good 120mm fan

[mb26]

What would be the 120mm fan with the best CFM to dBA ratio?

[Jimmy White]

Vantec SF12025L Stealth 120mm fan

- Airflow: 53 CFM
- Noise Level: 28 dBA

[Cricket]

Panaflo L1A...68.9 CFM, 30 dBa.

Cricket

[damocell]

noiseblocker SX2pro 64cfm 26 DB

[FLG]

SilentX 58 CFM 14 DBA

[mb26]

i have been meaning to post this all day (so flg sort of beat me to it bout the silenX's); thanks everyone for so many responses..

hmm i did some looking myself, and i came up with an evercool; 79.14 CFM @ 30 dBA [2.63 CFM per dBA] (like this one cuz it doesn't cost the earth like most of them) .. anyone know anything about evercool?
and, SilenX; 58 CFM @ 14 dBA .. thats 4.14 CFM per dBA.. most (good, quiet ones) are 2-3.. it blows them all away for the figures. pretty pricey but no more so than most... the thing i have issue with is they come with 'vibration dampening mounts'; which is lovely but it may have made the fan seem quieter than it actually is..

Also, how do i know that a fan company is reporting the CFM and dBA accurately?

apparently the thing that makes the SilenX fans so quiet for their CFM is that they have Hypro bearings.

'Hypro bearings are a modified sleeve bearing; sleeve bearings are notorious for short-life span due to their small lubricant storage and great surface area of contact. Traditional sleeve bearings have an O-ring and washer that are always in contact with the fan shaft. Hypro bearings however, are missing the O-ring and washer; the fan shaft spins freely in a container of lubricant while the magnetic field keeps the fan shaft centered in place. This gives you the long life span of ball bearing fan with the reduction in vibration and lower RPM sleeve bearings offer.'

another fan worthy of note, Sunon with 190 CFM!, at 63 dBA (i wonder if it comes with earplugs as standard?). must be a beast for overclocking thou!

would (used with adaptor as CPU fan) i gain a lot more overclocking headroom by running the 79 CFM fan as opposed to the 58 CFM silenX?

Also, how noisy is a 450w Antec PSU? (well CWT; but they are the same thing) anyone have a link to a good/detailed review of it? also does anyone know if they have big heat sinks or not?

what do you think would be best for a fan adapter; blue or clear?

part of me says colour=good, but part of me says it would look out of place.

[damocell]

i have just ordered the blue one with an clear antec pro 120mm fan from ebuyer UK, 29.8 Db, 79 CFM. and also a 7v restrictor if it is too loud. the retrictor is here, will post when it arrives with temps and thoughts on the mod!
PS ebuyer has the wrong info for the above fan, check out antecs website for the correct specs!

[mb26]

i look on the antec site about that fan i didn't find any info i dont think but nice to know what they are (nothing can beat that silenX )

were you planning this already or did i inspire you? lol.

any info on the noise of antec 450w PSU, or a review?

how is that Q-tec PSU for u damocell? i have always been unsure weather to consider them good or bad PSUs..

[damocell]

ordered the stuff on monday, should be here tommorrow hopefully, it should really help, as the fan has a higher cfm then my cpu fan, but is nearly 20db quieter! the Q-Tec is quite good, once i removed the lower fan so now it is a single instead of dual!

[damocell]

well....carried out the fan and adaptor change.....my cpu temp went up 10 celcius.thought that i had fixed the fan the wrong way round, i hadn't! not really sure why it didn't work, it should of. the output of the 120mm fan is more than the max output of my 80mm fanat full speed, only thing i can think of is that the 80mm fan give a higher air pressurewhich must make it more efficent, so may try a coolermaster aero 7+ next as they give a much higher air pressure then fans and are quieter!

[FLG]

The fan may be pusing too mutch air and causing backflow, put your finger near the fan (be carefull if you dont have a grille), do you feel some air blowing back on your finger? If so try it without the grille if you have one on, and you might want to consider making your own adapter thats has a little more space between the fan and the HS. And how mutch room does the adapter leave from fan to hs? It may not have enough space between the fan and HS to kill the dead spot that plus the back flow will cause problems.

[damocell]

there was backflow as you thought so i cut the fan out of an old 80mm fan, so i just had the outside of it and fitted that before the adaptor, so all in all there was about 40mm of space between the fan and HS, still had really high temps, so to solve it all i have ordered a silent cpu hs and fan from arctic cooling 65cfm 26db, it also has a speed adjuster on a pci bracket! happy days!

[mb26]

did you try using the 7v restrictor to reduce the airflow of the 120mm fan? (and hopefully remove the backflow)