SPCR

Anyone know which fan is quieter at 12V? (the 80mm ones)

SilenX or Nexus real silent fan
Both seem like pretty quiet from online reviewers, so I need help to decide which one to get.

thanks!

I use silenx fans . but have never seen or heard a nexus fan .
The 80mm " 14 dba" fan , the fixed rpm one is very Quiet , it is pretty much the same noise level as a papst or panalo , but has no clicking and has more air wooshing noise . at an educated guess I would say it is about 20db definately not 14db . I personally like them because I can use them on square wave speed controllers without the panaflo click . I have had a couple that do not start at 5v but they start fine at about 6v .
I have no experience with the thermistor variety.
I have only used the 80 mm fixed rpm version and one second hand 92 mm that I bought off eBay . but they have all been good. I started using these because I had some problematic Panaflo fans , some vibrate others click and a few are the best fans you can get . They used to be all good once .
I do Wish that manufacturers would use REAL specifications NOT B.S though.
The fans are very good and would sell on there own merit if the specs. were honest.
Just my opinion though

I would go for the Nexus fans. There has been a lot of bad blood concerning Silenx products or more accurately their marketing.

Afaik the owner of Silenx commited offences here sufficient for him to be permanently banned. http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=4551

On a brighter note, MikeC recently commented that the Nexus case fans were the quietest that he had come across ( http://www.silentpcreview.com/article63-page2.html). I have 3 in my systems, and I would say exactly that. I cannot fault them in any way, other than to say they have "solid shoulders". Where the fan screws go is solid through from one side of the fan to the other. This can cause some mounting issues, but is easily solved with a file.

I do not know if they still come with solid shoulders.

luminous wrote:I do not know if they still come with solid shoulders.

The ones I received (almost) directly from Nexus last week still have solid corners.

Don't let the owner of SilenX's bad actions sway you from trying their products. I have Panaflo's, Papst, and SilenX fans. SilenX are noticably quieter with no undervolting needed. I have a good number of 80mm SilenX fans in use.

I have a 92 mm on the way to replace my noise 92mm Panaflow L. Actually, that was replaced by a 92mm Acoustifan non thermal which makes too much noise for me.

I have had great service from them, and even if you don't want to deal with them directly, 3dcool.com sells their fans. It is too bad that people here feel the continued need to judge the products based on the owners past actions instead of actually trying out the prodcuts.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I was originally getting a Nexus fan, and the only concern i had then is that this fan only produces ~20cfm of air. I am planing on replacing my volcano 9 smart fan with this so i'm not sure if 20cfm will suffice (my cpu is a T-bred 2100+). That is why I'm considering the 14db 28cfm silentX.
So hard to decide.

But Sizzle's right, we have to try the product first in order to judge.

Afaik quite a few ppl have tried their products. They are meant to be good. I did not want to sound too negative regarding their products.

Afaik, there are things on the market that are better, at a similar price. Just like Papst fans are good, but Nexus are better (imo).

Just the normal word of warning - you cannot let the marketing sway your decision. CFM and dB ratings are almost meaningless when it comes to fans. Even where they are accurately recorded, and reported, you will not know the distance the readings were taken at, the surrounding environment etc etc.

The revised recommeneded fan page is a really good start to working out what to get if you are pondering over a few different models.

Thanks for this string, I should have read it before starting my string, oh boy, dumbo me.

As long as you get there in the end

It is not uncommon to need to undervolt any fan you buy, so as long as you expect that you should be happy with quite a few of the models in that list.

I would seem that SilenX ' s honesty problems run a little deeper than I had thought (underquoting noise levels) when I posted my first reply in this thread.
When I read the links posted by luminous I was both shocked and surprised that a company with a good product would stoop to such tactics.
If I had the option of an equal product available to me I would take my buisiness elsewhere