Fan configuration for silence

[Corbetio]

I have a be quiet shadow rock slim in a zalman z9 case which runs pretty loud when I play games. It is currently facing up toward the top fan which I believe is outake as I never changed it. Should I rotate the cpu fan to face a different way and would this be quieter? Thanks

 

[zerogravityx]

Most of the time you're hearing the bearings of the fan moving around, and not the air flow, so it is doubtful this would reduce noise.

I built a FreeNAS box with 13 x 140mm fans in it, and the tower is virtually silent because the fans don't ever spin at full speed.