Quiet high performance fans

[rippy4500]

I want quieter fans, I use open back headphones so I can hear any noise coming from my pc. Ideally I want to get the noise as low as possible without sacrificing performance.

 

Requirements:
-No rgb, black color scheme

-120mm

 

I have 3 intakes on the front with my 360mm aio and 2 exhausts, 1 on top and 1 on the back. So 5 total.

I also have just enough fan headers on my mobo so I shouldnt need any splitters or fan controllers, I have 4 system fan headers and 2 cpu fan headers (One taken up by aio).

 

I heard the Noctua NF-A12x25s are among the best when it comes to noise/performance ratio so im gonna get those if I cant find anything better.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, rippy4500 said:

Ideally I want to get the noise as low as possible without sacrificing performance.

put the computer in a different room or outside the door.

costs zero dollars , sacrifices nothing , 100% silent

[rippy4500]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

put the computer in a different room or outside the door.

costs zero dollars , sacrifices nothing , 100% silent

Unfortunately my setup doesnt allow for that for various reasons.

[podkall]

7 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

with my 360mm aio

aren't you just going to hear the AIO fans though?

[rippy4500]

Just now, podkall said:

aren't you just going to hear the AIO fans though?

No id be replacing the aio fans

[venomtail]

I spent a while looking at fans when I needed to upgrade mine. For me BeQuiet!'s Silent Wings 4 Pro's won. New designs, build quality is great, anti vibration mounting, high RPM hums is also much deeper than other fans, in theory loudness should be less annoying due to frequency of hum being in the "less perceived frequency" (I know little about audio terminology), yet what won it for me was it's radiator performance. Great static pressure with very little bleed anywhere, forcing all air through the radiator not through the side mounts. 

 

To my knowledge Phanteks T30's were Nr. 1 but they're also thicker, didn't want to risk them not fitting my case. I'm happy with 2nd best. As far as I remember Noctua was competitive until a rad was added. Still better than 90% out there but margins were bigger.

 

They're a solid recommendation from me. You can check my PCPartPicker footer for how they look IRL. I've also got open back headset and don't really hear the fans. GPU fans themselves are louder.

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

Unfortunately my setup doesnt allow for that for various reasons.

ah ok does the room not have a door?

[rippy4500]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

ah ok does the room not have a door?

Yeah but its on the other side of the room from my setup meaning id need excessively long cables which could be expensive and less reliable. And also I dont wanna have to leave my chair every time I need to interact with my pc itself. I just dont want the extra hassle/jank that comes with a weird setup like this, if I could even do it at all.

[GuiltySpark_]

18 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

-No rgb, black color scheme

-120mm

Ideally you'd just properly tune your fan curves. I don't hear my machine at all 90% of the time and its 3 feet from me. 7800x3d/4090, all air cooled in a Fractal Torrent. I don't ramp the fans up above 40% PWM until the CPU hits 85c but that only happens there is a full multicore load which I don't do often. At that point they ramp to 60% PWM. 

 

I think curves following CPU temp directly up and down is annoying as hell, and completely useless for water cooled CPU's. 

 

If you are limited to 120's (bigger is better) then just get some T30's and be done with it.

[leclod]

Yeah, good curves are half the job, Fan Control is a great app for that.

I'd recommend a bundle of 5 Arctic P12 for around 30bucks (though I'd recommend having one or two spare, in case one is noisier from scratch)

 

(How do I tag another writer ?)

Edited January 17 by leclod

[flibberdipper]

9 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

I think curves following CPU temp directly up and down is annoying as hell, and completely useless for water cooled CPU's.

I agree with this to an almost aggressive point. The fan curve for my system has the AIO (and system, though they bottom out a little higher) fans at 450RPM until 65C, then it's 650RPM all the way until 95C where I have to make them go full bore. The only thing that ramps with CPU temp is the pump speed: 800RPM until 55C, 1200 to 65, 1600 to 75, and then whatever the hell max is starting at 80.

 

My system is functionally inaudible at idle or low load, and the loudest thing by far under load is my 2080 as well as when the PSU fan kicks on. All with no sacrifice to temps, even though I have an SFF build with essentially fully open side panels.

[rippy4500]

Just now, leclod said:

Yeah, good curves are half the job, Fan Control is a great app for that.

I'd recommend a bundle of 5 Arctic P12 for around 30bucks (though I'd recommend having one or two spare, in case one is noisier from scratch)

I have exactly those but they are audible to me at higher speeds. Supposedly better fans like the be quiet Silent wings 4 or Phanteks T30 are quieter at the same rpms though.

[rippy4500]

20 minutes ago, venomtail said:

I spent a while looking at fans when I needed to upgrade mine. For me BeQuiet!'s Silent Wings 4 Pro's won. New designs, build quality is great, anti vibration mounting, high RPM hums is also much deeper than other fans, in theory loudness should be less annoying due to frequency of hum being in the "less perceived frequency" (I know little about audio terminology), yet what won it for me was it's radiator performance. Great static pressure with very little bleed anywhere, forcing all air through the radiator not through the side mounts. 

 

To my knowledge Phanteks T30's were Nr. 1 but they're also thicker, didn't want to risk them not fitting my case. I'm happy with 2nd best. As far as I remember Noctua was competitive until a rad was added. Still better than 90% out there but margins were bigger.

 

They're a solid recommendation from me. You can check my PCPartPicker footer for how they look IRL. I've also got open back headset and don't really hear the fans. GPU fans themselves are louder.

Looking into it now the T30s look really good according to some places online. And I think id be able to fit them without issue.

[GuiltySpark_]

Just now, flibberdipper said:

I agree with this to an almost aggressive point. The fan curve for my system has the AIO (and system, though they bottom out a little higher) fans at 450RPM until 65C, then it's 650RPM all the way until 95C where I have to make them go full bore. The only thing that ramps with CPU temp is the pump speed: 800RPM until 55C, 1200 to 65, 1600 to 75, and then whatever the hell max is starting at 80.

 

My system is functionally inaudible at idle or low load, and the loudest thing by far under load is my 2080 as well as when the PSU fan kicks on. All with no sacrifice to temps.

I have to remind people, with liquid cooling the fans are not there to cool the CPU, they are cooling the water. The water is going to change temperature drastically slower than the CPU. 

 

I wish more AIO's offered a way to monitor water temperature and a better way to implement triggering fans off of it that was more universal. 

 

A buddy of mine running a Commander Pro is using one of them the temp probe inputs to monitor radiator exhaust temp and triggering his fans off of that which I thought was pretty nice. It works well. 

[PDifolco]

33 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

I want quieter fans, I use open back headphones so I can hear any noise coming from my pc. Ideally I want to get the noise as low as possible without sacrificing performance.

 

Requirements:
-No rgb, black color scheme

-120mm

 

I have 3 intakes on the front with my 360mm aio and 2 exhausts, 1 on top and 1 on the back. So 5 total.

I also have just enough fan headers on my mobo so I shouldnt need any splitters or fan controllers, I have 4 system fan headers and 2 cpu fan headers (One taken up by aio).

 

I heard the Noctua NF-A12x25s are among the best when it comes to noise/performance ratio so im gonna get those if I cant find anything better.

What's your case ?

I suspect removing the top fan won't change anything, so you need 6

Noctua NF-A12x25s will be fine, I'd still get a pair of 3 to 1 splitter so you can have all the AIO fans and all the intake ones on the same curve, it makes no sense to have 6 curves...

 

[GuiltySpark_]

That all being said more often than not when looking at situations where people complain about fan noise, its often solvable simply with curve tuning and nothing else. Things don't always have to be down at x temperature when y gets you the same performance with less noise. 

[flibberdipper]

1 minute ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

I have to remind people, with liquid cooling the fans are not there to cool the CPU, they are cooling the water. The water is going to change temperature drastically slower than the CPU. 

 

I wish more AIO's offered a way to monitor water temperature and a better way to implement triggering fans off of it that was more universal. 

 

A buddy of mine running a Commander Pro is using one of them the temp probe inputs to monitor radiator exhaust temp and triggering his fans off of that which I thought was pretty nice. It works well. 

Yup, that's the one and only thing I miss about my H115i and iCUE: where my AIO was cooling the CPU as well as serving as the exhaust for my entire system, I was able to have the fans ramp according to liquid temp to keep both the CPU temps in check as well as the liquid temps.

[Dedayog]

37 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

I want quieter fans, I use open back headphones so I can hear any noise coming from my pc. Ideally I want to get the noise as low as possible without sacrificing performance.

 

Requirements:
-No rgb, black color scheme

-120mm

 

I have 3 intakes on the front with my 360mm aio and 2 exhausts, 1 on top and 1 on the back. So 5 total.

I also have just enough fan headers on my mobo so I shouldnt need any splitters or fan controllers, I have 4 system fan headers and 2 cpu fan headers (One taken up by aio).

 

I heard the Noctua NF-A12x25s are among the best when it comes to noise/performance ratio so im gonna get those if I cant find anything better.

You have a 14900K, you're never going to achieve quiet without retarding that thing to unreasonable levels.

 

 

[leclod]

14 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

I have exactly those but they are audible to me at higher speeds. Supposedly better fans like the be quiet Silent wings 4 or Phanteks T30 are quieter at the same rpms though.

All fans are audible at higher speeds. Noctua won't make a difference in my opinion.

The reviews I've seen don't show a big gap between all the better fans, if at all.

My P12s in my system top out at around 1400rpm,  which is still very decent noisewise.

How fast do yours spin and for what temps ? maybe increase the temps and lower the speeds ?

Edited January 17 by leclod

[ki8aras]

20 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

Yeah but its on the other side of the room from my setup meaning id need excessively long cables which could be expensive and less reliable. And also I dont wanna have to leave my chair every time I need to interact with my pc itself. I just dont want the extra hassle/jank that comes with a weird setup like this, if I could even do it at all.

all you need is an ethernet cable and a slim client on your side,even with the best fans in the world a cooler capable of cooling the 14900k will make noise and you'll be dissapointed with the results

if you are serious about this, this is the best way

[venomtail]

7 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

You have a 14900K, you're never going to achieve quiet without retarding that thing to unreasonable levels.

 

 

Bro's gonna need a 420mm AIO at the lowest if not going custom outright. All core load is unsustainable. Pretty sure IceGiant would not even handle all core load.

[rippy4500]

Just now, leclod said:

All fans are audible at higher speeds. Noctua won't make a difference in my opinion.

The reviews I've seen don't show a big gap between all the better fans, if at all.

My P12 in my system top out at around 1400rpm,  which is still very decent.

How fast do yours get and for what temps ? maybe increase the temps and lower the speeds ?

I just set them to 40% (or maybe 50% i forgot), its at a level where its tolerable and keeps my temps low enough. And also I find variations in noise way more noticable than 1 consistent noise level so thats why I locked them.
gpu is 40c idle and 75c under furmark

cpu is 40c idle and 85c under stress test and like 50-60c while gaming or with modest workloads. (14900kf, 5.9 allcore locked, ht and e-core disabled)

[podkall]

3 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

You have a 14900K, you're never going to achieve quiet without retarding that thing to unreasonable levels.

 

 

 

 

 

@GuiltySpark_@Dedayog@PDifolco @venomtail  what about different case that lets less noise bleed out, would that sorta solve OP's issue?

[Dedayog]

Just now, podkall said:

 

 

 

@GuiltySpark_@Dedayog@PDifolco @venomtail  what about different case that lets less noise bleed out, would that sorta solve OP's issue?

It's not just he fan that makes noise.  Air itself makes noise as it moves around things, like the case.

 

That's why we hear wind outside our houses.  

 

Purse your lips and blow out of your mouth hard.  Your lungs are silent as they push the air, but noise is heard due to the air moving out of your mouth.

 

To get adequate cooling, you need air.  In a case, which is a controlled space, you have to move sufficient air to remove heat.  This air is a formula of air speed and air volume.  This results in an amount of air that moves at a speed, which means noise.

 

In a computer case, there are ways to reduce this but not fully.

[PDifolco]

3 minutes ago, podkall said:

 

 

 

@GuiltySpark_@Dedayog@PDifolco @venomtail  what about different case that lets less noise bleed out, would that sorta solve OP's issue?

Don't think it'll change much, fans have to get air and don't like closed panels, noise don't like mesh...