Fans|Controls

It's been a long wait since the last one, but here's the latest in our ever popular series of fan roundups: Nine 120mm fans from Antec, bequiet!, Corsair, GELID, Noiseblocker, and SilverStone duke it out for acoustics and cooling performance.

The Recommended Fans article is finally updated. It is a concise practical summary about the technologies, techniques and art of using quiet fans in computers, along with a list of the best candidates.

SpeedFan is a free, but extremely powerful and customizable sensor monitoring and fan control utility that works with a huge range of motherboards. Our comprehensive guide walks you through the complex configuration and allows you to unlock the full power of this enduring software utility, a favorite of SPCR for years.

Nine fans marketed as quiet are examined with a new SPCR-centric testing methodology that emphasizes acoustics and cooling effectiveness over airflow. Scythe, Noiseblocker, Antec, Nexus and Thermalright fans duke it out.

These are not the first power meters to bear the Zalman name. But they are the first by any PC components company that seem to offer serious CPU and VGA power measurement tools for end users.

Scythe 120mm fans have become the de facto choice for SPCR users in the know in recent months, particularly the Slip Stream series. The brand offers more 120mm fan lines than any other in the computer DIY market. We tackle the Slip Streams, Kama PWMs, and the Ultra Kazes in a massive Scythe-attack.

A fan controller with a power meter built in? Zalman's ZM-MFC2 brings something new to the endless list of things you can display on your front panel: Power consumption. Oh, and it also controls up to four fans.

In our second roundup of 120mm fans, we've tested several frequently requested models, including fans from Yate Loon, Global Win, SilenX and others often highly recommended by SPCR forum regulars. Despite the careful selection, we can only recommended one fan unconditionally. Which one? Read the article to find out.

In spite of our best efforts, some SPCR readers found fault with a few of the airflow measurements in our recent fan roundups. We revisited the airflow metrology. After much experimentation and some test methods that were rejected, we settled on a new way of assessing fan airflow under some load (impedance) that seems more consistent and reliable.

Our latest fan round-up covers seven 92mm models. Familiar names include Nexus, AcoustiFan, Coolink, and Noiseblocker, but there's some unfamiliar ones too: Pure Silence and Fander both submitted samples. It's noise quality that matters the most. Can any of the contenders knock the Nexus 92 out of the top spot?

Our second fan round-up is here. This time, we look at 120mm fans from Nexus, Noctua, Scythe, EBM/Papst, Antec and ARX. Competition was tough, and it wasn't easy to decide which fans we liked most. In the end, it was almost a 3-way tie.

Here it is at last! You've read about it for years, we've tantalized you with a methodology article without publishing results, but we've finally come through: It's the first episode of SPCR's Calling All Good Fans series of fan round-ups, with detailed noise information about twelve different fans. This round-up has a little bit of everything. The obvious ones: Nexus and Panaflo models that regulars have known and loved for years. Some less known but occasionally recommended fans from Papst and Mechatronics. We've even tossed in a Delta screamer so everyone knows what to avoid. And, last but not least, a surprise gives the Nexus a run for its money...

This article describes the goals, techniques, and procedures we've established to test and rate fans for acoustics. No other fan testing methodology covers noise as extensively or as realistically. SPCR's fan roundups are coming, finally!