Idea fan speeds for the H70

Hello All,

 

Forgive my 'Noobness' but I've just got a quick question regarding the fans for the H70.

 

So to make the story brief, I started with a NZXT Guardian 921 and installed the H70 with an Asus P7P55D EVO Mobo with an i7-875K processor. All was well in the land but I felt like my CPU was idling a bit high, around 38 degrees. At the time as well due to the set-up of the Guardian case, I had the fans for the H70 mounted as an exhaust port since if I didn't, warm air would have nowhere to go.

 

So anywho I got bored with that case pretty quick and decided to upgrade to something with a bit more room, better cable management and better air flow. So I picked up an NZXT Phantom case and got everything moved over.

(I might add that moving a Mobo with the H70 attached, as well as flipping the fans over so you don't ruin the bond with the CPU and the cooling gel is a pain to say the least)

 

So now I've been able to properly mount the fans so that their pulling cool air from outside and the idle temp has dropped to about 32ish. But when I've been checking out the fans they're usually running around 1900RPM and it sounds really loud, noticeably louder than the rest of the fans in the case. Meanwhile the actual unit never drops below 1400RPM.

 

So my question is this, if I put on the resistors and drop the fan speed (said it would drop the fans to about 1600 RPM) what sort of impact will this have on the performance? and more to the point, about what point is the ideal speed for the fans to keep the radiator cooling at its best while not sounding super loud?

 

This computer was my first build and I've certainly learned a lot but I'm still no tech expert and any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

Your unique combination of case, ambient temps, and hardware makes it impossible to predict with any accuracy. Slower RPMs will = less cooling but, the only way to know how much effect it will have is for you to test it.

Your unique combination of case, ambient temps, and hardware makes it impossible to predict with any accuracy. Slower RPMs will = less cooling but, the only way to know how much effect it will have is for you to test it.

 

Good to know, thanks for the speedy response as well. In which case I'll pull on my science goggles and report back with some results.

As the one with the Yellowbeard said the conditions of your environment will make all the difference.

 

I have swapped out my corsair fans in favour of PWM fans they run from 900 to 2200 RPM. Most of the time however, with an ambient of 26c my fans run at 980 rpm, my GPU fan is louder! this keeps the CPU in the range 41 to 43c (core temp) or 27c (mobo CPU) this is assisted by good case circulation.

 

David

Thanks for the response guys. So with preliminary testing, bringing the fan speed down to 1600RPM definitely made a difference. Runs a lot quieter, so I'm guessing somewhere in the 17-1800 range you'll start to get some pretty good noise. In terms of temperature, my results may be a bit skewed considering my ambient temperature around the case is usually in the range of 15 - 16 degree's I'd guess.

 

But all points considered I've only seen a couple degree increase in idle temperature, and under 40% load it's only hitting between 37-39 degrees. So I suppose assuming you have a fairly low ambient temp, reducing fan speed is no big deal. I'll monitor as temperatures get warmer into the summer and see how the unit fares when ambient air starts getting warmer.

 

Cheers,

 

Mojo