Noctua nf-p12 redux vs Corsair sp120 qe liquid cooling

[kevinisbeast707]

So I'm planning a 240mm liquid loop inside a Silverstone rvz-03. The filters are quite restrictive and a radiators would add to that. At the moment I have two Corsair sp120 quiet editions in the GPU compartment and I am happy with their performance overall. My plan is to replace the fan above the CPU which is currently Silverstones 15mm thick 120mm 3 pin fan which isn't loud but isn't silent either. The plan for that fan mount is to use it to blow directly at the motherboard in hopes of keeping my vrm temps in check. My question then is, against a fan filter, which fan would work better and quieter to blow air about 80mm to a small vrm heatsink? Also would it be worth it to get two p12 reduxs and move one sp120 to the CPU intake since the p12's have a square frame? I don't have a preference between the 1300 and 1700rpm refuxs since they'd both be pwm.

[W-L]

On 5/16/2018 at 6:39 PM, kevinisbeast707 said:

So I'm planning a 240mm liquid loop inside a Silverstone rvz-03. The filters are quite restrictive and a radiators would add to that. At the moment I have two Corsair sp120 quiet editions in the GPU compartment and I am happy with their performance overall. My plan is to replace the fan above the CPU which is currently Silverstones 15mm thick 120mm 3 pin fan which isn't loud but isn't silent either. The plan for that fan mount is to use it to blow directly at the motherboard in hopes of keeping my vrm temps in check. My question then is, against a fan filter, which fan would work better and quieter to blow air about 80mm to a small vrm heatsink? Also would it be worth it to get two p12 reduxs and move one sp120 to the CPU intake since the p12's have a square frame? I don't have a preference between the 1300 and 1700rpm refuxs since they'd both be pwm.

With any kind of restriction or compact builds pressure fans are ideal, if you want thin fans the NF-A12x15 are good including the NF-F12.

[kevinisbeast707]

On 5/17/2018 at 6:53 PM, W-L said:

With any kind of restriction or compact builds pressure fans are ideal, if you want thin fans the NF-A12x15 are good including the NF-F12.

I'm definitely going to go with 25mm thick fans. I was just wondering if anyone had had experience with both the p12's and the sp120's because the p12 redux are about the same price and also not brown and tan.

[W-L]

4 hours ago, kevinisbeast707 said:

I'm definitely going to go with 25mm thick fans. I was just wondering if anyone had had experience with both the p12's and the sp120's because the p12 redux are about the same price and also not brown and tan.

They make chromax versions which are black but as for the P12 series they are the previous generation before the NF-F12 units, not well optimized but still excellent fans for their performance. 

[kevinisbeast707]

3 hours ago, W-L said:

They make chromax versions which are black but as for the P12 series they are the previous generation before the NF-F12 units, not well optimized but still excellent fans for their performance. 

Yeah I'm just not trying to spend 23 dollars per fan for something that's louder than the p12 at 13 dollars anyways. I'm not overly concerned about them being the best performers I just want something that's at least as good as the sp120's and is at least as quiet.

[W-L]

9 hours ago, kevinisbeast707 said:

Yeah I'm just not trying to spend 23 dollars per fan for something that's louder than the p12 at 13 dollars anyways. I'm not overly concerned about them being the best performers I just want something that's at least as good as the sp120's and is at least as quiet.

Depending where you are as prices can vary the Fractal Design Venturi fans are well priced for the performance you get for them while still being very quiet compared to the SP series of fans. 

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835352022

[kevinisbeast707]

On 5/20/2018 at 11:10 AM, W-L said:

Depending where you are as prices can vary the Fractal Design Venturi fans are well priced for the performance you get for them while still being very quiet compared to the SP series of fans. 

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835352022

Yes initially those were going to be the only fans i was going to get but they're 18 dollars with shipping and when i had purchased the sp120's they were on sale for 10 dollars with shipping. Are the  venturi fans good enough to justify 4 dollars over the other two?

[W-L]

1 minute ago, kevinisbeast707 said:

Yes initially those were going to be the only fans i was going to get but they're 18 dollars with shipping and when i had purchased the sp120's they were on sale for 10 dollars with shipping. Are the  venturi fans good enough to justify 4 dollars over the other two?

I would say so for a few bucks more they are not as loud as the SP edition fans and give really good performance. I've purchased them for a friend previously and they run them down ultra low to the point you can't hear them in the system.

[WoodenMarker]

On 5/20/2018 at 1:18 AM, kevinisbeast707 said:

Yeah I'm just not trying to spend 23 dollars per fan for something that's louder than the p12 at 13 dollars anyways. I'm not overly concerned about them being the best performers I just want something that's at least as good as the sp120's and is at least as quiet.

NF-P12's are much quieter than SP120's but don't perform as well. 

Magmas are good if you want a better performer: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kFBv6h/enermax-case-fan-ucmaa12a

https://www.anandtech.com/show/6391/120mm-radiator-fan-roundup-part-2-fan-harder/6

[kevinisbeast707]

On 5/22/2018 at 3:45 PM, WoodenMarker said:

NF-P12's are much quieter than SP120's but don't perform as well. 

Magmas are good if you want a better performer: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kFBv6h/enermax-case-fan-ucmaa12a

https://www.anandtech.com/show/6391/120mm-radiator-fan-roundup-part-2-fan-harder/6

I'd prefer to stick with something quieter. I think I'm going to get one p12 redux and a cooler master ap120rgb just so I can compare all of them and have an rgb fan for a future build maybe.

[kevinisbeast707]

On 5/20/2018 at 11:10 AM, W-L said:

Depending where you are as prices can vary the Fractal Design Venturi fans are well priced for the performance you get for them while still being very quiet compared to the SP series of fans. 

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835352022

Alright so I finished my build finally and I decided to get all of the aforementioned fans so that I could see for myself which fans I found best. Fractals Venturi hp-12 pretty much just totally sucked as anything except a free flowing fan. It does go really low in rpm like you had said and it is incredibly silent then, but when I put it on either a rad or a dust filter in either push or pull, they barely moved anything through at all. The dust filter ended up being worse where the fan would barely push anything through even at max rpm and in pull in either situation the fan was extremely susceptible to blade passing noise. On the radiator specifically, it performed very well at high rpm's but at low rpm it just choked. I also had a problem with my bearing clicking and making small grinding sounds like I've heard on cheaper sleeve bearings. So idk if I got a bad unit or what because it looks so sexy but it just doesn't perform as well as I was hoping.

On 5/22/2018 at 3:45 PM, WoodenMarker said:

NF-P12's are much quieter than SP120's but don't perform as well. 

Magmas are good if you want a better performer: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kFBv6h/enermax-case-fan-ucmaa12a

https://www.anandtech.com/show/6391/120mm-radiator-fan-roundup-part-2-fan-harder/6

Also, I found that the nf-p12's were in fact quieter, like you had mentioned, but quite frankly, they performed as good, or better than the sp120's. I was pretty surprised as I definitely expected the sp120's to win especially in the pull, radiator configuration. As it turns out, at lower rpm, the p12 pushes more air through the rad and dust filter while at higher rpm I couldn't tell a difference. In push both fans sounded pretty close but the p12 was slightly quieter with a very slightly higher pitch tone to it. In pull though, the sp120 had much more significant blade passing noise. The p12 was excellent in this regard and it pretty much almost matched EK's Vardar fans in this respect. On that topic really quickly, I feel like EK has an excellent fan that is let down by its inherently loud bearing design. If they had used something comparable to Noctua's sso/sso2 or corsairs fancy sleeve or even Deepcool's hydrodynamic bearings, then I think that they would have a winner on their hands.