What is the quietest 120mm fan *when restricted*?

[DrCR]

I'm discussing my watercooled setup in the watercooling forum here:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 424#106424

One of the topics in the above thread is which 120mm fans I should go for. There will be two non-overlapping 120mm fans on my very large radiator (actually a heatercore).

One poster named chylld recommends on personal experience the Papst 4412fgl at 7V over the Evercool 120mm at 5V.

“from experience i can tell you that the evercool fans will be too noisy, even at 5v. when you're pulling air through a radiator you have a lot of turbulence noise which just adds to the problem, a low speed fan is perfectly adequate. after trying the evercool, the papst 4412fgml and papst 4412fgl i can heartily recommend the 4412fgl. the performance difference is negligible (1-2C, maybe) and they're pretty much as quiet as it gets (haven't personally tried the new nexus.)”

“and re the 4412fgl, i'm running 2 of them at 7v atm. i could run them at 5v with little to no performance cost, but i actually like the kinda "white noise" sound the air turbulence makes as it enters the radiator. it's very very soft, but it's soothing enough. with the evercool, it was a bit too loud for my tastes”

I’ve already decided to go for an Evercool over a Japanaflo for my needs, but what do you guys think of chylld’s Papst recommendation for restricted environments? Not like I doubt him or anything, I'm just looking for some additional thoughts. Perhaps some of you are familiar with the Nexus 120mm? I figured I post here since I sure many of you fan gurus are not watercoolers and would not be following the watercooling forum.

Thanks for the help,


DrCR


_______________

[DrCR]

What about using a blower like Cather's setup? (You know, the waterblock maker Cather)

From this thread:
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/s ... ge=1&pp=20





"A picture showing the suction strength of the blower at full speed - holding a 100 page glossy A4 sized magazine against the radiators:"



"A picture of me standing with the box after winning some Australian overclocking competition."

I do run my rads in series. That picture was taken just after I built the radiator box and had been plumbed for the first time. They've been in series from about two weeks after that picture which was taken about 7 months ago.

Yes, the heater-core blower was picked up at a car radiator repair workshop.

There was an overclocking competition held back in July '03 for Australians to see who could post the highest 3DMark'03 score. I managed a score of 7560 Marks with the 9800Pro and my older Week 4/03 Barton XP2800+ at 2790MHz. At the time (July 31st '03) it was the 10th highest 3DMark'03 score in the world and was the highest AMD score world-wide. It just beat out the #2 guy by only 9 Marks who had a Prommy Mach II cooled 3.9GHz P4 with a TEC cooled R9800Pro.

I've since taken this newer Week 30/03 XP2500+ up to 2850MHz, but haven't really tried to push it - it should be capable of 2900MHz with a bit more effort.

For the competition the R9800Pro was taken up to 570MHz core / 395MHz mem (no artefacts). The memory on this card is pretty reluctant about going higher. Pushing higher on either core/mem led to artefacting and subsequent lockups. The GPU was cooled by a prototype Hydra GPU block and a 172W TEC.

All up the cooling setup costs less than a Prometia Mach II would cost, so not too heavy on the pocket, but definitely "up there" in terms of cost. The main benefit though is that it cools more than just the CPU.

I don't use anything as an additive - just plain tap water.

How quiet (from a SPCR perspective) are these blowers?



DrCR


________________

[mpteach]

How quiet is the air conditioning in your car?

A blower cant be quiet at speeds great enough to be your electronic magazine rack.

[DrCR]

How quiet is the air conditioning in your car?

A blower cant be quiet at speeds great enough to be your electronic magazine rack.

Very true. But I would run it at the minimum 7V instead of the standard 12V.


From the same link I listed above:

It's 12V as standard 'cos it's made for a car.

It has 3 speed settings. I run it at 7V/lowest speed setting normally. Here it draws about 20W of power and is about as good as a 100+CFM 12cm fan, but I can barely hear it running.

At full speed (12V/high) it will draw around 250W of power (!!) and is rated at about 650CFM with a peak air pressure about 10x that of a 100CFM 12cm fan.

As explained above, I got mine from a car radiator repair work-shop. These sorts of places are everywhere. You could also go to a car wreckers and rip one out of a late model car. I say "late model" because you don't want it to have been sitting around in a car wreckers yard for a few years as the bearings may have gone rusty....

Stick it on the lowest setting and you won't hear it. Stick it on the highest and it's a middling volume rushing air roar that you can still talk over without needing to shout, but it's definitely loud. I dunno, 65dBA at full roar at a guess. 30dBA at 7V and low speed at a guess.

Has anyone here used something like this at all, or will I be a loner on this one (the fringe of fringe ).


DrCR


________________

[DrCR]

Due to some of the posts in <this> thread, I have found blowers are much more suitable for pressure/high restriction use and also emit a much more pleasant noise compared to it’s axial counterparts.

Though I would have liked to have found out how the Nexus fan would perform for this task, this desire is now no longer crucial. If you are interested in possibly using a blower, I suggest you post in the above thread, or perhaps post a new thread in the watercooling forum. If you have any insight concerning the Nexus fan, by all means, please post!
Otherwise, thanks for the input! DrCR out.

______