are Corsair SP120 fans really that bad?

[terroralpha]

i seen a lot of people saying that they aren't good radiator fans. i have the opportunity right now to get SP120, either quiet editions or performance editions, for $5.50 a pop. but the bad reviews are deterring me. i'm not worried about the reviews claiming that the mounting holes break easy, that wont be a problem for me, but i'm worried that they may not push air through a 60mm rad.

gentle typhoons and CM jetflos get all the praise it seems. GTs are just way too expensive. no way in hell i'm paying $30 a fan. i've played with a jetflo 120 and it sounded like a leaf blower. even with the low noise adapters @ 1200 RPM they are loud enough to be annoying.

i need 120mm radiator fans that actually push air through a 60mm rad but are also very quiet. they don't have to be stellar performers as long as they actually do the job. anyone have suggestions?

 

[manofthem]

For $5.50/each, I would definitely purchase either of them as they were very decent fans.

I used to have the SP fans but they were too loud for my tastes. They were great for my old rad back when I had them, but I hated loud systems. I sold them off.

Even more recently, I was using the quiet edition ones on my radiator, but I switched them out for more of the GTs. (GTs are just great fans, just pricey like you said.) I was running the 120q fans on my ut60 rad, and they did a swell enough job; they were able to move the air through the thick rad.

 

[Nordic]

Psh, are they bad? No. Yate loons are supposedly great radiator fans. I switched from yate loons to corsair sp120's. The corsairs at 7v were quieter than the yate loons for the same performance. Put the corsairs to 12v and I dropped a few degrees.

60mm rad is pretty thick, but I had my corsair sp120's on an 80mm think radiator. Now I have some 32mm thick panaflows but have not set up the watercooling to replace the corsair fans, but have yet to reset up my watercooling.

I was able to keep a 4.8ghz lga2011 4820k at 60c and a 7970 at 1300mhz at 40c on the same loop with just the 240mm monsta rad with push pull cosair sp120's.

At $5.50 each, those corsair fans are a steal. Sure there is better, but they are going to cost a heck of a lot more. Think Noiseblocker, EK vader, panaflow, Noctua fans, ec.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

They are not bad at all. I have 5 of them in my system running on 360 and 240 rads, and not a single problem with them, and run fairly quiet, I have them on a 7v resistor adapter.

 

[Batou1986]

Work fine for me, just don't buy a mix of singles and two packs because for some reason the lights on the single packaged one are a slightly different hue than the two that came in the two pack.

 

[terroralpha]

thanks guys.

Work fine for me, just don't buy a mix of singles and two packs because for some reason the lights on the single packaged one are a slightly different hue than the two that came in the two pack.

i'm buying the non-LED ones. the ones with the 3 different color rings. i hate lights

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

They are OK airflow wise and pretty strong on rads, but noisy as all hell... Even at sub-1k RPM.

 

[terroralpha]

They are OK airflow wise and pretty strong on rads, but noisy as all hell... Even at sub-1k RPM.

am i right to assume that we are talking about the performance edition?

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Yes, but unless the quiet one uses a different bearing it will still be pretty noisy compared to other fans.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Yes, but unless the quiet one uses a different bearing it will still be pretty noisy compared to other fans.

I disagree. They really aren't that noisy, and they undervolt very well.

 

[Whilhelm]

I have 4 of the PWM performance ones on my 480 radiator and I have mixed feelings about them. At 900 rpm each they are faintly audible but still move enough air through my radiator. At full speed they are crazy loud and perform almost as good as the 1850RPM Gentle Typhoons. I want to switch to the Noctua IPPCs but I feel like the cost of doing that wouldn't be worth it.

For the price you can get them for I would say its worth it but run them at low speed.

 

[Nordic]

Corsair sp120's are not the quietest fans you can get. They are performance fans. I think they are an acceptable noise level. Again, at $5.50 each you can't lose.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

I disagree. They really aren't that noisy, and they undervolt very well.

Well at the same RPM range they are more noisy than the stock fans in my brothers 550D... At 800 or so RPM one of them drowned out a pair of WD reds, a WD blue and some old 250GB drive. Then again, that's just my experience, but I will say with certainty that Gentle Typhoons are worlds better.

 

[Johan45]

My only real gripe with them was price for performance, at 5.50 ea. that's a great price.
There's a pretty good list here if you want to compare and there are a few different versions of thoe fans so pay close attention to which ones you're getting.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1274407/...d-comprehensive-array-of-tests-and-benchmarks

 

[R00kie]

I have SP120 LED's on my H100i right now, they're similar to the Quiet edition fans, and theyre not that loud at all, compared to what that cooler had in the box anyways. And when my PC is stressed you can hardly hear them, as my graphics cards' fans are definitely overpowering them.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Well at the same RPM range they are more noisy than the stock fans in my brothers 550D... At 800 or so RPM one of them drowned out a pair of WD reds, a WD blue and some old 250GB drive. Then again, that's just my experience, but I will say with certainty that Gentle Typhoons are worlds better.

Well they will definitely be more noisy then most fans because they are built for static pressure, so they are able to force a larger amount of air movement. So air noise can be a concern. Gentle Typhoons are definitely better, but impossible to find now. The runner up best from what I've heard are the EK Vadar fans when talking about fans for radiators or heatsinks, where static pressure is the main worry.

 

[Nordic]

Well at the same RPM range they are more noisy than the stock fans in my brothers 550D... At 800 or so RPM one of them drowned out a pair of WD reds, a WD blue and some old 250GB drive. Then again, that's just my experience, but I will say with certainty that Gentle Typhoons are worlds better.

Stock fans are not a good comparison. Those stock fans are not meant for radiators. Radiator fans are not meant to be quiet. They are meant to push air. Look at the wide blades of the cosair sp120's vs the small blades of the corsair af120 fans. I have both, and the af fans are much quieter.

The simplest way I can put it is that there is a trade off between noise and static pressure. Corsair sp fans are slightly on the performance side, but they are not super loud either. For me it was an acceptable level. Quieter than yate loon fans by a lot, and more performance.

 

[Norton]

I use Swiftech Helix 120's on one of my setups(240mm rad in push/pull so 4 fans)- good static pressure and not silent but they sound completely different than SP120's. Noise from them doesn't bother me at all but everyones hears differently so YMMV.

Great value at around $10 each but $5.50 each for SP12o's would be real hard to pass on.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Stock fans are not a good comparison. Those stock fans are not meant for radiators. Radiator fans are not meant to be quiet. They are meant to push air. Look at the wide blades of the cosair sp120's vs the small blades of the corsair af120 fans. I have both, and the af fans are much quieter.

The simplest way I can put it is that there is a trade off between noise and static pressure. Corsair sp fans are slightly on the performance side, but they are not super loud either. For me it was an acceptable level. Quieter than yate loon fans by a lot, and more performance.

That is not consistent with the aerodynamics of the fan.

The SP120s (I haven't seen the AFs IRL) have quite a large gap between the blade tip and the housing, this is compared to the GTs and the stock case fans. Because of the larger gap, more air can flow over the wingtip, these vortices are what cause a lot of the air related noise in most fans. Worse still, the gap is not equal around the circumference, this creates the effect that in some areas (where the housing is closest) the pressure under/over the fan will be higher/lower (respectively), and it will continually vary as the fan is spinning. The increase and decrease in pressure is very perceptible and it seems to (at least by my ears) match the sound profile. It would be like comparing a turbofan with a propeller engine on the plane, propellers have a very distinct report due to the open tips, while a large portion of the noise on a turbofan originates from the power turbine and the deltaV between the different airflow regions.

I'm still waiting on a fan that has either bearings around the outside (very challenging mechanically) or just a ring around the edge of the blades to completely stop any tip vortices.

 

[terroralpha]

so i went with the SP120 quiet edition PWM fans. they arrived today. i hooked one up inside my case as exhaust and have it spinning at about 1000 RPM / 9V and i can't heard it at all.... i think. but it's only 1 fan.

i don't have all my water cooling parts yet.

so far got,
Swiftech HydrX
EK EP 480mm rad,
EK supremacy EVO CPU block
EK 3/8" ID - 5/8" OD compression fittings
EK 5.25" bay reservoir + D5 PWM pump combo

i didn't set out to go all out EK stuff, but my local computer stores don't carry alphacool products. my choices were XSPC or EK for blocks and swiftech or EK for rads. the compression fittings i didn't pick or have to pay for, those were handed down to me. but i'm not complaining.

i'm looking at my res now and just realized that the fill port requires a G3/8 fitting while everything else is G1/4.... which is pretty stupid. my local microcenter doesn't have ANY G3/8 fittings. seriously..... i spent over an hour digging through their bins and couldn't find even 1.

in any case, i'm still waiting for the EK GPU blocks. and still looking for tubing.

 

[Nordic]

so i went with the SP120 quiet edition PWM fans. they arrived today. i hooked one up inside my case as exhaust and have it spinning at about 1000 RPM / 9V and i can't heard it at all.... i think. but it's only 1 fan.

i don't have all my water cooling parts yet.

so far got,
Swiftech HydrX
EK EP 480mm rad,
EK supremacy EVO CPU block
EK 3/8" ID - 5/8" OD compression fittings
EK 5.25" bay reservoir + D5 PWM pump combo

i didn't set out to go all out EK stuff, but my local computer stores don't carry alphacool products. my choices were XSPC or EK for blocks and swiftech or EK for rads. the compression fittings i didn't pick or have to pay for, those were handed down to me. but i'm not complaining.

i'm looking at my res now and just realized that the fill port requires a G3/8 fitting while everything else is G1/4.... which is pretty stupid. my local microcenter doesn't have ANY G3/8 fittings. seriously..... i spent over an hour digging through their bins and couldn't find even 1.

in any case, i'm still waiting for the EK GPU blocks. and still looking for tubing.

Might want to check the hardware store for something that will work for your fill port.

 

[Brusfantomet]

That is not consistent with the aerodynamics of the fan.

The SP120s (I haven't seen the AFs IRL) have quite a large gap between the blade tip and the housing, this is compared to the GTs and the stock case fans. Because of the larger gap, more air can flow over the wingtip, these vortices are what cause a lot of the air related noise in most fans. Worse still, the gap is not equal around the circumference, this creates the effect that in some areas (where the housing is closest) the pressure under/over the fan will be higher/lower (respectively), and it will continually vary as the fan is spinning. The increase and decrease in pressure is very perceptible and it seems to (at least by my ears) match the sound profile. It would be like comparing a turbofan with a propeller engine on the plane, propellers have a very distinct report due to the open tips, while a large portion of the noise on a turbofan originates from the power turbine and the deltaV between the different airflow regions.

I'm still waiting on a fan that has either bearings around the outside (very challenging mechanically) or just a ring around the edge of the blades to completely stop any tip vortices.

the Noiseblocker e-loop have that ring. Expensive, and i have not tried them.

Personally i use Arctic cooling F12 PWM but that was mostly because i got them for super cheap, and you were able to daisy-chain as many as you wanted on one 4 pin contact. Both important aspects when i use 24 of them (18 on one radiator), in addition, with some voltage trickery i am able to make them hover on ca 400 to 500 rpm when idle.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Hmm, those noiseblockers are pretty damn good, might have to try a few. Along with a few noctuas maybe...

 

[erocker]

I use the high performance SP1120's (9 of them) hooked into two fan controllers and they work great. Anti-vibration mounts, the blades are easily removed from the body for cleaning and I haven't had one fail yet.

 

[terroralpha]

Might want to check the hardware store for something that will work for your fill port.

that's what I had to do. found one brass barb fitting that fits the G 3/8 threading of the fill port and my 3/8" ID tubing. but it's way too damn long and I'm in the process of cutting it down from both ends.