Jay
I was in the market for a quiet fan that would push a significant amount of air. I tried CoolMasters, Antec's and In the end I would have to compensate for sound in order to get good airflow. When I would first turn on my rig either from a cold boot or from sleep, every fan would run at max volts until the BIOS or my Sentry 3 fan controller could kick in, regulating the voltage down to a more quiet environment. So I went on a search for a fan that would have good air flow without compensating for the noise level.I compared the Noctua NF-S12A with the Cougar CF-V12HPB because they are both high rated computer fans and the Cougar won hands down. They are both rated to be a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) however when using the Noctuas with my Sentry 3 fan controller there were some problems changing the RPM's. So going from 100% voltage to 80% voltage there was no change in RPM. Same with 70% no change in RPM. I had to go into the 50% and below for their to be a RPM difference. However, the Cougar changes RPM's respectively to each voltage change on the Sentry 3 fan controller. Also, the Cougar is rated at 800-1500 RPM which means that when the computer turns on this fan will not be blowing at 3000 RPM's like standard fans because its max RPM's is 1500. However, the Noctua came with 2 different voltage cables to help throttle the voltage. I am assuming this is for if you do not have a motherboard that doesn't control fan speeds or you don't have a fan controller. Either way though I tried both cables and the Noctua was significantly louder then the Cougar and didn't push as much air. The Noctua did come with the different cables to help adjust the correct voltage and the box it came in looked like it was being presented at a computer show and that is all fine and dandy, but I am more worried about the quietness VS the air flow ratio.Bottom line the Cougar CF-V12HPB won at the end of the day. It pushes more air and creates less noise. It is a true PWM which works great with a fan controller and will not take off when the computer first boots or comes out of sleep. It also comes in a variety of LED colors if needing the glow effect. I plan on buying 3 more. 2 to replace the radiator fans and the other for an exhaust. The first one I bought was used for intake on the front to cool my SSD and HDD.I hope this helps!Credit goes to Amazon user Sean for recommending that I try this fan.
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I've used all kinds of fans and this one is SUPER EASY to install with rubber tool-less notched bolts that stick right through the holes and because they are soft rubber, they deaden all vibration and sound. I bought a Cryorig cooler for my 2700k Core i7 and decided to add a push pull configuration, meaning I placed this Cougar fan on the back of the aluminum heatsink with zip ties :-) My temps dropped by at least 7 degrees!! What a difference. But I also added two more of these: one at the top back blowing up and out and one at the front blowing into the case, for a total of five fans in this case.I'm cooling a new Asus Z170-A Skylake 6700K I7 with 16GB ram. I'm overclocking to 4.6GHZ. Temps at this overclock are 21 idle and 65-70 RENDERING HD VIDEO on Sony Vegas. Not bad. However, if you use onboard graphics of the Z170-a Asus, your temps will be higher watching videos since the CPU will come into play more. Adding a graphics card (I used the rx 480 AMD Strix), drops the CPU usage substantially to 1 % or less for watching videos. Rendering video from video editing apps (Sony Vegas) is still cpu intensive and will BAKE YOUR CPU over a hundred if you are overclocked and not properly setup.I'm pretty high on air cooling. And if I bought over, I might just buy the push/pull version of the Cryorig. But on the single fan Cryorig cooler, I took off the Cougar pull fan I added, to see if temps were different and they went up by about 5 degrees, maybe more. So push pull DOES HELP. Never hesitate to jerry-rig fans with zip ties. Works great. But for install in the case, you'll want to use the Cougar fan rubber mounting thingies, which are awesome. I researched a lot and these seem to be the best fans possible, except maybe for the super high rpm models which bring lots of extra noise. So for quiet fans, cool fans, well made fans that install in a second, get a few of these and watch your temps drop! These went into my server for my Animal Rights stuff at VeganGod.org so they HAD TO WORK and be reliable, well engineered and super cool. So what are you waiting for? Hit buy :-)
William
Ok so i got these fans for their quietness and awesome performance. I had Corsair fans in my case i even had some Cooler master at some point. But now i found my fans Not only are these quieter and blow more air then the Corsair ones but helps to keep all my components a lot cooler.I bought 8 Cougar 120 Vortex PWM fans. I tried having all my fans at 80% and that about only time i really hear them but not like i bad thing i just hear the air being pushed not like any annoying sound from the fan just air being moved. So i either keep my fans at 50-60% and it quiet i don't hear my fans i have to put my ear by the case. What i like about these fan as well is how there not so much compared to like nocta there not cheap but still these fans give you a balance. One last thing so you know what your buying check out the Cougar website the and the Corsair one and you see Cougar fans flat out beats them. My main take away from the fan is how quiet they are at whatever speed you want them to perform compared to my old corsair fans i had. My Phanteks Luxe case alone with these fans and an hyper 212 evo and my cpu and every part is kept cool and not noisy which i love. I like having a performance machine but don't believe they need to sound like jet when blowing air. What awesome is at higher Speeds what you hear is the air being pushed not the fan, So i definitely recommend these fan there worth you money i bought 3 2 of which are on my hyper 212 evo and another one inside case on hard drive cage. Best thing you can do is look at the fan website so you can see how much air there rated at pushing and how quiet they are Cougar has everything you could want in a good fan.