ARCTIC P14 Silent - 140 mm Case Fan, Pressure-optimised, Extra Quiet Motor, Computer, Fan Speed: 950 RPM

I'm like most people who at first didn't think or know that fans were very important. Up to a certain point, I usually had computers that had maybe 1 fan in them. I'm not a gamer, but I work from home on 4 screens and I also trade equities. When I first went on a journey of finding a half decent gaming computer for all the tasks I needed to do, that's when I realized fans were quite important. Once I came to this realization, like many people, I started with Noctua, which as we all know, is one of the best. While I'm still a fan of Noctua due to how compact and amazing the U12a is for CPU cooling(also love their NT-H2 thermal paste), I'm not quite there with their case fans. For me the top case fans are Scythe Kaze Flex and Arctic P series. Kaze Flex just slightly edging out Arctic in a number of case fan shoot outs, however, Arctic has a few things going for them: 1) They come in white 2) They are amazingly quiet without sacrificing cooling 3) They are daisy chainable, so you can attach multiple together and use 1 header on your motherboard 4) They are amazingly inexpensive for the performance you get and almost never arrive in unusable condition. With all that said, even your $30 fans have trouble competing. They don't have rubber corners, but I have yet to install any (P12's or P14's) that have any kind of vibration noise. I had Noctua, Scythe, Phantex, etc...all the 'best' staples, and I'm honestly happiest with the 5 P14's I have in my beQuiet! 500dx case. My 5900x is overclocked to 4.4ghz at 1.25v being cooled by a Noctua NH-U12a. I have my rear exhaust P14 set to 'Performance' mode in the bios, so it's mostly staying at about 60% unless the cpu hits 50 degrees, then it starts to ramp up, hitting 100% at 80 degrees. My motherboard is an AsRock x570 Taichi Razer Edition(I know, not cheap), which has good VRM's. My 2 top and 2 front P14's I have set in 'Normal' mode in the bios, which has them sitting at 50%, so around 6v most of the time. The machine is effectively silent. Whatever sound it generates is usually moreso from the graphics card or cpu cooler ramping up. Even with the overclock, I'm idling under 40 degrees most of the time and at night when the sun goes down and the ac kicks in, I see 36/37 degrees. All in all, I think I'm an Arctic P series fanboy now.

They move air real well and at lower rpms, meaning less noise. Put in a Lian Li OD11 Air mini and can feel a lot of air moving out of the case. Temps are some of the best I have seen but probably thanks to case design. Seeing not much sound proofing and case is 3 feet from me on desk can say the fan noise is more akin to white noise and not intrusive. For the price highly recommend for any sensible folk building a pc sans led fans.

These as others mention will "howl" at certain RPM's. Moreso, I actually notice the howl is less tied to individual RPM ranges and more when the fan ramps up and down on speed. So I setup a stepped fan curve and that took care of the howl.It was for a charity build, but if I was doing my own I might spend the extra for a fan without the howl issue.However there is one clear use case for this that beats all others, as a PSU replacement fan. I used one of these exactly for that, and since it runs at a consistent RPM, it does not howl, and it's virtually silent. Highly recommend and would personally use as a PSU replacement fan.

Artic fans rival Noctua for airflow and noise level. Although they don't have Noctua's superb built build quality, they are less expensive and very reliable. I've used them in two builds now. Very satisfied with their performance.