Right now I have an EVO 212 with a single front facing fan, a 120mm exhaust out the back and a 200mm intake at the front. Should I buy a single 200mm fan or two 120s, and should those be an intake or an exhaust?
Also, fan recommendations would be helpful!
option 1 (silence with style): if there is no dust filter at the top of the case then use it as an exaust, corsiar makes some great LED fans available in all colors and they are quite once you go into the bios and turn them down to ~800 rpm, or just get a coolermaster 200mm fan
option 2 (ugly but completely silent): buy some noctua 12cm fans
WATUR: put a h100i in there and go liquid or swiftech watever you want really
Get two 120s, with nice CFM, and run them at 7V for silence at ~800 to 1000 RPM. Otherwise, get a 120.2 radiator for it.
No fan is completely silent, including Noctuas. It's just a matter of how the noise is generated, the frequencies(pitch).
these two are silly here. get a 200. use it in exhaust. I can tell you, I have 4 200mm fans in my PC, and they are whisper quiet normally, and still quiet, even at max rpm, especially considering that 1 200mm fan will push more than 2 noctua's ever will. the only thing that exceeds the airflow of a 200mm is a Delta, and those are loud as hell.
the CM Megaflow 200mm fans are rated at 110CFM airflow. watercooling is excessive for most systems, unless you're overclocking.
noctua's are best for heatsinks and rads. they have excellent SP. however, on straight intake or exhaust, SP is irrelevant. what you want there, is maximum airflow, with minimal noise. my 200's run at <1000 RPM max, WITHOUT adapters, and still push more air than any noctua can at 1600 RPM.