quiet fans 80mm?

[gate1975mlm]

I am looking to get 4 quiet fans 80mm for my case. What do you think are the best? I would like my system to be very quiet!

[Riptide]

I hear the Panaflo line from Panasonic is pretty quiet.

Vantec also makes the Stealth line of fans, I believe.

[Rytr]

What Riptide said.
The Panaflo fans use fluid bearing instead of ball bearing. I have a couple of cases that have at least one 80mm or 120mm Panaflo fan installed. Couple of years ago these were the best you could get for performance and quietness. Now there are several makes that many claim are just as good, one being the Vantec Stealth series.

[MUYA]

erm, them new thermatake ones are pretty quiet. I can't remeber what they called but they have in built LEDs on them..

[lytalbayre]

Every heard of Papst or Comair Rotron .

A little exotic, a lot hard to find, but the best quality and least noise you will ever experience.

These fans are used by telecommunication companies, major appliances, etc. Do a search on google or something, you will find results.

I think these fans typically run at around $15 to $30 a piece.

Also do a search for silent PC or quiet pc. I think there is a brand out there with a name simialr to that.... those work well also.

[ricercar]

Real world experience says anything below 23 dBA is probably too quiet to hear outside the case. And don't' forget to look at the numbers for CFM (air moved). You can make a fan pretty quiet when it doesn't move any air.

However raw numbers aren't perfect. My Coolermaster LED fans seem quieter (22 dBA) than my Vantec Stealth black fans (20 dBA).
http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?LT=english&Language_s=2&url_place=product&p_serial=TLF-S82&other_title=TLF-S82Neon%20LED%20Fan%2080x80mm
http://www.vantecusa.com/product-cooling.html# -> SF8025L

Raidmax 80mm black fans from a Raidmax case were so quiet that I could not hear from three feet even when they were spinning naked on the desk. Unfortunately I never found them for sale.

The following numbers are excellent, but I haven't any experiece with them:
nmb 80 mm fans = 22 dBA
http://www.xoxide.com/nmbsil80fan.html
thermaltake thunderblade = 21 dBA
http://www.xoxide.com/thunderblade2.html

[DaveW]

I love this one:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=11-999-051&DEPA=0

It was a top ten seller on newegg for several months.

[CaptNKILL]

I have an 80MM panaflo fan that I bought at New Egg last year. It works GREAT. Fairly quiet and moves a LOT of air.

The only thing that sucked about it was that I bought it OEM without a damn connector on the end, so I had to add one myself. But it was worth it, its a great cooler. I highly recommend a panaflo...

BTW, i think its odd that Panasonic makes a PC cooling fan... TVs, VCRs, DVD players... and PC cooling fans :p

[GlowStick]

You might wanna check out this store,

http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc/mainindex.asp

they are fanatical about silent fans.

[Viral]

Panaflo. Sleeve bearing fans are the quietest, but most don't last as long as ball bearing fans. Supposedly the panaflo's and their hyrdoflo technology do.

The Panaflo 80mm L will push 24cfm at 21db. Because it's a sleeve bearing fan this is a lower pitch 21db than common ball bearing fans deliver (inclusing vantec stealth etc). Or if you want a bit more airflow, get the 80MM M's that push 32cfm for only 28db. That's a bit over twice the noise, but really 28db is still VERY quiet. It just depends how quiet you want your system to be. Personally I will go as high as 35db for fans... but for most i would recommend having 30db as a maximum if you want a reasonable quiet system.

[VoltFox]

I use silentx 80mm fan, 14db!!! I highly recommended this fan, I'm a quite system freak and I love this fan, it's a bit pricey for me though. The rotating sound is soooo soft that you can barely hear it.

[nutball]

Panaflo L1A (*not* M1A), or the Nexus 80mm are my choice 80mm fans. They are very close in performance, when undervolted the Nexus has the slight edge to my ears.

Note that the manufacturing of Panaflo fans isn't what it used to be -- they moved the factory to China and on average quality seems to have suffered. You still get gooduns, but you get more badduns too.