Best fans for the Corsair H100i in a Push and pull config, lots of options

If I actually had some desire to add more fans then I'd just get another set of SP120s - which are on it anyway.

AP-15's are very good radiator fans, but have one downside for your setup. They are NOT PWM so you will have to have a board that can control them because your pump only controls PWM fans.

Regular F12's should work fine if they are more easy to get.

In my own single 120mm all in one tests, the AP15's are better than NF P12's at the same speed, but just a bit better(this may change with different rads or hotter running hardware.).

Corsairs SP120's are nothing like the SP120L's that come with the cooler, many users do seem to like them. I have never tried them personally. On thin radiators even airflow fans do OK(tried an NF S12 and it was not that much worse than the P12 and that was a surprise, but it was a basic install fan stress for a set time, log temps, let cool, swap fan and try again. No powering down or anything).

The 100i uses 2700 rpm fans which are extremely loud ... and while fan design has a minor impact and performance and sound level.... rpm is king. An 1800 rpm fan of the same size will give you about 2/3 the thermal performance of the 2700 rpm fans.

So recognize that quiet comes at the expense of thermal performance and there is simply no way around it. Pushing more air means more rpm and more rpm means more noise.... there's no magic design solution which negates this. And remember there's no need for hi SP fans with todays low - medium fpi radiators.

Look at these where the same fan is used at various rpms



Here's the top 20 fans in silentpcreviews performance / noise testing.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page7.html

Phanteks PH-F140HP/TS (F140SP is for radiator mounting)
Noctua NF-A14 FLX
Noctua NF-A15 PWM
Noiseblocker B12-2
Noctua NF-P14 FLX
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120-12
Noiseblocker M12-S1
Corsair AF120 Quiet
Corsair AF120 Performance
Thermalright TR-TY150
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120-14
Xigmatek XAF-F1453
Nexus Real Silent
Xigmatek XLF-F1453
Noiseblocker B12-PS
Corsair SP120 Quiet
be quiet! Silent Wings 2
Noiseblocker M12-S2
Antec TrueQuiet 120
Noiseblocker M12-P

The Phanteks also beat the Noctua AF15's by 3C while spinning 300 rpm slower here:

I have installed at least 50 of the buggers ... one was noisy when installed horizontally, I sent it back and they sent me two in exchange

I have not as yet tested the new MP series (500 - 1800 rpm) but have 2 on the way...they will be used in two Enthoo Luxe builds w/ Swiftech h240-X Coolers (very quiet).... the fans will be mounted on back of HD cage blowing air between the two GFX cards (one has 970s, other 980 Tis)

I used voltage to test my AP15s. My board can control voltage fans fine on all but the cpu header.

Also if you look around the web, you can find diy or prebuilt devices to run Voltage controlled fans via a PWM signal.

A user on overclockers.co.uk was selling adapters for a while.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18421145

What I have is effectively an exact copy of his units(with permission clearly). Similar plans can be found around the internet as well. These allow my video card to control a AP15 and my cpu header to control another one.

This is not to say i did not like my Noctua fans, I do. I placed one into my media center, so it will get the testing of a lifetime with 24/7 use(SilverStone one lasted 2 maybe 3 years. not bad for a sleeve bearing fan horizontally mounted and better than the 4-5 months to kill a Gelid fan).

SP120's tend to be cheaper and even sometimes come in 2 packs(I only have some worries about the sleeve type bearing, but Noctua's is technically a form of sleeve too.).

I have stopped using PWM. Instead I use a PWM (or DCV) signal to control cheaper 3 pin fans with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811984004

I get all of the advantages of PWM w/ none of the disadvantages....kinda best of both worlds scenario.

Some have reported issues ... in some cases examining pics of the build they were wired incorrectly in others, I dunno what happened as aI never got a good explanation of their setup. I have 3 builds using them and all work great

My personal build has:

(6) Phanteks F140SPs on 420 radiator
(6) Phanteks F140SPs on 280 radiator
(5) Phanteks F140SPs case fans

Fan speed goes from 325 to 1238 rpm. Running Furmark the system is dead silent... you can't even tell it's running....water temps run between 8.4 and 12.4 above ambient depending on whether I leave grilles / air filters in

Push/pull isn't all that effective on thin rads like the h100i. For the noise generated and the space taken up and the necessity to be very careful with fan headers, the 2-4°C simply isn't worth it imho. Better off with a single pair of decent fans like the GT's or NH-p12's. You can get better performance with a higher SP fan on pull @1500rpm or below, or with higher cfm fans in push @1500rpm or higher.

Most fans @1500rpm and lower are very quiet, its when you go past that that the noise starts.

You have a h100i, which controls the fans through pwm. Analog 3 pin fans don't work. Also, the controller circuit is kinda weak, so check amps/wattage of any fan you choose and try to keep total amperage at or below @0.66amps whether you use 2 or 4 fans.

Well that is a nice find.

Someone has to crack that thing open to see if it is pulsing the DC or actually doing something else

Would be cool if it was some kind of ultra high speed switching well filtered regulator(because it would not generate much heat).

EDIT. People have taken it apart. Lets see what it is doing

Rad thickness as you can see in the Martins LL pic above has very, very little effect on cooling performance until you get to very high speeds. Push / pull adds on average 21% ... and can range from 10 - 30 depending on rad / fan combo. The benefit is not on the extra oomph, but from more air going thru more uniformly with less eddy currents. Higher SP has little to no effect until fpi's get up to around 18 or so. I use 6 temperature sensors in my test rig (accurate to 0.1C) with one sensor on the inlet and outlet of each of the two rads plus air temp sensors for ambient and interior case temp. Two fans at 1200 rpm is much quieter than one fan at 1500.

The noise "starts", the moment you can tell whether the system is on or off. A good fan will be silent (can't hear it) at up to 850 rpm. I can put up with 1250 while doing extreme stress testing but not while doing CAD or gaming. 1500 is above my tolerance level but that's a personal thing. On the Luxe / H240-X build I was so pi$$ed that under Furmark testing the only thing I could hear was the PSU (EVGA G2) fan.

I use this rule for fan wattage in order to account for 'inrush current"... the short term voltage spike that you get overcoming inertia to get that fan moving

1200 rpm fans ~ up to 5/6 amps (0.83)
1800 rpm fans ~ up to 4/6 amps (0.67)
2400 rpm fans ~ up to 3/6 amps (0.50)

About PWN fans:

-Some fans exhibit low speed hum or clicking

-Corsair fans are problematic... can not be ganged in significant numbers.... I have seen low speed control issues with as little as 4
http://www.overclock.net/t/1506812/the-best-pwm-rad-fans-going-to-be-very-exact-spec-needs/30

-sometimes have lower performance than their DCV counterparts and other times have more.

-You can use 3 pin fans on a PWM control system with the appropriate Fan PCB. Phanteks one (11 fans off 6 channels) works for most peeps; the new NZXT one has been redesigned but I was unable to get a good description from the NZXT rep here on the forum.

Swiftech All-in-one coolers have a PWN fan PCB which hast 8 channels... additional power is provided via a SATA power connector. You can also use it with any cooler / radiator / PWM fans and no worries about overloading the PWM header.

http://www.swiftech.com/8-WayPWMsplitter-sata.aspx
http://www.swiftech.com/8-WayPWMsplitter.aspx

ModMyToys also makes them in 4, 6 and 8 channel models
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalogsearch/result/?o=modmytpys+PWM+pcb&q=modmytoys+PWM+pcb

AFAIK, the Phanteks is the only one that works on 3 pin fans off both PWM and DCV headers

There might be a minimal effect at 21 but, tho it's not the main, benefit stacking the fans in push / pull will add SP.

I am waiting for them to arrive so I can test but given the performance of the SPs at 1200 rpm kicking tail on all competitors, I think the 120MP's (High SP) will provide best performance. I wonder if you can ignore Corsair's fan control and connect it to the MoBo for more fine tuned control

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709037

1850 would annoy the bejeezes outta me but I work all day on the box doing CAD, often while on the phone (game when I can ... rarely ... at night) . My son uses the box for his flight sims but as he wears a pilot headset, it wouldn't bother him a bit. So each person's tolerance will vary.

I use Asus FanXpert to control the fan .... it controls them from 350 - 1238 rpm and it is set to shut them off if the control scheme says go below 350. It never gets above 800 or so unless I do heavy stress testing. When you are browsing, I would expect that you could also shut them off or go down to about 25% of full speed (450 rpm on 1800s) but from what others have told me, I don't thing Corsair's control scheme allows it to go that low. That's why I had hoped you had a shot at direct control off MoBo but I would think Corsair's System would go bonkers if it doesn't detect fan rpm.

Specs are nice for one thing. A general idea. There is no standardized monitor or test to arrive at results, so everybody tests differently. Sp is a mm/h2o test, how far the fan will push a set amount of water, at a certain rpm and testing methods can vary slightly. So the actual specific number isn't as important as the size. Many decent high cfm fans have lousy SP, and vice versa, but with radiators, its a combination of both SP and CFM that matters. The Scythe GT's have mild seeming SP and average CFM, yet between fan blade design, rpm, SP, and CFM, they have hit on an almost perfect formula and are very good push fans. The Phanteks are the same. You also have to consider that the NF-F12 is a directed force flow fan, where a good majority of the airflow is specifically designed for a slim 20° cone. Vast majority of fans are not designed this way, their airflow is wider cone-shaped, some with as much as a 120° cone, which make for lousy rad fans with the creation of excessive amounts of turbulence. You can have huge CFM numbers, huge SP, but if the airflow is going sideways to the fins, not through them, cooling potential will hit the floor and the spinning fan will have almost no actual CFM.