Good 140mm case fans + good and cheap fan controller, upgrade worth it?

[T0XiiC]

Hey,

Im looking for good 140mm case fans and a good fan controller.

I dont really mind the look of the fans. They only need to have a great airflow and should be quiet. If possible I only want to spent like 10-15€ (prob. like 12-18 in $) for 1 case fan and I need 3 of them because I want to upgrade my 3 120mm fans for 140mm fans.
And im also looking for a good and cheap fan contoller (Less than 40$ if possible). Im currently using 4 fans.

Is it even worth it to upgrade 3x 120mm fans to 140mm fans?`I mean do I get noticeable better temps and much less noise?

Currently im using the Corsair Carbide 300R with 2 front intake fans and 1 rear exhaust, 1 top exhaust fan. As mainboard im using the AsRock H87 Pro4 and PSU Bequiet Pure Power 9 500W

 

[giantbucket]

a 140mm will flow a bit better and/or be quieter than a 120mm fan. i personally love the cheap black Cougar Turbine fans, in both 120 and 140 size.

for a fan controller, try eBay or just use motherboard's own fan control if it has it.

 

[T0XiiC]

A fan controller would help to keep my pc as quiet as possible (can just turn them down manually then without effort) when im not playing games. I dont mind spending the 40 bucks on a controller, it even looks really nice imo.

 

[atheus]

I didn't particularly like the cougars. With my newest build I went with Be Quiet! Silent Wings 2 PWM fans, all plugged into my motherboard PWM headers. With 3 of those on intake, and 1 exhaust, it does a fine job cooling my GTX 980 STRIX and i7-6700k@4.5 and I'm very happy with the near total silence at idle and very low noise at load.

As far as whether it's worthwhile to update 3x120 to 3x140, it really just depends on how quiet you want to go. There are plenty of 3x120mm setups that will cool 300 watts with no trouble, but 3x140 will do the same job while making less noise.

 

[T0XiiC]

I want to have the best possible airflow with my corsair 300r (And I want to make my PC as quiet as possible if im not playing any games). Thats why I wanted to upgrade from 3x120mm / 1x140mm to 4x140mm.

Now you told me you have 3 intake fans, should I maybe do the same? like only 1 exhaust and 2 intake (front) or 2 intake front, 1 intake side and 1 exhaust top or rear? cause I can only build 2 fans into the front.

 

[atheus]

I want to have the best possible airflow with my corsair 300r (And I want to make my PC as quiet as possible if im not playing any games). Thats why I wanted to upgrade from 3x120mm / 1x140mm to 4x140mm.

Now you told me you have 3 intake fans, should I maybe do the same? like only 1 exhaust and 2 intake (front) or 2 intake front, 1 intake side and 1 exhaust top or rear? cause I can only build 2 fans into the front.

I suspect there isn't an enormous difference between 3 intake 1 exhaust and 2 intake 1 exhaust. I only do this because I've got the Define S which allows for 3x140 on the front, and I take advantage of this by having all the front fans spin a bit slower than I would if I only had 2 intake 140's.

I'd say just go with 2 in 1 out and see how it goes. If you think things are a bit hotter or louder than you'd like, then think about where to add another fan or adjust fan speeds. From what I've seen, additions to this basic configuration rarely yield substantial changes in case temperature, and the primary determining factor of how loud your case is purely hinges on picking quiet fans for case, CPU, and GPU, and keeping their speeds low, rather than any particular strategy for fan placement.

 

[T0XiiC]

I looked for some case fans.

Im probably gonna get the bequiet Pure Wings 2. The Silent wings are too exepensive for me imo. But I haven't decided for a fan controller yet.

 

[atheus]

The Be Quiet! fans are definitely expensive, but they're by far the best fans I've had (out of about a half dozen attempts at finding good quiet fans over the years). They'll go on sale for about half off every few months, though. Since I needed 4, I decided to wait for the discount. I've always just used the integrated fan controller on the ASUS motherboards, since they do a pretty nice job with them, so I couldn't really help you in the area of third party fan controllers.

 

[T0XiiC]

Well I think im fine with the pure wings, I dont think they will be loud.

I've ordered 3 140mm Bequiet pure wings 2 now.

Can I even mount a 140mm fan as rear exhaust fan in my Corsair Carbide 300R? Cause everywhere where I am looking I only see 120mm rear fan.

 

[atheus]

Well I think im fine with the pure wings, I dont think they will be loud.

I've ordered 3 140mm Bequiet pure wings 2 now.

Can I even mount a 140mm fan as rear exhaust fan in my Corsair Carbide 300R? Cause everywhere where I am looking I only see 120mm rear fan.

Looks like your rear mount can only handle 120mm. http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-series-300r-windowed-compact-pc-gaming-case ← go to tech specs tab

 

[T0XiiC]

Thanks, yeah. So I will have 1 fan left over I guess or I will just replace the already built in 140mm fan (which came with the case) with the bequiet one.

 

[T0XiiC]

Hey, so I replaced all the fans with bequiet pure wings.

2x 140mm intake, 1x 120mm rear exhaust, 1x 140mm top exhaust.

Do you think it will be even better if I use 2x 140mm exhaust top? Or is that bad? so 3x exhaust (120 rear, 2x 140 top) and 2x intake front 140mm.

Or instead of 2 top, 1 more side intake. I want to create the best airflow / get the lowest possible temps with my Corsair 300R.

 

[atheus]

Do you think it will be even better if I use 2x 140mm exhaust top? Or is that bad? so 3x exhaust (120 rear, 2x 140 top) and 2x intake front 140mm.

Or instead of 2 top, 1 more side intake. I want to create the best airflow / get the lowest possible temps with my Corsair 300R.

Fan placement beyond simple 2 intake 1 exhaust will have different results in every case. The Corsair 300R is a very open case, so any imbalance between intake and exhaust means that air will get sucked in or blown out of the many vent holes all around the case, so it is very hard to predict how air will flow. It also does not seem to have dense filtration on any of the intake fans, so maintaining positive pressure in the case is fairly irrelevant.

The bottom line is you shouldn't obsess too much about getting the "best temps". Give your current setup a trial run with whatever your normal work or gaming load is, and monitor your temperatures. If you feel they are too high, or if you feel the noise is too high, try adding a fan, changing fan speeds, fan placement, etc. If the temperatures and noise are within an acceptable range, your job is done. There is no surefire solution. The possibilities you listed are all valid options, but without having experience from extensive experimentation with that exact case and the exact same video card/cpu cooler you're running, I can't really guess at the exact result. Hope this helps.