120mm fans

HAF72

1337 :)
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Nov 2, 2006
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I am looking for fans that will work with this fan controller. I would like the fans to be quiet and have decent amount of airflow. budget is $30 each fan. Oh the fans need to be 3 pin. Any suggestions? Thanks :)
 
for that kind of budget Gentle Typhoons AP-15s are what you're looking for
 
for that kind of budget Gentle Typhoons AP-15s are what you're looking for

Here I see -13 -14 -15 do you happen to know what are the differences? Thanks, I will think about it :)
 
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I see -13 -14 -15 do you happen to know what are the differences? Thanks, I will think about it :)

speeds, AP-15s are the fastest, and remain virtualy silent for the air they move. these are considered by many to be the best cfm/db fan on the market. quantities are very limited and usually are sold out within minutes of being posted on various forums.
 
speeds, AP-15s are the fastest, and remain virtualy silent for the air they move. these are considered by many to be the best cfm/db fan on the market. quantities are very limited and usually are sold out within minutes of being posted on various forums.

Well I did a little research on them, and seems like they are one of the favorites. Kind of a dumb question, but is it 3pin fan? Thanks! If so, I will be going for the fan. Thanks for the help all everyone! Hmm never heard of koolertek before, they don't even have a phone # on the site.
 
Yea there 3 pin, I'm running 6 of the 15's and there great. Frozencpu has them in stock also right now. Where I got mine from.
 
You might consider looking at Scythe S-Flex or Thermalright TR-FDB fans instead of the Gentle Typhoons. The TR-FDBs tend to be cheaper and more frequently in stock, but I've owned and been very happy with S-Flexes (have not owned TR-FDBs).

They don't have as much static pressure as Gentle Typhoons (irrelevant for case fans), but they move more air.

If you go digging on Scythe's site, you'll see S-Flex fans listed in CFM, and GTs listed in cubic meters/hr, which is kinda stupid.

The -15 GTs (1850 RPM) are listed at 98m3/h, which is equivalent to about 57.7 CFM.

The -G S-Flexes (1900 RPM) are listed at 75 CFM. The -F S-Flexes (1600 RPM) are listed at 63.7 CFM.

The -2000 TR-FDBs (2000 RPM) are listed at 80.5 CFM.

Naturally, manufacturer-listed figures are generous, so the real-life numbers will be lower.

Some independent testing (an older XBit Labs article, for one) lends credence to the superiority of S-Flexes or TR-FDBs for case fans. The older article's methods aren't as good as I would like, and have since been improved, but there were some apples-to-apples tests done that can be taken at face value.

For example, the -14 Gentle Typhoon moved a measured 23.96 CFM at 1440 RPM and 33 dBA.
The -E revision of the S-Flex moved a measured 23.79 CFM at 990 RPM and 33 dBA.
The TR-FDB-1300 moved 23.55 CFM at 960 RPM and 33 dBA.
At the -E's maximum RPM of ~1200 (actually 1170 measured), it moved 28.83 CFM at 36.4 dBA.
The same -14 GT moved 25.79 CFM at 34.1 dBA at 1440 RPM.
The -15 GT moved 32.97 CFM at 38.5 dBA and 1830 RPM.
The TR moved 34.08 CFM at 40.7 dBA and 1380 RPM.
The TR-FDB-2000 moved 48.37 CFM at 50.5 dBA and 1980 RPM.

You can't compare those numbers to anything except each other, since different testing methodologies will yield wildly differing measured results.

The important part to notice is how much lower the RPMs are at a given dBA or CFM measurement for the fluid dynamic fans. While they end up getting noisier at high speeds, they also have a lot more headroom to push more air.

In the same tests, just as a note, the Noiseblocker Multiframe and BlackSilent fans also moved approximately the same CFM at 33 dBA. All 5 fan lines (MF, BS, TR-FDB, GT, S-Flex) have good scaling between RPM, CFM, and dBA, so you can pretty much pick a target maximum RPM and go from there.

The TR-FDBs and S-Flexes are verrrry similar fans, so you can't really go wrong with either. Noiseblocker fans are also very nice, but cost a lot more, for virtually the same performance.
 
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what are you using the fans for? ap-15 move decent amount of air but are more known for having high static pressure for rads.

if you have 30 to spend on a face you can get some nice noiseblocker that will move more and more silent.
 
what are you using the fans for? ap-15 move decent amount of air but are more known for having high static pressure for rads.

if you have 30 to spend on a face you can get some nice noiseblocker that will move more and more silent.

No watercool. The fans will actually be for friend's system. Cosmos S(stock fans) with 6970 and i7 950. Thanks!
 
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