What is your preferred fan RPM poll?

[Martinm210]

As part of my last test for the season I was looking to test the rads from about 600rpm to 2200rpm using the Titan Kukri fans. Initially I thought this was a good enough range, and I was going to do push and then push plus pull.

Now that I have put the fans on my fan test rig I see they have a very low cfm/rpm ratio to the point of producing a similar cfm at 2200rpm as GTs would at 1800rpm. I could convert the rpm to display in different fan type as approximate, but I don't like the titans very much for their low cfm/rpm.

I am considering starting over with different fans now, maybe GT29s or something and just testing push only to speed up the testing. That would test up to 3000rpm.

What RPM would you like to see?

Also is push plus pull really important or not. It turns out pretty much any value radiatior with push plus pull is better than a premium rad in push only. That is good to know but I don't think it is worth the time to continue testing all the rads that way. I would rather do one more data point in push myself to help improve accuracy.

I am thinking of nixing the push plus pull and maybe test maybe 600, 1200, 1800, and 3000 or something like that.

[OldChap]

For daily use I run my 3700 rpm 3 blade deltas in pairs in series so effectively at 6v and I find the tone and the volume to be an acceptable balance with performance so my vote goes with ~ 1601-1800

[stren]

I think your selection of 600, 1200, 1800, and 3000 is perfect. 1800 is so common for the AP15 crew, 3K for the crazies (jk) and the rest for the silent types. Personally I run with 700 on my workstation and 1850 on my gaming rig.

I feel like push/pull vs push is useful data, although there is always a gain, presumably the gain is larger for thicker or higher FPI radiators. It can answer questions such as should I get the cheaper EX rad and buy twice the fans, or get the pricier gtx rad and only run push.

[Raul-7]

My radiator is in my backyard so the higher the RPM the better in my case. Currently have 6 Delta AFB1212VHE's at 3200RPM, but this week I'm switching 3 out for the new 4000RPM model.

[UrbanSmooth]

Anything that cools well enough at near silence. I'd say anywhere near the 1000 rpm level, give or take a few hundred rpm based on noise.

[squick3n]

For me it's the 1000-1500 range. Not really a fan of push/pull, and it seems rather pointless to constantly test, other than to remind readers of the point you just made that, yes, push/pull on low cost rads beats pull or push only on high cost rads

[kroks]

500-800
above that it's too "noisy" :p

[rge]

24/7 use/gaming ~800-900 rpm for quiet, then 1600-1800 rpms for stress testing.

[Waterlogged]

That's a shame about the Titan Martin.

As for fans, wish the poll had been multi option, because about 4 months ago, I purchased 10 AP-13 (1150RPM's) GT's fro P-PC's but I still have and use a number of AP-14 and AP-15 I have laying around. I try to aim for the fastest, quietest, non-resonance RPM for the 14's and 15's while the 13's just run @ full tilt.

[eXa]

AP-13 is the most i can tolerate (well actually slightly above), so i voted 800-1000rpm

[Polizei]

I've got Gelid S12s in my build running push on EK XT radiators... The box says they are 1000rpm, but BIOS reports 840ish. Everest reports 42.

[Martinm210]

Thanks!

Good info so far, painting a pretty good picture.

I went ahead and ordered three GT AP-29s and when I get them here, I should be able to see how well they hold RPMs at various undervolts. I'll probably run the fans on my fan test bench against GT15 and the Zalman ZM-F3 as well as the Delta and Titan's to show the CFM/RPM differences more clearly, but the inent would be to switch over to the AP-29s and test either three or four RPM levels. I think I'll nix the push/pull thing to speed up testing time frames. I will also be developing trendlines out of this so I can extract a bunch of bar charts for a variety of RPM levels...really the key is to get really solid stability points and a wide range of RPMs tested.

[fr0wn3r]

Watercooling has always been to me not just a better form of heat transfer but an ideal way to get near silent PC, so my vote is 800-1000RPM.

[Polizei]

I voted 1000-1201... I would like to be that side of 1000 compared to the ~840 that I'm at now.

As long as it's quieter than the 2200rpm Panaflo 120x38's I had, we're good.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

I voted 1800-2000, but I wasn't sure if you guys wanted actually RPM running speed or undervolted speed? 1000rpm is nice.

Quiet for desktop: 1000 or less
Gaming: I think up to 2000 is "acceptable", albeit, who "needs" over 1800 is beyond me.
Benching: 10k rpm?

[tiborrr]

Benching unit (winter time FTW)? 3500rpm Delta VHE.
Benching unit (summer time, chiller)? 0 rpm
Daily driver? 1450rpm Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-14.

[antiacid]

I've been using AP15 GT's for a while now but since I'm running 15 on rads and 1 case fan, I think I could've safely went with AP14s or even AP13s for noise. Oh well, you live you learn.

[Martinm210]

Thanks guys,
It looks like the majority so far are less than 2000, so maybe I'm worrying too much about the fans used and should just proceed with what I have. I already ordered some AP-29s anyhow, so I'll at least do some sort of farewell fan test to include the AP-29, AP-15, Titan Kukri, and maybe a good value fan like the Zalman ZM-F3 or something.

Cheers!
Martin

[bundymania]

500-800 RPM, even with High End SLI System - Mora 3 ftw

[Systemlord]

I voted for 1600-1800 rpm fans because it seems as you get closer to 2000 rpms things get a bit louder than most can tolerate. There's only one fan I would be comfortable running at 1850, the GT15's! I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see some GTs running at 2150-3000 rpms mounted to a GTX high FPI radiator, it would only satisfy my curiosity.

On another note I'll be using GT AP-15's on BGears 120-140mm adapters and run four of them per radiator using two SR1 560 radiators.

[mav2000]

1800-2000, just right for me, specially with the scythe GT's.

[frank anderson]

voted 1000-1200, my first choice is push / pull if the case I am working on allows me to fit this, if not then I will choose the push path.. only reason I would go pull only is I have no other choice, ie; like mounting a radiator bracket on the rear of the case and strapping 120/240 on it.

I think fan placement is also very important in any build, unless one is using a rad box, then it dont really matter..

Just food for thought.. Some users may say otherwise, but for me... I like to build rigs around the best path for air is front or bottom intake and top/rear exhaust, as for water flow path, pushing up is always a good idea as heat likes to travel upwards, with the water/heat traveling upwards, cool air going into the case and finally exhausting all the hot air from above.. I don't understand the whole 360 intake rad in front of the case as some users have build their rig around, for me this is kind of counter productive and not 100% efficiency.

That's just my $0.02, I'll shut up now.. lol

[Utnorris]

I run Triberks at around 900Rpm because that seems to make them tolerable. I do not find any benefit at running them at high rpm other than they cool the MB better due to more air being pushed over it. Temps of the water don't get better, so cooling performance does not increase. I run three old PA120.3's for a 2500k and two GTX580's, so I am over radded anyways. If you only have a single rad then running higher rpm's would probably benefit you more, but if you have enough rad space, then running lower rpm gets you near silent operation.

[Endgame]

Hmm, there is no "variable" option in the poll so I didn't vote. When my box is sitting idle when I'm programming, I want most of the fans turned off and a few running at the 600-800rpm range. When I load up a game and my headphones are on, I would just as much prefer the fans to be at 2500-3000 RPM since I don't notice them anyway. And, of course, i want this to be all automated so PWM fans have a great appeal to me.

[nigeleyeit]

anything around the 20db or under 1600rpm, above that personally it's more noise not just the sound of air being pushed