Corsair Quiet and High Performance Edition Fans

[Enthusiast29]

Hey, is there really a difference whether I buy a high performance or quiet edition fan from Corsair? I can just manually set the RPM. Or is it that if i set a high performance fan to 1100 RPM, it won't speed up when it needs to, or vice versa with a quiet edition fan?

EDIT: I'm talking about the AF and SP series fans, btw.

 

[wehler53]

Basically a high performance fan is designed to move as much as through a system in the smallest among of time giving you a high cf/s of air through your case they are designed so that the fins push more air, quite fans are made to push a reasonable amount of air through a system, they usually features motors that are focused towards being quiet instead of spinning faster.

 

[jb6684]

Yes, their are a couple differences:
- the AF has nine (9) narrow blades for lower fan noise.. (yeah, spins only 1100 RPM too...)
NOTE: I found that for TRUE silence I have to run 120mm fans at around 700--800 RPM

- the SP has seven (7) wide blades for higher static pressure, but, more noise.. (& spins 2350 RPM...)
NOTE: even if you run this fan slower, it will make more noise than the AF fan at the same RPM...

While you can generally run a fan slower than spec on 12volts, by dropping the voltage to say 9 or 7 volts I don't believe that you'll be able to drop that SP 2350 RPM fan ALL the way down to 1100 RPM. Even IF you could it will certainly be louder than the AF fan...

 

[wehler53]

I'd like to point out that fans are controllable with software and you would be able to bring it back to around 1200rpm. I don't believe that high performance fans make much noise I have a complete high performance fan set up (5 fans) and they are running of extreme and to be honest you can't really hear them and your safe in the knowledge your case will stay cooler