Question Premium case fans or not

[Aislex]

Hi,

The preinstalled fans on my case are a little on the loud side (supposedly 25dBA @ 32.5CFM), so I was thinking of swapping them (3 fans intake, 1 exhaust) for something more efficient and with PWM. I found a non-RGB alternative that seems decent according to specs, but I can't find many reviews on it: Arctic BioniX F120 (~24.5dBA @ 69CFM) for around $10 each. The more expensive and prettier alternative I found is the Fractal Design Prisma AL-12 ARGB PWM (32.7dBA @ 85.7CFM) at ~$23 each. These last ones are pretty loud at max speeds, but I don't think there's ever going to be a need for max speed.

The Fractal Design ones are 2.3x more expensive and I'm not sure if they'd perform better in any way than the Arctic ones (they're prettier though, I'll give them that). I'm open to other suggestions if you guys can recommend me other models. I've considered Noctua fans, but the Chromax ones are very expensive at ~$30 each and the standard ones are brown, while everything in my case is either black or RGB...

Thanks

 

[Blitz Blitz]

You can change fans speed via bios or something? When I built pc, my fans at 100% stock speeds were loud. I reduced my case and cpu fans to ~800 rpm. It's become silent and not anoying anymore. Try to play. My temps also good ~60 °c cpu and gpu under load.

 

[Aislex]

You can change fans speed via bios or something? When I built pc, my fans at 100% stock speeds were loud. I reduced my case and cpu fans to ~800 rpm. It's become silent and not anoying anymore. Try to play. My temps also good ~60 °c cpu and gpu.

Thanks for your suggestion, but I think it would be better to change the fans.

All the intake fans are connected to Molex atm, so I'd have to switch them to a mobo header. Even then, I'd only be able to adjust the voltage, since the fans are 3-pin and not 4-pin PWM, so I don't think I'd be able to adjust RPM too much and by reducing RPM, I'd be reducing airflow that I care about. I'm using an AIO liquid cooler for the CPU so all of the air over the mobo and other components is moved by the intake/exhaust fans.

 

[Blitz Blitz]

Well I don't think so, that fans change helps. I have silent and quality fans, and at 100% speed they were not so silent, how manufacturer declares...

 

[Aislex]

I'm not saying it wouldn't help with the noise. I'm sure it would, but the current fans are already pretty low airflow, so if I decrease the RPM to make them quieter, I'm gonna end up with even worse airflow.

That's why I would prefer a fan that can move let's say double the amount of air at the same noise level, so if I tone the noise down, I still end up with better airflow than what I currently have.

 

[RARRAF]

noctua fans are very good the these are case fans I recommend them
https://noctua.at/en/products/fan

 

[geofelt]

The noise a fan makes is primarily related to the rpm it runs at.
Higher rpm means more airflow, but also more noise.
A molex connected fan will run at max speed always.
If you have a 3 pin connector, either native or via a adapter then you control the fan speed by voltage adjustments.
The motherboard can do this, or something like a zalman fanmate rheostat control can do the job.
You can also look into a molex cable that reduces the voltage to 7 or even 5v.

If you have pwm headers on your motherboard, you can buy a pwm controlled fan.

A secondary noise issue is the quality of the fan. I think the noctua ones do better and are not very expensive.
Here is one:
https://www.newegg.com/noctua-nf-p12-redux-1700-pwm-case-fan/p/1YF-000T-000K3
It also comes in a lower 1300 rpm version.
But, for flexibility I would buy the higher rom fan. You can slow down a higher rpm fan but you can not speed up a slower fan.