How many fans do you have on your PC case?

[Sithaer]

6x120mm in total in my In Win 101,it was completely unnecessary with the hardware I'm using but I did not want to leave empty spaces. 'non expensive fans anyway'

3 intake at the bottom,1 exhaust at the back and 2 at the side.
Thats the default mounting setting on the case's site so I went with that.

Airflow is kinda weird in this case but so far it works fine w/o being loud.

 

[newtekie1]

Two 140mm intakes in the front on my 240mm RAD and a single 140mm exhaust in the back. And technically 3 on my 1080Ti Strix, but they aren't really moving any air in or out of the case.

 

[theonedub]

(13) 120mm Yate Loons- (6) on each of the (2) 360 radiators in push/pull and the final one as an intake blowing on the VRMs of my motherboard.

 

[Lorec]

7x Fractal Prisma 120mm (3 intake , 4 exhaust) fixed @40% speed (highest soundless fan speed for this setup)

 

[AsRock]

3xfront 120mm (Cougar 120 1600rpm )
2xrear 90mm +120mm 90mm is a Pana flo fan i tend to keep that as low as possible and the 120mm is another Cougar 1600prm fan.

Should be one at the top and been thinking about adding 2 holes on the bottom of the case for more air flow for GPU and to be able to remove the adon fan bracket i have with 2x120mm fans.

 

[eidairaman1]

4 case fans 2x Bitfenix Spectre Pro LED 230, 2x Spectre Pro LED 140.

2x Glidestream 140s on CPU HSF, 3 fans in vaporx 290, 1 in X1250

 

[Chomiq]

3x120 mm in the front, one 140 in the back. Came with the case. If anything I'd probably consider switching to two high quality 140's in the front at some point, but I'm happy with what I'm using atm.

 

[biffzinker]

I had a Cougar Vortex HDB 140mm as a exhaust in the past. Ended up pulling it, started making a ticking sound the next day on boot up that was annoying.

 

[FinneousPJ]

3x 180 mm +1x 120 mm

 

[GamerGuy]

This is for my recently built Ryzen rig:
2x 200mm intake fan (came with my CoolerMaster case)
1x 140mm exhaust fan (came with my case as well)
3x 120mm exhaust fans on my Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 AIO
3x 120mm exhaust Fractal fans (pull)

My i7 3960X + Caselabs M8 rig has more:
6x 120mm case intake fans (RGB)
3x 120mm Thermaltake RGB exhaust fans (Thermaltake Riing Floe 360 AIO)
1x 120mm RGB exhaust fan
1x 140mm Corsair AF exhaust fan

 

[GoldenX]

1x120mm intake on the front, 1x80 intake on the side, CPU height, and 1x92mm exhaust on the back. That's the best the case allows.
Oh, and a 40mm noise generator on the notebook.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Front/bottom intake:

1xCorsair ML120 pro
2xCorsair ML140 pro

Rear/top exhaust:

3xCorsair ML140 pro

- front/bottom fans on standard fan curve
- rear/top fans on silent fan curve

 

[kapone32]

Thanks to my case I have the following
2x200MM front intake fans
1x200mm side intake fan
2x140mm bottom intake fans
2x140mm rear exhaust fans
2x420MM Rads with 6 140MM fans that exhaust out of the top of the case

Upcoming will be 2x120MM on a fan bracket to further cool the VRM, Memory and first GPU.

 

[Chrispy_]

Bigger fans are better, IMO since they can spin slower for the same airflow. It's not about how loud they are, more that the lower RPMs are below the range of human hearing so you don't hear the hum of the fan, only the airflow noise they generate. The tone of a fan is also related to the number of blades, so a 7-blade fan is going to make a higher-pitched noise than a 5-blade fan if they're both running at the same RPM. This is why I dislike GPU fans with 10+ blades, and of course those horrible 40-blade squirrel cage fans in blower coolers!

More important than fan size is making sure your PC is dust-filtered on all intakes and that the total CFM of your intake fans exceeds the total CFM of your exhaust fans to maintain positive pressure.

Negative pressure isn't the worst thing in the world, as long as you have taped over any vents or unused fan bays. Failing to do that with negative case pressure results in your PC looking like the inside of vacuum cleaner in short order.

The closest thing I can call to "my own" PC is a NZXT H440NE with 3x120 intake, 2x140 top exhaust, 1x140 rear intake, pointing at a reversed Noctua cooler.

 

[Splinterdog]

The CM Storm Trooper only has room for three, so I've just changed mine to PC Cooler RGB 120mm fans with one at the rear and two at the front.
The H100i RGB Platinum pulls air in from the top using two 140mm fans and I have no idea if I have positive or negative pressure, but everything stays nice and cool, even in the hottest weather, which is good enough for me.
But fan control is now an issue since Asus AI Suite Fan expert literally turns off my PC which, along with Aura are the two buggiest pieces of software I've ever used.
Since the three case fans are connected to the mobo headers, I've removed AI Suite and will see if I can get the UEFI to take care of the fan control or find something else.

 

[kapone32]

Bigger fans are better, IMO since they can spin slower for the same airflow. It's not about how loud they are, more that the lower RPMs are below the range of human hearing so you don't hear the hum of the fan, only the airflow noise they generate. The tone of a fan is also related to the number of blades, so a 7-blade fan is going to make a higher-pitched noise than a 5-blade fan if they're both running at the same RPM. This is why I dislike GPU fans with 10+ blades, and of course those horrible 40-blade squirrel cage fans in blower coolers!

More important than fan size is making sure your PC is dust-filtered on all intakes and that the total CFM of your intake fans exceeds the total CFM of your exhaust fans to maintain positive pressure.

Negative pressure isn't the worst thing in the world, as long as you have taped over any vents or unused fan bays. Failing to do that with negative case pressure results in your PC looking like the inside of vacuum cleaner in short order.

The closest thing I can call to "my own" PC is a NZXT H440NE with 3x120 intake, 2x140 top exhaust, 1x140 rear intake, pointing at a reversed Noctua cooler.

I set my 200MM fans to run 100% and my bottom intake sit right under the CPU socket. The Level 20XT has too much glass but the Core X9 is the best case for airflow that I have owned 2nd would be the Raven 02 from Silverstone.

 

[JATownes]

Lian Li PC-011 Dynamic with side mounted 360 AIO in push/pull intaking, single 120 in the floor intaking, and three 120s in the top exhausting...so 10 total.

JAT

 

[Deleted member 67555]

2x Tt riing+ 140mm front
2x Tt riing+ 120mm top
1x Tt riing+ 120mm rear
8700k tops out at 77°c @5ghz
GTX 1070ti tops out at 80°c @+205mhz core (2113mhz boost) and +400mhz on the memory. Power set to 103% max temp set @84°c

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

My old In Win Mana 136 with 5 fans total. Two 120mm on the front. One exhaust in the back and another at the top. Modified the 5.25" drive bay (read bent the platform that hold the drives) to accept a 140mm Yate Loon fan from my old power supply I had lying around. One fan in the front is molex only and the 140mm Yate Loon is a weiwed small 2-pin connector so I ghetto modded them together and feed them to the board. From my limited understanding I just need 12v and ground pin to run the fans. Then I set the fan port to DC mode in bios and set them at 25%. Actually I set all my case fans at 25%. I can't see the rpm on the ghetto fans but I believe they're not running their rated full 2000 rpm since they're so quiet.

 

[dirtyferret]

Two 140mm fans - obviously! Why? Again, that's obvious. Two fans are quieter than 3.

I generally agree with you which is why I have two front 140mm rather then three 120mm. At similar speeds and model a 140mm will move more air and should make less noise then its 120mm counterpart.

Now don't go interjecting a bunch of "what ifs" in some futile attempt to discredit that claim. If you want to do that, use specific model numbers for the 140mm and the 120mm fans. And be specific about your definition of what "better" means in your scenario.

This brings up an interesting review I saw on gamers nexus recently. The 3 x 120mm stock phanteks fans (1200rpm) out performed 2 x Noctua A14 140mm fans (I assume 1500rpm) for GPU temp only (it was reversed for CPU temps). The video card in the test seems to be using a common dual 100mm fan cooler.

Their reason was as follows

GPU dT averaged 51.4C dT in the standardized fan test, slightly worse than baseline thanks to less incoming air along the bottom of the case, but still competitive compared to the other standardized fan results. This is an example of where the stock configuration performs better

So depending on the person, one could make an argument for 3 x120mm over 2 x140mm for a slight improvement to GPU temps and cooling on the HDD cage while sacrificing CPU temps if you have that particular case.

 

[infrared]

I have only corsair ML fans, 4x 120mm fans intaking through dust filters and radiators and 1x 140mm exhaust fan with no restrictions. They're set to all ramp up together based on the coolant temp, and fan curves are set so there's always very slight positive pressure to keep dust from coming in. I'd prefer it if the radiators were on the exhaust side, so the air flowing through the case isn't already warm, but in practice it doesn't seem to matter as long as there's plenty of airflow.

 

[Bill_Bright]

It's not about how loud they are, more that the lower RPMs are below the range of human hearing so you don't hear the hum of the fan

Sorry, but that is not true at all. It is all about how loud they are - and not just the hum of the fan motor, or the noise the bearings make as they spin, or the sound of air molecules moving past (and banging into) the fan housing. It is also about the noise of the air molecules banging on the blades and the noise the blades make when "chopping" through the air!

It really is all about understanding the most important principles of aerodynamics - just like what goes into the design of air plane wings and propellers (propeller blades are - in effect - just spinning wings). "Quality" fans use advanced designs in their blades and are highly sophisticated pieces of aerodynamic technology, designed to move the maximum amount of air while making the least amount of noise.

It is much more than the design and construction of the motor that determines how loud or quiet a fan will be. And I'm not even counting the noise caused by the fan vibrating due to the inevitable imperfections of the bearings or the channels they run in. Nor am I talking about the vibration noise caused by the inevitable imperfections in the "balance" of the multiple blades.

In fact, the design of the blades is a much more complicated and technical process - at least with quality fans. The investments that go into the research and design of the blades is one of the main reasons quality fans cost so much. It is NOT just about the motor or the type and precision manufacturing of the bearings.

Yes, the slower the blades spin, the lower the noise the fan makes. But that is much more due to less air moving past and through the fan than the noise of the fan motor itself (again, at least with quality fans).

The biggest impact on our ability to hear the "hum" of a fan at lower RPMs is most likely the "drone" from the ambient noise in our environment. That is, the background "din" in our homes and offices drown out the noise of our fans when they spin at slower RPMs.

And for the record, the typical range of human hearing extends way down to 20Hz (20 cycles per second) for "normal" people and down to 12Hz for those with exceptional hearing. Even the slowest spinning case fans spin at several hundred RPMs.

While humans tend to lose our ability to hear higher frequencies as we age, the ability to hear low frequencies changes little.

So yes, it really is all about how loud they are in relation to the rotation speed in relation to the amount of air each blade scoops up and pushes through with each rotation.

 

[xtreemchaos]

6 in my zen rig 5x120 1x200 and 6 on my intel rig 6x120.

 

[Tomgang]

In my current X58 rig i have 20 screaming justin beiber fans. Joke a side, i have 20 fans in total.

3 x Noctua NF-F12 iPPC-3000 PWM 120 mm fans on CPU cooler.
11 (8 x 120 MM, 1 x 140 MM and 2 60 MM) case fans that are Corsair ML120/140 and two from noctua: 5 in front as intake + 1 in side panel also intake and 5 in rear as exhaust fan.
3 fans on chipsæt 1 x noctua 60 MM and 2 x 40 MM fans from noiseblocker.
Besides that 1 x 140 MM in PSU and two fans on GPU cooler.
Noctua fans on CPU cooler can run from 300 RPM to 3000 RPM and corsair ML fans operate from 400 RPM to 2400 RPM (140 MM up to 2000 RPM throw) and are all PWM controlled with software fan profiles i can change on the fly. Thanks to the fan profiles, fan speed has been set so that some of the front and rear fans are controlled by GPU temp and the rest of the front and rear fans are controlled by CPU temp. So no matter how temp are on GPU or CPU, there are all ways plenty airflow for GPU or CPU.
The small fans are 3 pin so voltage speed controlled with a dedicated fan controller. 40 MM spins from 1800 RPM and up to 4400 RPM while the 60 MM spins from 1100 RPM to 1800 RPM.

This setup will be change a little bit for then i get my ryzen setup.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

That's quite a fan club tomgang.

My new pc has much less than my old since i swapped to just pushers on my two rads.
10 in total including the psu fan.
3x120 unrestricted in's, 6x 120 restricted by rad outs.

Range of fan speeds from nice to wtf depending on use.