What is the best Noctua Fan?

[Tomha]

All Noctua fans boast great silence and performance, but as far as wanting a nice balance between silence and airflow, what of their fans does this best?

On a side note does anyone know of fans that perform with similar silence and airflow but come in black?

 

[seekermeister]

I only know about Noctuas, as far as the quiet category goes. I have several different Noctuas in my desktop and each seems as good as the other. The choice has more to do with getting the right size and type of fan for the exact application it is to be used for.

 

[Tomha]

Right, I was kind of looking at some of the descriptions and thinking... "well this cpu cooler fan here has high airflow...but wouldnt I want that in a general case fan too?" I suppose price will play a part, they arent cheap . Anyone know what their 140mm fans are like? There are 3-5 slots I would like to put noctuas in, and they can be either 120 or 140mm. Obviously 140mm would provide better airflow, but at what cost of sound?

 

[seekermeister]

If you click on my specs, you will see that I have a combination of 120 and 140 case fans (the 200s are Cooler Masters, because Noctua doesn't make that large of fan), along with a NH-D14 HSF for the processor, and I can't tell a lot of difference in the sound of any of them. I would go with the largest size fan that will fit the slot in question for airflow purposes, and the processor HSF that I mentioned, if you can afford it, and you check to make sure that it will fit over your RAM. In my case, it was a tight fit, but I managed by offsetting the outer fan slightly to clear the RAM.

The loudest fan I have is on my external case, and it is loud enough to totally drown out all of the other fans when running, when it isn't there is just a very low hum to be heard, and I never hear it, unless I listen for it. Actually, the one that I do hear is not a case fan, but the little fan on the chipset that came with the motherboard.

 

[Tomha]

I'm aiming for a Corsair Hydro cooler, I bought Corsair Vengeance ram with this intention, and as a result many tower cpu coolers wont fit over the ram.

 

[seekermeister]

I'm not familiar with Corsair Vengeance RAM, so I don't know if they are higher than my Patriot PGS34g1600LLKA or not, but mine certainly are not short.

 

[Tomha]

Vengeance is quite tall, ram don't get much taller

 

[Golden]

Hi Tomha,

It sounds like you have exactly the same problem I had : I wanted to install the same RAM but it wouldn't fit under the Noctua NH14, so i went with....you guessed it, the Corsair H60 water cooler. Works a treat.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Tomha]

Precisely what I am thinking

 

[DaGooN]

I think you will find this of help. tom did a nice review on the new NF12 PWM

 

[A Guy]

I too have both 120mm and a 140mm Noctuas. They are all equally quiet. If black is a must, I hear Scythe Gentle Typhoons are very quiet (grey blades though ), looks like only 120mm, but various speeds.

Scythe Gentle Typhoon

A Guy

 

[Tomha]

I looked at them, but their airflow isn't as good.

Also, about the video. It was helpful, thanks for the link .
I'm just gonna put it out there though that I cant stand that guy he is unable to be to the point, he always has half hour long videos with stupidly long intros that I personally dont care about and all the information is dragged out into what forms a painful video to watch...not to mention his pronunciation of the letter "h" What he needs to do is write down bullet points prior to the video on what he feels he needs to cover, and then cover them and them only without 20 minutes of pointless data usage

 

[smarteyeball]

Nexus real Silent - white blade, almost as good as NFP-12 - 120mm

Thermalight TY-140mm

Other Sycthes on a controller

 

[A Guy]

The Noiseblockers are said to be real quiet too:

120 mm Fan Roundup, Part I: 1350 RPM or Lower Rotation Speed. Page 11 - X-bit labs

Amazon.com: Noiseblocker: Electronics

A Guy

 

[DaGooN]

I put two of them Scythe GT 120mm 1850rpm in a push/pull on a H80 the other day for a friend, and let me tell you they ain't that quite @ 1000rpm they make more noise than the Apache fans and performance wise are the same. At full speed they are to much for me, as i love silence.
So he then sent them back and got 2 Akasa FN058.

I am only 2ft away from his case and i can tell you now, the push/pull Akasa Apache @ 1000rpm
can not be heard. so he is happy


you have to remember that ones silence is anothers loud

Akasa AK-FN058 Apache Black Super Silent 120mm Fan - 4 Pin PWM [AK-FN058]

- Super silent APACHE fans in Black Stealth colour
- S-FLOW fan blade design delivers 30% higher airflow
- IP-54 military standard moisture and dust protection
- Super silent with PWM auto speed control
- Hydro Dynamic Bearing extends fan life up to 50,000 hours
- Dimension 120 X 120 X 25mm
- Bearing HDB (Hydro Dynamic Bearing)
- Speed 600 -1300 RPM
- Max airflow 57.53 CFM (97.74 m3/h)
- Sound level 6.9 -16.05 dB(A)
- Max static air pressure 26.40 mm-H2O
- Rated voltage 12V
- Connector PWM-4pin

Also here is a good table of fans with spec/noise.
http://www.quietpc.com/products/120mmfans

For a Rad, Static Pressure is the thing to take note of.