Recommendations for fan configuration

[Achilles]

Hey all,

 

After many happy years with a Shuttle (waves at Astro), I finally decided to go back to the dark side and buy a normal case again.

 

I picked up an Antec P183 v3 and put many awesome things inside of it. The one thing I'm missing right now though is how goddamn quiet my Shuttle was (it literally made *no* noise).

 

I understand that I probably can't get there from here, but I'm also thinking there has to be a better way than what I'm doing now.

 

Little more background:

 

• This case comes with 2 120mm Tri-Cool fans (the current source of my angst. These things are loud and the acoustics under my desk aren't helping). According to the manual, they move 39 cfm @ 25 dBA (1200 RPM)
  
• It also has 2 optional and 1 more super-secret optional fan locations (the super-secret option is not an option because my vidya card power cords won't have clearance in the PCI-E slot that it's in right now. I have another one, but the whole point of the super-secret optional fan is additional cooling for vidya card and seems like a dumb move to shift the card so that I can install the fan for the card that won't be there anymore)
  
• I ordered a Gelid 120mm PWM fan for the bottom-most optional slot and want to get another 120mm fan for the other optional slot (for four 120mm fans total - standard fans in upper back and upper top and optional fans in lower front and middle front). This fan pushes 58 cfm @ 12-25.5 dBA (750-1500 RPM)
  
• Also, my next investment is going to be one of these (to go on this). My upper back fan will then have a radiator sitting between it and the rest of the case.
  

 

So, if I were to replace all the existing fans with quieter Scythe fans (say, this one), would I be seriously setting myself up for problems? It seems to me that if 2 fans come stock, but I double the amount of fans, I should be okay, even if they run a little bit slower and don't move quite as much air individually. Am I way off here?

 

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

 

P.S. before anyone asks the Cool n' Quiet software that came with my mobo is not supported by my proc, so I'm not sure what temps I'm running currently.

[Q]

Those Scythe fans won't be moving very much less air than the TriCools on their lowest setting, so I'm pretty sure that you could substitute them for the TriCools safely.

 

I have an Antec 900 with 4 120mm TriCools and the 200mm BigBoy blowing out the top. They're all set to the middle setting and, while I can hear them I don't consider them to be overly loud or anything. Then again, the fans in my previous case were much louder than these, which probably has something to do with it. You're coming from a silent case, so any noticeable noise is going to seem loud to you.

 

I've heard good things about the Antec Kuhler H2O, so it's probably a good investment, especially if you're going to overclock that big hexacore.

 

As far as monitoring software goes, I use CoreTemp and CPUID's CPU-Z and HWMonitor.

[Achilles]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I went into the BIOS and adjusted the power management for my fans and things are a lot better now (I can't hear the fans over my game with my clamshells on anymore). There is still an audible hum but I'll take that over the blowdryer.