Quiet 92mm case fan? Help please

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:20 am

I need a quiet 92mm fan for the front of the Antec Solo I'm buying. None of the SPCR-recommended fans are available in Australia.

The two likeliest options easily available to me are the Scythe S-FLEX SFF92C (2000RPM) or the Noctua NF-B9 (1600RPM). I'd be using a fan controller to undervolt it, whichever I get.

Which should I get? The Noctua is cheaper and slower than the Scythe, and I'm not sure if even with a fan controller a 2,000RPM Scythe is going to be quiet enough (the slower versions of the Scythe are hard to get here).

If I did a special order (= expensive postage

) I could get the Scythe Gentle Typhoon SC-D0925C12B1AP-12 (1700rpm) or the Scythe S-Flex SFF92B (1500rpm). Would either of these be significantly better than the two that are easily available to me?

Anybody got any experience with these fans? Or suggestions for other good quiet 92mm fans?

Thanks!

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:50 am

Hello!

I got two S-flex 92mm 1000 RPM fans. They are good fans. Though there's slightly motor sound on them: When undervolted 1500 RPM S-flexes should be good fans.

GT's are odd fans. You can use them a lot higher RPM's without being disturbed them. As GT's are ballbearing fan's, the S-flexes might be safer choice.

Noctua's are pretty good fan's but IMHO are slightly over priced. They're bit odd ones too as you can hear them... or sense them rather and its hard to pin-point, but not as much as GT's. Noctua's weak point have usually been slow impedance and howling prone when used high impedance situation like sucking thru filter.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:33 am

Personally if the Sflex 2000 RPM is cheap I'd just get it and undervolt it.

If the Sflex 1500 RPM isn't more than 20% more expensive I'd get it but it won't be leaps and bounds better than the 2000 RPM version.

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:38 am

Weirdly, the Noctua is cheaper than any of the Scythes here in Australia. It's A$19 and available here in Perth at MSY, as opposed to the 2000rpm S-Flex at A$27.50 at PCCaseGear where I'll be buying a bunch of other stuff at the same time, so freight shouldn't be too bad.

If I want to buy the 1500rpm Scythe it's $28 at a different store, and for a one-off purchase freight will be prohibitively expensive. The 1000rpm Scythe isn't available in Australia. The 1700rpm GT is more reasonable at $23, but again freight is going to be high. Unfortunately not one of these fans is available in Perth where I live.

I just want a quiet slow fan to cool my hard drive bay since I'll be suspending the drives. Perth is notorious for extreme heat; 35 C is considered pleasantly warm - people don't start to complain about it being too hot till it hits 40 C. I just need a bit more airflow than I'm going to get from only having a rear exhaust fan.

At this point I'm leaning towards the Noctua, since I know it will go down to at least 1000rpm, possibly lower, and I won't have to pay freight. I don't know what the starting voltage is on the 2000rpm Scythe, but I doubt if it will get down low enough to be below the Noctua in dB. Does anybody know what the starting voltage is for the Noctua and the 2000rpm Scythe? And what RPM that equates to? I'm certain that it will need to be below 1000rpm to be really quiet.

The Kaze Master fan controller I'm getting will allow me to stop the fan entirely if ambient temperatures are low, or if I'm recording (this is for a DAW build). Much of the time I expect the fan will be off, but I want it for when the Aussie summer is really kicking in - we had 3 days recently of over 42C.

Cheers!

Darth Santa Fe · Post by **Darth Santa Fe** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:39 am

Can you get NoiseBlocker fans in Australia? I know FrozenCPU carries them, and they say they ship to Australia. SPCR said the 92mm XE1 sounds as good as the Nexus 92mm fan, and after getting my M12-S2, I'd believe it.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8405/ ... 7_dBA.html

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:17 am

Darth Santa Fe wrote:Can you get NoiseBlocker fans in Australia? I know FrozenCPU carries them, and they say they ship to Australia. SPCR said the 92mm XE1 sounds as good as the Nexus 92mm fan, and after getting my M12-S2, I'd believe it.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8405/ ... 7_dBA.html

Unfortunately, no, they aren't available here either. Thanks anyway!

ces · Post by **ces** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:51 pm

What's wrong with Nexus 92mm?

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:20 pm

ces wrote:What's wrong with Nexus 92mm?

Not available in Australia anymore - as far as I can tell anyway. I bought 2 when they were being sold by one shop here, but that shop doesn't stock them anymore.

The availability of quiet PC parts in Australia is really limited. pccasegear.com is as good as it gets. Interstate shipping is pretty expensive and really not worth it unless you have a bulk order.

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:07 am

Yes, I emailed PCCaseGear, and they said the importer is no longer stocking the 92mm Nexus as the low sales for the item made it unprofitable. Pity - cheap and quiet sounds good to me.

Cheers!

KadazanPL · Post by **KadazanPL** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:57 am

I know this isn't helpful in your case, but I use two Nexus RealSilent fans in the front of my Solo. They're wired in parallel, so they're pulling 6V each. They're so quiet I have to put my ear right next to them to hear some air turbulence. I also use the soft silicone plugs they shipped with. Two Nexus 92mm fans at 6V push roughly the same amount of air as my 120mm Scythe Slipstream at 800RPM in the back of the case (I can't prove it scientifically

but when I put my hand next to those fans I can feel the same breeze as from the Slipstream... or even slightly stronger).

Some people complain that the two 92mm fan mounts in Antec Solo are obsolete. Speaking from my experience - they're not, as long as you use Nexus RealSilent (or other high quality fans

.

nyhcbri · Post by **nyhcbri** » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:25 pm

this is the post i started and maybe it can help you

viewtopic.php?t=57618

pyn · Post by **pyn** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:27 pm

I'm not sure if you have made a choice yet but, if I was you I'd take a look at the 92mm Scythe Gentle Typhoons.

mkygod · Post by **mkygod** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 2:48 am

Try the Arctic Cooling F9 fan.

They have a smaller center like the Slipstreams, which gives you more cfm per rpm compared to most other 92mm fans, and they are fluid ball bearing instead of sleeve which means they'll last longer than the Slipstream. They're available in PWM and nonPWM versions and also under 10 bux, which makes them great bang for the buck.

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:25 am

I ended up getting the Noctua NF-B9 - it was the only one that was available in Perth, and also the cheapest at A$19. I'd have preferred the Nexus or one of the Scythes, but paying $20 for postage of a single item from the Eastern States was just silly.

I've now got almost all the components for my new build, just waiting on a few items from PCCaseGear and the SSD (an Intel X25-M G2 80GB - I'd wanted the Supertalent Ultradrive GX 128GB but it was totally out of stock in Australia and not expected to arrive for a month - such are the downsides of living in beautiful Oz).

Hoping to get the build done next week when my brother gets back from a work trip - he's helping me since I've never actually built my own computer before. Should be interesting.

Cheers!

Ashman23 · Post by **Ashman23** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 12:11 am

I'm so glad I found this thread.

Living in Melbourne , I seem to be faced with the same small choices. So I appreciate the conversation had here.

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:38 am

Glad it was useful to you, Ashman. In case you don't know about it already, there's a useful Australian computer gear search engine called staticICE http://www.staticice.com.au/ . If you enter your search term followed by state:VIC it will only return results for Victoria. Definitely the best search engine for finding the best price on parts.

Cheers!

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 2:38 pm

Ashman23 wrote:I'm so glad I found this thread.

Living in Melbourne , I seem to be faced with the same small choices. So I appreciate the conversation had here.

Welcome!

FWIW, in addition to PCCaseGear (mainly an online store but you can do store pick up to save on shipping if you live nearby), MSY and CPL are probably the cheapest brick and mortar stores in Melbourne.

CPL's prices don't come up on StaticIce (MSY's do) so be sure to check their prices directly.

Scorptec also has a pretty decent range of quality quiet components, but is a little more expensive than PCCG.

Personally, I do my general PC parts shopping at CPL in West Melbourne and buy speciality quiet parts from PCCG.

(Sorry for the thread hijack!)

WARDOZER9 · Post by **WARDOZER9** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 5:10 pm

I went with 2x AC AF9's for my Shuttle to use in a push/pull config and they are waaaay quietter at max speed vs the old Shuttle fan at low. And they move more air at the same RPM which is also nice