Are all case fans created equal?

Netskimmer · May 5, 2006

I have purchased some case fans for about $5 from a local shop to improve airflow, but they don’t seem to blow very hard, they blow about as hard as my stock P4 cpu fan. Are all case fans mostly alike or are there good ones and bad ones? I have no idea about their specs as they were OEM fans.

W1zzard · May 5, 2006

there's HUGE differences .. everything from super quiet with no airflow and enough airflow to suck in little animals if the noise doesnt drive them away

wtf8269 · May 5, 2006

Exactly, as W1zzard said there are huge differences. However if you just by a standard fan not listed as "high performance" or "silent" or anything of the like it's probably going to do around 30cfm if it's an 80mm, about 40-50cfm if it's a 92mm, and about 60-70cfm with a 120mm. 92mm and 120mm fans will feel like they're blowing less air than 80mm's, but that is because it is at a lower pressure. 40cfm through an 80mm hole will feel a lot different than 40cfm in a 92mm hole.

Netskimmer · May 5, 2006

Hmmm… well I have a generic ATX mid-tower case that can hold three 80mm fans, one in front and two in back. I want to install three and have good airflow, I can take a little noise but I’d rather my case didn’t sound like a jet engine. What fan would you suggest?

bigboi86 · May 5, 2006

Vantec Tornado 92mm = 119CFM

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1169

Just... um make sure you use a grill.. and I hope you wear headphones..

ty2spot · May 5, 2006

It is also an option to use one of the afterstock fancontroller boards to regulate the power to the fans and thereby the 'airflow' and noise levels respectively.
In the old days, on what is now 2U cases, I would take 2 80mm fans with restrictor duct at the exhaust end and feed -5 as ground and +12 as positive for DC 17v. Made a turbine whine but directed enough airflow that you could clock an old celeron 366 to 600 with only a heatsink on it. Fans generally lasted 1 or 1.5 years with constant use(98-01). Oh and I only used CoolerMasters at the time. now getting stuck with evercools and the drivel off of the intel CPU packs :banghead:

.

Urlyin · May 5, 2006

W1zzard said:
enough airflow to suck in little animals

....

W1zzard · May 5, 2006

anybody want to donate his guinea pig to the cause of science? shoot a nice video

Netskimmer · May 5, 2006

Thanks for all the input guys, like I said, I don’t mind A LITTLE noise but I don’t want to have to wear ear plugs to run my PC. I’d like a good balance between performance and quite but it doesn’t have to be completely silent or really close to it.

bigboi86 · May 5, 2006

W1zzard said:
anybody want to donate his guinea pig to the cause of science? shoot a nice video

That would be gruesome...

... Maybe it would make a good case mod though?

POGE · May 5, 2006

W1zzard said:
anybody want to donate his guinea pig to the cause of science? shoot a nice video

Or a younger sibling.

bigboi86 · May 5, 2006

Wonder what kind of damage this would cause.

Processor	Intel Northwood P4 2.8GHz@3.1GHz
Motherboard	ASUS P4P800 Delux
Memory	4x 256Mb Kingston DDR400
Video Card(s)	256Mb ATI X850 Pro AGP@580/600 Silencer 5 Cooler
Display(s)	Ergo 1600 21" CRT & Gateway EV700 17" CRT dual display
Audio Device(s)	SB Audigy 2 ZS
Power Supply	Antec true 550W

Processor	Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory	48 GB
Video Card(s)	RTX 4080
Storage	2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s)	30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software	Windows 10 64-bit

System Name	Onus
Processor	E8500 @ 3.95ghz ~1.25v
Motherboard	ASUS P5E Deluxe
Cooling	Scythe Orochi cpu, 5x 120mm Zalman red LED case fans, stock GPU coolers
Memory	8gb (4x2gb) G.Skill PC8000 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s)	2x ASUS 3870x2s
Storage	4x160gb RAID 0 Main, 2x 500gb RAID 0 media storage.
Display(s)	LG W2600H
Case	Lian Li PC-A70B, painted black and other modded aspects :)
Audio Device(s)	HT Omega Striker. Klipsch RF-3II fronts, Yamaha NS-A222 rears, Klipsch RC-3II center, Klipsch SUB12
Power Supply	Corsair CMPSU-750TX
Software	Windows 7 Ultimate x64, lots of games, photoshop n stuff.

Processor	Intel Northwood P4 2.8GHz@3.1GHz
Motherboard	ASUS P4P800 Delux
Memory	4x 256Mb Kingston DDR400
Video Card(s)	256Mb ATI X850 Pro AGP@580/600 Silencer 5 Cooler
Display(s)	Ergo 1600 21" CRT & Gateway EV700 17" CRT dual display
Audio Device(s)	SB Audigy 2 ZS
Power Supply	Antec true 550W

System Name	Just getting started....
Processor	Athlon II Propus 620 @ 3.51ghz (quad core) L3 cache enabled
Motherboard	ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
Cooling	Cooler Master Hyper 212 (great heatsink, 40c max load overclocked)
Memory	Kingston HyperX DDR31600 4gb 2x2
Video Card(s)	ATI Radeon HD 4850 by XFX
Storage	Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB SATA
Display(s)	Acer 21.5 inch viewable G215H 1920x1080p, AOC 22inch 1680x1050
Case	Antec 300, stock for now
Audio Device(s)	Onboard, Turtle Beach headphones / crappy logitech desktop speakers
Power Supply	Corsair 650 watt PSU <3
Software	Windows 7 x64

Are all case fans created equal?

Netskimmer

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W1zzard

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wtf8269

Netskimmer

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bigboi86

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ty2spot

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Urlyin

I still do pencil mods

W1zzard

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Netskimmer

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bigboi86

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POGE

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bigboi86

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Processor	Turion 64 ML-34 1.8Ghz
Motherboard	Compaq Laptop Mobo
Cooling	Stock Compaq Laptop Fan
Memory	1x 256 DDR333
Video Card(s)	Radeon 200m
Storage	40GB 5200RPM HP
Display(s)	Stock Laptop LCD
Case	Laptop Case
Audio Device(s)	Onboard Realtek
Power Supply	Stock Laptop Powerbrick
Software	Windows XP Pro