Looking for silent fan recommendations

I’m trying to silence my machine a bit. Currently I have stock fans provided with Fractal Design XL R2 case and with Thermalright True Spirit 120 M BW Rev.A cpu coolers .
I think that even if the fan performance will be a tad lower it won’t be an issue - even when rendering both cpus are in the lower/mid 50s C. GPU also does not show any sign of overheating.
But on the other hand making the hum less noticeable would come a long way :slight_smile: . Can you recommend any fans that are good and quiet?

Noctua Fans

2 Likes

tbh I think noctua would be great but I want to see a comparison test/video with a case only using noctua/corsair ml/ BeQuiet Silent wing3 fans, and seeing what temps they get at a certain RPM limit or sound limit

Any high(er) end fan will perform pretty similar to any other high(er) end fan.

ThermalBench has tested quite a few fans, and a good chunk of them perform within a margin of each other.





Keep in mind that the scales for each graph are different. Also that hearing a 1 dB difference would require active listening to discern for the average human.

corsair’s ML120/140’s are amazingly quiet, especially at lower speeds. if you stick your head right next to the case, you can hear the air moving, and that’s it.

unfortunately they’re also pricey.

keep in mind that more fans, running much slower, is also a good approach for noise control.

1 Like

I am running two Noctua NF-P14s redux-1500PWM (yes, that is the name) as intake and two Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200 PWM as exhaust.
When running the fans at 20% they are barely audible
During load, I have them ramp up to 45%, still quiet but the air movement makes some noise…

The loudest parts in my system is either the HDDs or the GPU fans

be quiet! Silent Wings are truly silent.
I have them tuned to 70%+ speed and barely hear them.

1 Like

Yep, I love the silent wings fans, I have them in my desk build for airflow, even at 100% they are damn quiet. Loudest part in the system is the water pump.

The low RPM Noctuas are also very quiet & still move a lot of air. Just stay away from the 3000 RPM versions if you want quiet :slight_smile:

I have this and that AND YOU CAN’T HEAR IT!

Put all that mumbo aside, if you want performance/price then artic is a good choice

Premium there are Noiseblocker E-Loop’s & Noctua

Too lazy to read everything, so here’s what I think.
I guess people told you to spend 100$ on noctua, BeQuiet or whatever fans. I say spend 25$ on Arctic F12 fans. Better fans than any Fractal fan ever made, crazy quiet on low rpm and still move a lot of air. Way more than the fractal fans anyway.
Seriously, 5 noctuas will cost you as much as the case itself. 5 Arctic F12 will cost you as much as a single Noctua fan…

1 Like

The ratio is about 1:2.

Most of those mentioned above are very good options.

Just wanted to recommend my personal favorite, Aksasa’s Apache Black. They are really quiet and pretty inexpensive. Great static pressure, but slightly less air flow.

also not sure what all comes with the arctic fans but Noctua is premium packaging and includes rubber mount vibration plugs, extension cable, low noise cable(basically reduces max speed), and also a splitter cable.

Yep… I have 14 in my tower. Love them. You can get the black two pack which are far cheaper than LED or RGB.

while true, $20/fan is still pretty damn pricey in my book :wink:

6 year warranty also on noctua fans.

You mean any 4-pin fan? The fourth pin is the modulation, so that the computer can control the fan speed based on settings in the BIOS/EFI.

Also, I have a be quiet silent base 800 windowed case with 3 Arctic F14 fans (In addition to the 3 be quiet fans that come with the case) and my entire rig is silent enough that I can hear leaves rustle outside my window (even while benching). Highly recommended.

Well I understand you can control speed of any pwm fan. I believe these cables are more for there higher speed fan models I think. But it’s just that they give you so much for your 20$.

1 Like

That’s fair. I opted for quiet, high airflow, and cheap and wasn’t disappointed.

Hmm pretty interesting i will keep those Artic F12’s in mind thanks. :slight_smile: