It was my understanding that practically speaking, static pressure fans are preferred over airflow fans, especially because there's very little realistic scenarios where a fan isn't up against something--whether it's the mesh front of the case, heatsink, rat's nest of cables, drives, etc. That's why Noctua users say the NF-S12A is irrelevant, even as an exhaust fan unless it's an actual hole where the exhaust exhausts out of as opposed to mesh (they probably recommend A12x25 which is a versatile fan). So do airflow fans still have a place?
I looked at some brief names and besides the popular the Noctua A12x25, there's also Phanteks T30 which outperforms Noctua by a little and is slightly cheaper. At the budget side of things, there's the Arctic P12, which people complain it has a humming noise at certain RPMs, including at RPMs people probably run the case fans at. I saw a Tech Buyer's Guru video on case fans and he concluded the Scythe Kaze Flex as the best case fan both for 120mm and for 140mm yet it is rarely mentioned compare to the rest other named fans. I assume that the Kaze Flex is an airflow fan and the rest are static pressure fans and most people talking of fans probably use them for radiators where they will certainly yield results.
So are static pressure fans preferable on basically all situations for a PC build and airflow fans are more of a marketing gimmick? The fact that they produce higher CFM when there is obstruction doesn't necessarily mean they don't also produce higher CFM where there is no obstruction and a HVAC engineer actually said static pressure fans are strictly better for performance in nearly all cases. I don't think static pressure fans are even louder if you noise-normalize the performance, so curious if running static pressure fans at low RPM is better than using airflow fans. I am looking at cases like Lian Li Lancool II Mesh, Phanteks P500A, and Fractal Design Torrent which are airflow-focused cases that can utilize quite a bit of case fans and am looking for fans that offer best noise-normalized performance.
I looked at some brief names and besides the popular the Noctua A12x25, there's also Phanteks T30 which outperforms Noctua by a little and is slightly cheaper. At the budget side of things, there's the Arctic P12, which people complain it has a humming noise at certain RPMs, including at RPMs people probably run the case fans at. I saw a Tech Buyer's Guru video on case fans and he concluded the Scythe Kaze Flex as the best case fan both for 120mm and for 140mm yet it is rarely mentioned compare to the rest other named fans. I assume that the Kaze Flex is an airflow fan and the rest are static pressure fans and most people talking of fans probably use them for radiators where they will certainly yield results.
So are static pressure fans preferable on basically all situations for a PC build and airflow fans are more of a marketing gimmick? The fact that they produce higher CFM when there is obstruction doesn't necessarily mean they don't also produce higher CFM where there is no obstruction and a HVAC engineer actually said static pressure fans are strictly better for performance in nearly all cases. I don't think static pressure fans are even louder if you noise-normalize the performance, so curious if running static pressure fans at low RPM is better than using airflow fans. I am looking at cases like Lian Li Lancool II Mesh, Phanteks P500A, and Fractal Design Torrent which are airflow-focused cases that can utilize quite a bit of case fans and am looking for fans that offer best noise-normalized performance.
