Case Fans - Fractal R4

F

Fester

Weaksauce
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Oct 6, 2010
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I'm building my first PC ever and I'm confused with some issues regarding case fans.

I want to replace the 2 stock fans that come with the Fractal R4 case with Noctua NF-A14 fans. However, I have some questions:

1) My plan is to put 2 in the front as intake and one in the back as exhaust. Is this an efficient use of the fans? I will have a SSD and one or two hard drives. Thus, I'm wondering if the bottom intake fan will just be blowing into the bottom hard drive tray?

2) I don't know if I should plug them into a a Swiftech 8 way splitter and that to the motherboard or just to the R4 fan controller. Is one way recommended over the other?

3) What Noctua fans do I get and why: the NF-A14PWM or the NF-A14FLX?

Here's some of the key components I have already:
I5 3570k (not overclocked)
Fractal R4 case
Seasonic SS-660XP2 PSU
Asus Z77 Sabertooth motherboard
EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW (not overclocked)
Hyper 212 EVO
SSD
one or two hard drives
 
I own a Fractal R4 for my main machine (2600K @ 4.5GHz - GTX 760 OC). I loved the combination of the integrated triple fan controller on the lowest of the 3 settings and the 2 included fans, so I just went ahead and bought a 3rd one of the same kind (Fractal R2 140mm) to fill the front intake slot. The sound signature is fantastic for my ears, and very silent.

I think it would be a waste of money to swap the fans in your non-OC system.
 
majax79 said:
1) My plan is to put 2 in the front as intake and one in the back as exhaust. Is this an efficient use of the fans? I will have a SSD and one or two hard drives. Thus, I'm wondering if the bottom intake fan will just be blowing into the bottom hard drive tray?
Click to expand...
That's the correct way to set it up.

majax79 said:
2) I don't know if I should plug them into a a Swiftech 8 way splitter and that to the motherboard or just to the R4 fan controller. Is one way recommended over the other?
Click to expand...
It's fine to run multiple fans in parallel. The motherboard usually outputs 12V to the fans. If you want to control the fan speed, then hook it up to the fan controller. It doesn't matter either way unless the fan is too loud at 12V for you.

majax79 said:
3) What Noctua fans do I get and why: the NF-A14PWM or the NF-A14FLX?
Click to expand...
I can't comment on them, but generally two factors I look at are noise and CFM ratios.
 
High pressure fans like the Noctura NF-A14 FLX are probably better suited for pushing air across your heatsink/radiator fins.

And as brncao stated, fans are a balancing act between cooling and noise. Just read the reviews and take the accoustics with a grain of salt.

I'd agree that those fans are probably overkill, especially given the price. And the review mentions that the NF-A14 FLX has an audible "drone" at the higher rpm's and is beaten in cooling and accoustics by the Phanteks PH-F140HP, not to mention it's about $10 cheaper.

As to your question, it doesn't hurt to keep your drives cool too ;)
 
Anyone?

Seems like I have three otpions:

options:

1) Control through R4 with 3 fan controller (FLX fans needed)
2) Control through motherboard & ASUS Software (PWM fans needed)
3) Control through splitter & BIOS (PWM fans needed)

What I really want to do is set the fans so that they adjust themselves based on the heat inside the case. Is that an option?
 
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My current build is on R4, I use NF-A15 PWM for the cpu fan, the other fans (rear and top) are non-PWM fans (voltage controlled). They are controlled by fan expert (Asus)
 
I need to connect a NF-F12PWM to the Hyper 212 EVO. However, it is my understanding that the CPU_OPT will be controlled in the same way as the CPU_FAN header. That doesn't seem like that will work at all. Wouldn't the 120MM fan on the Hyper 212 EVO need to ramp up more than the two front and one back case fans?

If not, then I could just use a splitter and put the cpu fan on CPU_FAN and the case fans on CPU_OPT (via a splitter and molex connection).

My motherboard has the following headers:

CHA_FAN1
CHA_FAN2
CHA_FAN3
CHA_FAN4
CPU_FAN
CPU_OPT
 
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