What fans should I get for my build?

[syked3]

Hey guys,
So recently I built my first PC and I know how important it is to have good cooling. At the moment I only have one rear 120mm bue LED fan. I have a stock intel cpu fan for my i5 2320. My GPU is an MSI R6770. I have an evga 500W PSU and this is my case:http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=c_00001662. I am on a budget and would not like to spend a lot of money. So could you guys recommend how many fans I need, where I should put them and some models which are good please?
P.S I use this PC for general browsing and gaming.

Thanks so much!

 

[Bobbythedoggy]

What is your fan budget?

 

[CTurbo]

Grab a 4 pack of 120mm fans from Cougar or Cooler Master. I would add one in the front and one in the bottom as intake. Add one in the top as exhaust. You can mess around with the 4th fan to see where it helps the best as in on the side as intake or exhaust, or maybe just put it up top as exhaust too.

 

[syked3]

What is your fan budget?

£30-40 (45-60 dollars)

 

[Karadjgne]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Case Fan: Enermax UCTB12P 71.2 CFM 120mm Fan (£16.95 @ Amazon UK)
Case Fan: Enermax UCTB12P 71.2 CFM 120mm Fan (£16.95 @ Amazon UK)
Case Fan: Cooler Master Megaflow 110.0 CFM 200mm Fan (£9.98 @ Novatech)
Total: £43.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-16 18:59 BST+0100

Put the 200mm up top (if you follow links it's blue led not red as in picture)
Put the 120mm in front and bottom

 

[Diganta Das]

First get a CPU cooler. Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is a good budget choice.
Then get a Cooler master jet flow, set it upfront as intake. Buy another 120mm fan and set it up in the bottom as intake.
You'll now have 2 intake fan and one outward fan. You can set the CPU in horizontal direction so that it pushes air outward through top. There, you'll get awesome cooling.

 

[syked3]

good things have been said about the artic f12 tc fans, what do you guys make of them? Also, in terms of the fans recommended, are they quiet?

 

[Karadjgne]

Arctic f12's start out good, but start going bad quickly. They get quite noisy and are prone to failure if put in a horizontal axis, so are ok for the exhaust or front fan, but terrible for the bottom or top exhaust.

30db is a whisper loud enough to be heard about 3feet (1m) away. 19/20 db is almost silent and the enermax at 8db are for all intents silent. As promised by manufacturer. So take that with a grain of salt. Either way, your case placement, acoustics etc will raise or lower that. My stock 19db intake is almost silent a tax in my case, but my Noctua nf-f12 on my h55 rad can get a little noisy, but nothing like the stock corsair fan at 1200rpm. That 25db fan sounded like an old p4 cpu stock fan at max, absolutely nowhere near a whisper, more like a loud conversation.

The 200mm exhaust will be the quietest option. At 900rpm and 110cfm at 20db, you'll get the same if not more output than 2x 120mm at 1200rpm. You'll also be able to turn it down to maybe @600 rpm and still outperform a good majority of 'silent' 120mm fans.

 

[sora]

good things have been said about the artic f12 tc fans, what do you guys make of them? Also, in terms of the fans recommended, are they quiet?

I think they're worth it for the price for a few months.

 

[madmatt30]

People are going nuts with fan configurations when in essence for those components all you need to add is a front intake fan.

Its not a hot running or high powered build ,there's absolutely no need for 4 or 5 case fans.

Nothing wrong with the ac f series ,I've been running 3 of these for over 2 years - still as quiet as when they came out of the box.

 

[syked3]

so i am choosing to go for the cooler master megaflow 200mm and Enermax UCTB12P 71.2 CFM 120mm Fan as my pc isnt overheating and i just want good airflow. In terms of attachment to motherboard and PSU, how would you guys recommend I configure it? My PSU has 3 molex leads and I only have 1 sys_fan header on my mobo. Will I need any adapters and if so, which ones? thanks guys

 

[Karadjgne]

Just 3pin and 4pin (pwm) 2 way splitters. You put both intakes on sys_fan 1 which should be the one closest to the front, and put both exhausts on sys_fan 2, which is where your exhaust fan is now. Or, since the 200mm comes with a molex adapter, you could just do that and only have to buy a single pwm splitter for the front fans, leaving the exhaust header alone. With the added exhaust up top, you'll be able to turn down the original exhaust fan to near silence. With the additional intake and exhaust you definitely have room to play with fan curves, either through mobo software or SpeedFan, or through bios settings.