Confused about CFM in undervolting conditions
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:28 pm
Most fans appear to require moderate undervolting to become very quiet, which reduces CFM. Some of the recommended fans I've seen (such as Nexus Basics) have low CFM to start with, so undervolted it's even lower. How would something like that do on a radiator? (A basic closed-loop system in a push or push-pull configuration).
I'm sure there a point where an undervolted fan pushes so little air that there's not enough heat dissipated off a radiator to make much of a difference. Or am I wrong about seeing such low numbers as 20-25CFM and thinking it's not enough for a radiator? (120mm fans). I want a quiet system as much as the next person here, but I'm really lost selecting good fans for a future radiator (2 or 4 120mm fans).
My prior go-to fans were Noctua, but I've read about many other possibilities, such as Noiseblockers, that now I'm not really sure what I should be looking at and which specifications to trust (since many manufacturer-listed specs for CFM and noise are shown to be exaggerated in reviews). And where one review praises a fan, another criticizes it (happened so many times - I see fans praised highly only to read elsewhere that they have many faults.)
I'm sure there a point where an undervolted fan pushes so little air that there's not enough heat dissipated off a radiator to make much of a difference. Or am I wrong about seeing such low numbers as 20-25CFM and thinking it's not enough for a radiator? (120mm fans). I want a quiet system as much as the next person here, but I'm really lost selecting good fans for a future radiator (2 or 4 120mm fans).
My prior go-to fans were Noctua, but I've read about many other possibilities, such as Noiseblockers, that now I'm not really sure what I should be looking at and which specifications to trust (since many manufacturer-listed specs for CFM and noise are shown to be exaggerated in reviews). And where one review praises a fan, another criticizes it (happened so many times - I see fans praised highly only to read elsewhere that they have many faults.)