New Corsair SP120 PWM Fans Quiet vs Performance Edition

[SnowBob]

Hello everyone,

 

I wanted to seek your advice on the new PWM fans. I want to get a set of these fans for my H100i but am unsure if I should go with the Quiet or Performance edition fans. Right now I don't overclock but I most likely will in the future so I would really like the option available to crack the fans up to max and get the best cooling performance. For now though my preference would be to have a quiet fans in my case.

 

So I am unclear as to how exactly PWM works. Would I be able to crank up the quiet edition fan manually to the same speed that a performance edition fan can run at and vice-versa, could I set the performance edition fan to run as low as the quiet edition fan would?

 

I was unable to find the minimums for the fans online so I am wondering if my understand of PWM control correct.

 

Also as a side note if anyone knows, I want to replace the front intake fan in my 650D, from what I found it has to be 20mm thick so I the Bitfenix Spectere 200mm fan, is this a good choice or are there better ones?

 

Thank you for your help

[M-ursu]

I use Quiet editions and they perform enough well. (At least for me), and SP120 does not have PWM control.

[Hyydrah]

Quiet Editions are apparently very good, while the Performance Editions are too loud for their marginally better performance.

[tabuburn]

The H100i uses voltage control to adjust the fan speeds.

 

Fans will only run as fast as they are rated for but can go slower. SP120 QE fans will never run as fast as the SP120 PE ones. SP120 PE fans can run as slow as SP120 QE ones.

 

Voltage Control (3-pin) works by changing the voltage the fan receives to control it's speed. Ex: Using 12v makes the fan run at its max rpm but if you use 7v, it'll only run at just over half its max.

PWM (4-pin) works by sending 12v to the fan but rather than a constant stream of power they send it in bursts. The frequency of the bursts determines the rpm of the fan.

[airdeano]

PWM is very fast on/off switching. for slow speed, the off cycle is used more and for fast

fan speed the on cycle is used more and cycled to obtain rpm.

 

airdeano