Best 120/140mm fans?

[bluethulhu]

Hi, I want to make this post as short as possible, so here I go: My case is a CM Storm Trooper (w/ side panel window from CM), CPU Cooler a Corsair H100, and Graphics card EVGA GeForce GTX 690. I am looking for the best fans with a combination of quiet and max airflow. I can't do a push/pull with my H100 unfortunately 🙁 so I would like the best 120mm fans I can get considering I can only have two. I was thinking of the Gentle Typhoons, but I'm not sure which model to get and where to buy them. As for the case fans, I have two stock Cooler master fans for the drive bays, I was planning on getting some Red LED fans just to make it look better, considering I don't need a whole lot of airflow there (SSD + 1TB Caviar Black). I need a 140mm exhaust fan near my graphics card, because it gets pretty hot on load. I was also considering a water loop because everything gets really hot (3930k @ 3.8ghz, GTX 690 @ 70°C), but I don't know if a dual 120/140mm rad would get the job done. I could get a 140mm rad in place of my exhaust fan in a push/pull config for that extra cooling, if that would be a wise decision. Long story short, need best 120mm fans for H100, good 140mm exhaust fan. Thanks!

 

[suteck]

First, if you only use 2 drives then I would remove the other drive bay that you're not using to help with the air flow. Or, you can move those fans over to the other side slots to blow directly on your video card to help keep it cool. I believe there is a built in fan controller in this case wright? If so you can get the higher rpm/cfm fans and use the controller to "tone them down" until you decide you need them. As for you "can only have two"? There is also an additional 2 you can put on the bottom of the case unless you have it blocked off with something else? I'm not trying to be a smarta$$, just mentioning options as I see them. You have the H100 mounted on the top of the case? You might try mounting it on the bottom, after removing the 5 1/2" bay and the little 2.5" bay next to it. You should be able to use push pull as there seems to be enough room there for that configuration - I'm going on reviews and pictures here so check it out thoroughly of course before rebuilding your entire system. I would suck air into the case from there. Use the two side fans to push cooler air along with whatever comes off the rad and let the back 140mm and the top 200mm fan pull the warm air out. You can of course add 2 more side fans if you didn't pull one from the harddrive bay. The gentle typhoons look like good fans and at only 28dBa and 58.3 CFM that's a pretty good fan. I like frozenCPU for some of my parts, you can find them HERE - http://www.frozencpu.com/products/10323/fan-674/Scythe_Gentle_Typhoon_120mm_x_25mm_Fan_-_1850_RPM_D1225C12B5AP-15_Hot_Item_.html -
If you're looking to replace the front cooling fans with Red LED's you can probably get more of the typhoons to replace them.

A liquid cooling solution for the graphics card isn't a bad idea. If you know what you're doing and or love playing with your machine. usually a single rad will do the trick if it's a good one. Only thing is, you will need a rad/fan/pump/reservoir & waterblock for this to work. Usually at this point you're ready to go full blown liquid modding. I started with prebuilt kits as well and moved on and found home made systems work better with the right information and help. But it's expensive! I don't know if they make prebuilts for video cards but they might. Wouldn't hurt to look. A single rad on the back pulling air into the case and also exhausting it from the top would probably work. I've found that liquid cooling the video card(s) doesn't take much and cools them WAY down. You can also try just modding the H100, just clip the CPU out line and add the video card into the loop. Or/and you could also add another rad/fan combo there - H100 rad to CPU, out of CPU to new rad, out of new rad to GPU, out of GPU back to H100. Just make sure you can replace the fluid you loose while making the connection and that you can "bleed" the air out once you're done. That would be a new topic in the liquid cooling section and get plenty of help before you tear apart your system for a rebuild like that.

Well, that's about as short and sweet as I could make it. Let us know what you might like to do from here and we'll try to help you out.