fans for water cooling radiator

[Pete]

I've been looking at the EK-KIT H3O 240 HFX as my first venture in to the mystical lands of water cooling because it seems like an easy an cheap way to get a full kit with room for expansion later on. I have however not really been able to find anything on the fans included in the set :S It's the EK-FAN Silent 120 1600rpm, they say it pushed nearly 59 cfm of air at roughly 26dbA, but is that really so? I've been looking at several fans and none of them really seem to be able to hold the specs given by the manufacturer and if i have to change the fans i might as well just build a kit from scratch myself and save the extra bucks...

i've also been looking at the Bitfenix spectre pro 120mm which are supposed to push 57 cfm at an incredible 18dbA??!!

anyway, almost every review i find they never test the noise level of these fans to see of they hold up to what the manufacturer says, and since i really want a quiet system fan noise in important to me...please help

[TeeBlack]

for radiators you wanna look at fans with high static pressure not just cfm. Spectre pros are good fans but are not good radiator fans. radiator fans i would suggest taking a look at Gentle Typhoons, Swiftech Helix, Corsair Sp120's, Noctua NF-F12's, Noiseblockers eLoop fans etc.... if you looking for cheap but good fans take a look at some Yate Loons or Xspc Xinruilian fans.

[grumpydaddy]

I've not seen any reviews on those fans in the kit but if you want to get a feel for how some of the other choices perform then take a look at This

Even the great work done in testing shown in that link is only related to one type of rad so you might want to compare the specs of that one with the EK rad.

Also noteworthy is the results of airflow fitted to a rad compared to the numbers quoted by the manufacturers

[SamCR3]

Best all around fans for a radiator hands down are the Noctua NF-F12's. They are quiet and have excellent static pressure and airflow. The PWM feature works flawlessly and the fans don't make weird noises while under-volted.

[Yes!Asian!]

Been using cougar vortex cf-v12hp push pull on my H80 and it is great! totally recommended.
And about the swiftech helix, as a case fan, it is same performance as the cougar, but as a rad fan.....don't use it! much much louder than cougar with same performance

[Pete]

so should go for something with 1.8 mmH2O static pressure, or more, for a 60mm radiator?

[Doctor_Death]

Best all around fans for a radiator hands down are the Noctua NF-F12's. They are quiet and have excellent static pressure and airflow. The PWM feature works flawlessly and the fans don't make weird noises while under-volted.

Hey Sam, Noctua just sent me 4 of their new 140m fans, which were made just for water cooling. I'm supposed to mount them on the X60 & H110 and show temp results between the stock fans and then the Noctua fans, they want the photos and temp results posted in the forums as well as Facebook. Once I open the shipping box, I'll post some photos for you.