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140mm fan to match D12SL-12

Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 11:22 am
by inselwissen
Hello SCPR people,
I'm currently working on making my Fractal Arc Mini more quiet.
I know it's never gonna be as quiet as a "real" silent case, but the changes I've made so far (SSD as system drive, replaced 120mm fans with Nexus Real Silent) have worked wonders and I think I'm close to where I want to be noise-wise.

My fan setup at the moment:

D12SL-12 as front intake, D12SL-12 as back exhaust, 140mm Fractal stock fan (not from the Silent Series) as side intake.
All three fans are hooked up to the basic fan controller Fractal gives you with the case and run at low-ish settings.
The Fractal fan (1000rpm at 12V) is a bit mismatched and drowns out the Nexus fans, so I want to replace it with an SPCR-approved 140mm fan.

It should work well in a side panel mount (some threads here suggest that's tricky) and of course match the D12SL-12's in volume when hooked up to the fan controller. I like the convenience of just turning one knob if more cooling is needed. Also, I don't want to spend too much on it.

Antec's TrueQuiet 140 seems to be the logical choice, but what else is cheap and good?
Scythe? Both the Glide Stream and the Slip Stream XT look solid.
Also, Enermax makes a T.B. Silence 140mm fan that gets rave reviews everywhere else but I don't see them mentioned here often, any opinions on that one?

Or should I just buy a third D12SL-12 and call it a day?

Re: 140mm fan to match D12SL-12

Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 12:14 pm
by Abula
SPCR did two roundups of 140mm this year,

First 140 mm Fan Roundup: Noctua, Phanteks, Xigmatek
Second 140 mm Fan Roundup: Antec, bequiet!, Corsair, Scythe

From there, i would think the best in terms of noise would be Antec TrueQuiet 140. And if you were to want better performance, Antec TwoCool 140mm Cooling Fan, or the phantek.

Personally i went another route, with Noctua NF-A14 PWM but i want to control all via bios from CPU_FAN header, i dont want to use a fan controller nor software to control any of my fans.

Re: 140mm fan to match D12SL-12

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 1:11 am
by inselwissen
For a 140mm Noctua fan, I'd have to spend double what the TrueQuiet costs around here. Not sure it's worth it to be honest.

SCPR kind of liked the 140mm Scythe Glide Stream PWM. Does anyone have any experience with those (preferably the 800rpm model)?

Re: 140mm fan to match D12SL-12

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 6:31 pm
by birthdaymonkey
If the 14cm fans that came with my Define XL R2 are any indication, the Fractal fans are bad at any voltage. So whatever you pick should be an improvement.

However, are you sure you really need a side intake? I've never found them to be much use (in my experience -- I've never done SLI/Crossfire).

The quietest fan is no fan at all.