Corsair AF140 Quiet Edition or Thermaltake Riing 12 LED RGB 256

[ttran7701]

I plan to get the Corsair Carbide Quiet 600Q which comes with AF140 Quiet Edition fans. I was considering replacing them with Thermaltake Riing 12 LED RGB 256. I haven't managed to find a review pitting the two of them. Which is better for overall cooling? The AF140 has .84 mmH20 of static pressure while the Riing has 2.0 at max. However, the AF140 has 68 CFM of air flow while the Riing only has 41 CFM of air flow. Will the Riing give me better cooling or am I just wasting money?

 

[Aeacus]

Since 600Q has solid front panel, higher static pressure fan would do better since it has a lot more of power to pull air through the side holes in front fascia. Then again, higher static pressure fans produce a lot more noise and that beats the whole purpose of "silent" case which 600Q claims to be. Also, why go with RGB LED fans if you can't see the LEDs at all?

If you want to get better airflow, both CFM and mmH2O wise, look towards Corsair ML140 Pro or Noctua NF-A14 PWM.
Note: 140mm fan is better than 120mm fan since it moves more air and does that more quietly than it's (same spec) 120mm counterpart.

Specs and comparison as well,
AF140 Quiet, specs: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Fans/Air-Series%E2%84%A2-AF140-Quiet-Edition-High-Airflow-140mm-Fan/p/CO-9050009-WW
Riing 12 LED RGB, specs: https://www.thermaltake.com/products-model_Specification.aspx?id=C_00002731
ML140 Pro, specs: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/LED-Color/Fan-Size/Package-Quantity/ml-pro-config/p/CO-9050045-WW
NF-A14 PWM, specs: https://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a14-pwm/specification

First off, airflow (higher is better):
AF140 Quiet - 67.8 CFM
Riing 12 LED RGB - 22.14 to 40.6 CFM
Corsair ML140 Pro - 20 to 97 CFM
NF-A14 PWM - 67.6 (LNA) to 82.4 CFM

Static pressure (higher is better):
AF140 Quiet - 0.84 mmH2O
Riing 12 LED RGB - 0.57 to 2.01 mmH2O
Corsair ML140 Pro - 0.2 to 3.0 mmH2O
NF-A14 PWM - 1.51 (LNA) / 2.08 mmH2O

RPM range (wider is better):
AF140 Quiet - 1150 RPM
Riing 12 LED RGB - 400 to 1000 RPM (low noise) / 800 to 1500 RPM
Corsair ML140 Pro - 400 to 2000 RPM
NF-A14 PWM - 1200 (LNA) / 1500 RPM

Noise level (lower is better):
AF140 Quiet - 24 dB(A)
Riing 12 LED RGB - 18.5 to 26.4 dB(A)
Corsair ML140 Pro - 16 to 37 dB(A)
NF-A14 PWM - 19.2 (LNA) / 24.6 dB(A)

Bearing:
AF140 Quiet - Sleeve
Riing 12 LED RGB - Fluid-dynamic (hydro)
ML140 Pro - Mag-lev
NH-A14 PWM - Fluid-dynamic (SSO2)

Bearing lifetimes:
Sleeve - 20.000 to 40.000 hours
Fluid-dynamic - 150.000 to 300.000 hours
Mag-lev - 300.000+ hours

pcpp: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/yYkD4D,dwR48d,69Gj4D,D34NnQ/

So, Noctua AF-14 PWM has same noise as stock AF140 Quiet but much better cooling performance. ML140 Pro has even greater cooling performance than Noctua but noise is also higher at max RPM. Oh, in the fan world, anything below 20 dB(A) is considered as silent. 20 - 30 dB(A) is audible, 30 - 40 dB(A) is loud and anything over 40 dB(A) is very loud.

The thing with PC cases is that it isn't the case that makes the noise but instead the case fans you put into there.
If i were to take a "quiet" case like Corsair 400Q (smaller version of your 600Q) and put a Noctua NF-F12 industrialPPC-3000 PWM fan into it which outputs 43.5 dB(A), then you can be certain that the PC won't be quiet at all, despite the claims it being quiet.

I too have Corsair ML140 Pro fans in use in 2 of my systems but mine are LED versions. And per PC (Skylake and Haswell builds), i have 7x such high performance case fans, mostly 140mm but few 120mm as well. Full specs with pics in my sig.
You may think that my PCs are very loud? Wrong.
The trick is that the more fans you have inside the case, the less each fan has to work to maintain the airflow and the less noise fans produce. And that is also a main reason why i have 7x case fans in my Skylake and Haswell builds. Since i have that many case fans, i can keep all of my case fans spinning between 800 - 1100 RPM and thanks to this, my PCs are very quiet while still having proper airflow inside my full-tower ATX cases.