your fan knowledge induced thirst.

And, you know, I did read the OP and you state you're not really experienced regarding case fans and their specifics so I felt like helping you out.

For that budget I'd go Gelid Silent 12 and make sure to get the pwm version.
Manufacturers tend to lie, most of the time their specs are fake, or exaggerated and bearing types are not correct.
Cougar fans are ok at best, not good for the picky ear nor that brilliant for the price. They just happen to be slightly popular atm.

 

[Ajay57]

Ivan how does that saying go now!!! You can help some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time!! OP you have some of the best members that i know that deal with cooling questions day in and day out. I would be more than happy if they took time out to answer any questions of mine. AJ.

P.S. Just chill out and listen to the answers they give, it will help you if that's what you want. OP.

 

[moccor]

You are both saying to chill, yet I am grateful for the info I receive and I say thanks. And just because I disagreed with a single thing and wanted to do a test of my own, didn't give Conumdrum the right to leave the comment he did, but that doesn't mean I wasn't chill lol. I didn't ask him to comment, so for him saying he wants to ignore me when he has the right to unsubscribe or not post at all, is kinda hilarious.

And well, 4 nice fans spec-wise (from the info given to Newegg from Cougar) for 30$, is a good deal to me. It comes out to 7.50$ each, for 17dba for 60CFM. Now lets say they lied about the sound and it is in fact, 30dba (just estimating a 30% increase in sound). If I reduce the fan speed by 30%, if that also reduced the CFM by 30%, leaving me with a 17dba fan @ 40CFM for 7.50$, is that still a bad deal? Not in my eyes. Because when I was trying to find nice quiet fans with adequate (to me) CFM, it was impossible. Noctuas are silent and have their numbers rated @ like 16dba and 35-40CFM, but 200-300% higher in price.

Example - The Gelid Silent 12 on Newegg says 12-25.5 dba and it says 58CFM. I am assuming that is @ 25.5dba. They are out of stock at Newegg, but I see many on eBay, most of which are about 10$.
So 25.5/2 = 12.75 (50% of max)
12.75/2 = 6.375 (25%).
12.75+6.375 = 19.125dba (75% fan speed), the CFM should be about 43.5.

Now IF that is how the CFM is estimated with reducing fan speed, I would say I still got the better deal, assuming the Cougar fan is false advertising a 30dba fan as 17dba. And yeah, the 30dba estimate is ridiculous and for sure 30dba isn't quiet and they can't be that stupid, but it made the math and my point, easy. I have fan controller with 5x 30watt channels, so bring on the 30dba Cougars haha.

But that is all assuming that a 1% decrease in dba results in a 1% decrease of CFM and also that the specs on their website isn't buttered up . As I said, I don't know much about fans and I didn't know about fan pressure til a couple months ago.

And sorry ivanlabrie, when I initially read your post, I thought you were trying to be a troll like Conumdrum.

 

[Conumdrum]

And I'm good at it too. Ask around.

 

[moccor]

And I'm good at it too. Ask around.

Yes, you cry even though you have the freedom to unsubscribe, ignore or not post at all. Yes you are very pro at being a troll... rofl.

 

[ivanlabrie]

moccor, the Gelid fans are way better than the Cougars.
CFM and noise don't scale like that, linearly. I've seen them tested and I have the Silent 12's, you won't regret getting them if you want silence and good performance.
Price is good too, if you want something cheaper get Rosewill Hyperboreas...Their 140mm fans are great.

 

[Automata]

Moccor, you are making a few logical errors. Decibel is not linear, it is logarithmic. 19 dB while moving any air at all is laughable. Most fan manufacturers lie badly about the specifications of their fan, in the sound levels and the CFM rating. Basing any kind of numbers off these without actual tests being done doesn't give good conclusions.

Also, if you go to a doctor and tell him that poking your arm in a certain spot hurts, he is probably going to tell you to stop doing it. While I agree that Conumdrum's posting style is usually grating (no offense), you provoked it by blindly ignoring all input from him even though it was valid and kept responding to his posts.

 

[moccor]

moccor, the Gelid fans are way better than the Cougars.
CFM and noise don't scale like that, linearly. I've seen them tested and I have the Silent 12's, you won't regret getting them if you want silence and good performance.
Price is good too, if you want something cheaper get Rosewill Hyperboreas...Their 140mm fans are great.

Well when I checked Newegg reviews on multiple Rosewill fans, many said they were noisy and they gave false dba. Now you's will say that Newegg is bad for reviews. But really, its silent or its not. Humans don't have super hearing. They either have average, above average, bad or deaf hearing. Either way, you can't blame me for at least taking those reviews into consideration when its regarding sound only and not position. And I didn't know it scales like that, but I am sure I will be happy with the Cougars. I bought some Kingwin 120mm and I am happy with those. Newegg says 19dba with 40cfm. I won't return the Cougars unless they are ridiculous with their false advertisement, but next time I do make a fan purchase, for sure I will give that Gelid 120mm a try, thank you. And I think I do need 5 more fans too, so I may try a couple out in the next month or two.

While I agree that Conumdrum's posting style is usually grating (no offense), you provoked it by blindly ignoring all input from him even though it was valid and kept responding to his posts.

Read his posts and you will see all of them except 1 had zero info. And the one that did have info, I gave him a "thanks" and agreed with it. Sorry for provoking him by ignoring useless and non existing information >_>?

Also like I said to Ivanlabrie, the Kingwin 120mm fans I am using with specs of 19dba and 40CFM are adequate to me. They are silent and I like the air they move. I know this is a overclockers forum, but I think yous are seriously underestimating quiet fans or the ambient temperature of my room. Either way, I love my "laughable cfm" fans and I plan to overclock with them too

 

[ivanlabrie]

Well when I checked Newegg reviews on multiple Rosewill fans, many said they were noisy and they gave false dba. Now you's will say that Newegg is bad for reviews. But really, its silent or its not. Humans don't have super hearing. They either have average, above average, bad or deaf hearing. Either way, you can't blame me for at least taking those reviews into consideration when its regarding sound only and not position. And I didn't know it scales like that, but I am sure I will be happy with the Cougars. I bought some Kingwin 120mm and I am happy with those. Newegg says 19dba with 40cfm. I won't return the Cougars unless they are ridiculous with their false advertisement, but next time I do make a fan purchase, for sure I will give that Gelid 120mm a try, thank you. And I think I do need 5 more fans too, so I may try a couple out in the next month or two.



Read his posts and you will see all of them except 1 had zero info. And the one that did have info, I gave him a "thanks" and agreed with it. Sorry for provoking him by ignoring useless and non existing information >_>?

Also like I said to Ivanlabrie, the Kingwin 120mm fans I am using with specs of 19dba and 40CFM are adequate to me. They are silent and I like the air they move. I know this is a overclockers forum, but I think yous are seriously underestimating quiet fans or the ambient temperature of my room. Either way, I love my "laughable cfm" fans and I plan to overclock with them too

Well, the Gelid's 37cfm is accurate, and the pressure they have is really good. I have used them to intake air through dense dust filters and they work like a charm.
One side intake next to my 7950 dropped temps by 10c, and fan was barely audible. Completely inaudible over the 50% gpu fan.
Buying fans is kinda addictive though, be warned

 

[moccor]

Well, the Gelid's 37cfm is accurate, and the pressure they have is really good. I have used them to intake air through dense dust filters and they work like a charm.
One side intake next to my 7950 dropped temps by 10c, and fan was barely audible. Completely inaudible over the 50% gpu fan.
Buying fans is kinda addictive though, be warned

Yeah this is kinda ridiculous, I have such a false sense of dba-to-cfm now that yous have said the manufacturers lie. Makes me wonder if the Kingwin fans I am using are even 40CFM due to how quiet they are. And yeah I checked Newegg for Gelid fans and found more. Figures the first link in Google for Gelid 120mm was a out-of-stock lol. They are pretty pricey too. But from what you say, they sure sound like they give Noctua a run for performance-to-price.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

This is why there are massive comparison reviews like I posted way earlier, so you can see what the best fans are, and which are lies.

 

[ivanlabrie]

Yup, those Gelids are in the top of price performance for the 7-12usd segment.
Ebay is better, that's where I got mine from...Even factoring shipping it'll be cheaper and equally good.
Sleeving is nice on them, and they are solid for any kind of orientation.

 

[moccor]

This is why there are massive comparison reviews like I posted way earlier, so you can see what the best fans are, and which are lies.

Well I did check out that page, I am not here to waste anybodies time. But when tbh I didn't know so many fans were listed on it, I must have opened it, saw the first 5-6 fans were something like 25dba or higher, or just expensive like Noctua and didn't look further lol. The first ever PC fan I bought was a Scythe 120mm. This was very long ago, maybe 7 years. It was so loud it was ridiculous. It could almost levitate itself.. So now I am scarred from any fans that aren't silent haha. I don't do any benching and probably 80-90% of my PC being used is Internet browsing and the other gaming, so temperature isn't a problem. And if my room does start to heat up, my 9 baby Brazilian Pink Salmon Tarantulas will love it

Yup, those Gelids are in the top of price performance for the 7-12usd segment.
Ebay is better, that's where I got mine from...Even factoring shipping it'll be cheaper and equally good.
Sleeving is nice on them, and they are solid for any kind of orientation.

Good to know, because I would have gone to Newegg or Tigerdirect. Is eBay a good choice for other PC parts? I don't really like to trust other people with PC hardware, but considering fans are small, it is kinda hard to package one wrong/unsafe

 

[ivanlabrie]

Well I did check out that page, I am not here to waste anybodies time. But when tbh I didn't know so many fans were listed on it, I must have opened it, saw the first 5-6 fans were something like 25dba or higher, or just expensive like Noctua and didn't look further lol. The first ever PC fan I bought was a Scythe 120mm. This was very long ago, maybe 7 years. It was so loud it was ridiculous. It could almost levitate itself.. So now I am scarred from any fans that aren't silent haha. I don't do any benching and probably 80-90% of my PC being used is Internet browsing and the other gaming, so temperature isn't a problem. And if my room does start to heat up, my 9 baby Brazilian Pink Salmon Tarantulas will love it



Good to know, because I would have gone to Newegg or Tigerdirect. Is eBay a good choice for other PC parts? I don't really like to trust other people with PC hardware, but considering fans are small, it is kinda hard to package one wrong/unsafe

Ebay sucks for pc parts, except for those fluid dynamic bearing fans...two ball bearings can get damaged on flight, so skip those.
Actually the Gelid seller is the official distributor or something: http://www.ebay.com/itm/GELID-SILEN...?pt=US_Computer_Case_Fans&hash=item2a29fa0d45
Those are rather nice!

 

[moccor]

Oh jeeze, 120 cfm and tolerable dba, that's a nice deal. Alright so I got those fans today and I placed them in my case just now. 2 top, 1 side and 1 exhaust. First, I hear no noise that was described by some Newegg reviews. Second, they are actually quiet. With the fan just plugged out in the open, it sounds kinda like a mosquito. But put a grill in front of the fan and... not quiet. Using my Fan controller to reduce the speed to 30%, still not quiet lol. I am not sure if its cuz they actually move a nice amount of air, or if its just due to the fan setup. Sometime when I am not busy or feeling lazy I will unplug the 2 top fans and see if I still hear that wind-like noise. Good news is, running furmark with my GTX 260 fan @ 30% fan speed reached a max of 63F.

@ivanlabrie. Since the Gelids have better pressure, would that result in less of the wind-like noise, or more? I would think less, since I still hear the noise even when reducing each fans speed to 30%