be quiet! vs Noctua case fans

[0x1eef]

Need 5 case fans (2xfront & 1xbottom intake, 1xback & 1xtop exhaust) for system in signature + MSI GTX 970. Deciding between BQ Silent Wings 2 140mm PWM and Noctua NF-A14 140mm PWM
Noctua is a better cooler in general but some reviews state that some noise starts to appear after 900 rpm. BQs are completely silent even on their max RPM. My main concern is whether BQs will provide sufficient airflow for keeping my system cool.
Mobo has 3 PWM headers, so Noctua fans would be connected with included 2-fan Y-splitters (2-to-1 front intake, 2-to-1-exhaust, 1-to-1 bottom intake), BQs would be connected with 3 intake fans on Akasa 5-fan PWM splitter plus a single header for each exhaust.

 

[i7Baby]

Your case has -
Front: 2 - 120/140mm fans (included is one hydraulic bearing 140mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed)
Rear: 1 - 120/140mm fan (included is a hydraulic bearing 140mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed)
Top: 3 - 120/140mm fans (included is one hydraulic bearing 140mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed)
Bottom: 1 - 120/140mm fan (not included)

a 140mm fan in front, top and rear.

3 fans is plenty. But I'd prefer 2 at the front and 1 at the rear.

You certainly don't need 5 fans. Or have you some weird overheating problem?

Your case has 3 x 3/4pin case fan headers. Each one you can fit a splitter to and fit 2 fans if you want.

Noctua are the best fan you can get - good air flow and quiet. But expensive as all get out.

Personally I like Corsair. But I'd only replace my crappy Coolermaster fans if they started to breakdown - eg got noisy.

There's a bunch here - http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page7.html with noise and temp data that might help too. (The green squares ones are best)

 

[PapaWood]

I like the Noctua's. They come with adapters too so you can set voltage through them to low noise. Personally I think they work so well that the sound doesn't bother me, more likely than no I had my headset on with music, video, or game sound and couldn't hear it if i wanted to.

I can't really speak about the other brand though, never personally owned them.

 

[0x1eef]

Your case has -
Front: 2 - 120/140mm fans (included is one hydraulic bearing 140mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed)
Rear: 1 - 120/140mm fan (included is a hydraulic bearing 140mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed)
Top: 3 - 120/140mm fans (included is one hydraulic bearing 140mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed)
Bottom: 1 - 120/140mm fan (not included)

a 140mm fan in front, top and rear.

3 fans is plenty. But I'd prefer 2 at the front and 1 at the rear.

You certainly don't need 5 fans. Or have you some weird overheating problem?

Your case has 3 x 3/4pin case fan headers. Each one you can fit a splitter to and fit 2 fans if you want.

Noctua are the best fan you can get - good air flow and quiet. But expensive as all get out.

Personally I like Corsair. But I'd only replace my crappy Coolermaster fans if they started to breakdown - eg got noisy.

There's a bunch here - http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page7.html with noise and temp data that might help too. (The green squares ones are best)

I've chosen 5 fans setup because bottom intake fan will blow right on the GPU and 2 front intakes will blow on the GPU and bottom part of the mobo, too (think chipset). Two exhaust fans will be placed near CPU cooler, both of them sucking heat coming from CPU cooler (horizontal flow, rear exhaust) and that produced by GPU (vertical flow, top exhaust). And also maintaining positive pressure inside the case.

I won't use integrated fan controller and will be controlling the fans with the motherboard. Without a card synthetic load brings CPU to 51 degrees, 3 Fractal's included case fans are spinning @ ~750rpm (the are set up as 2xfront intake, 1xrear exhaust). They are decent but too loud for my taste because I can hear them (they don't sound like helicopter taking off but still, compared to U14S fan which is silent @ 700-800rpm).
Now I throw in a GTX970. Temp inside case will rise for sure. I'm not sure if Noctua fans would stay below 900 rpm under this scenario and if so, they aren't much better than included fans. If SW2s are capable of providing enough air for this case/setup, I'll just go with them because they are truly silent in the whole range of operational speeds.
Alas, I have to choose from this 2 brands. I don't consider Noiseblocker or Scythe fans as a choice and don't have any Phanteks available.

 

[synphul]

I like the silentwings fans that came with my cpu cooler. Looks like ncixus has them in stock, sometimes they go out of stock and can be a real bear to get. Noctua have good fans as well, they're not that high priced anymore comparatively especially with the redux lineup. The redux 1500rpm 140 pwm's are right around $20. That actually makes noctua's a bit cheaper than many of the 140mm corsair models which makes it a real easy choice.

I'm not sure you 'need' 5 fans in terms of cooling unless you want 5 fans. The gtx 970 isn't an overly 'hot' gpu and neither is the locked core 4690. Much of it will depend on your ambient room temps. I've got the 4690k oc'd with an ati/amd gpu (not the coolest running) with only 4 cooling fans. Using a fan controller, none are running close to full speed. A single 140mm phanteks as rear exhaust, 2x 140mm redux 1500rpm noctua's as top exhaust turned down to around 1000rpm, a single 200mm phanteks intake.

The noctua's can be heard at full speed, any of them can but with just 4 fans running there's plenty of airflow exchanged in and out of the case on a system that's likely putting out more heat than yours. I would even go so far as to say the 2 noctua's on top aren't necessary, just so I could run them at lower rpm's to keep it quiet.

 

[0x1eef]

^ I'm a bit worried about temps in summer. I have AC so I think ambient won't rise above 30C. Do you think 3 SW2 fans will be enough for my build? And how cool is your setup?

 

[synphul]

My ambient is around 70f/21-22c, at around 25% load (basically idle) i'm at 30c, less if use drops lower. Hits around 73-74c running prime95 v26.6 small fft's and that's oc'd to 4.6ghz at 1.28v on vcore (a bit higher than stock runs). Gpu's idling right now at 30c. Gaming my cpu usually hovers around 65-66c, never reaches 70c.

 

[0x1eef]

Mine hits 51c during P95 26.6 sFFT, 53c under OCCT. I'm more interested whether 3 fans will provide enough air to keep 970 cool.

 

[synphul]

The 970 isn't that hot of a card. Here's a couple links discussing thermals for the 970 and 980.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-970-maxwell,3941-15.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-and-980-reference-review,8.html

Under load the 970 only hits 14c hotter than my current 7850 and packs a lot more performance. Compared to an r9 290x which runs 94c under load, the 970 only run 78c. 3-4 fans should be more than plenty. Not sure which fans you already currently have, but 2 140mm intakes, 1 rear exhaust and 1 top exhaust should be more than sufficient for a single 970 + a locked i5.

 

[0x1eef]

Thanks.

 

[i7Baby]

I have 2 x 670s running with 3 case fans and have no problems at all.

 

[0x1eef]

^ Thanks for confirming, i7Baby. I'll stick to 3 case fans then.