Cooler Master Sleeve Bearing 80mm Silent Fan for Computer Cases and CPU Coolers

I originally found an entry on an unnamed "deals of the day" website that had a competing site selling 2 Scythe S-FLEX (E-Series) fans for $20. I heard they (Scythe fans) were some of the best fans out there, and was about to spring for that deal... but when I realized after the added 8 dollars for shipping, it came out to be about 30 dollars... 15 bucks per fan. not so much of a bargain anymore. some fellow in that thread mentioned that if you want a real bargain, get these puppies from Amazon. Four 120mm fans for just over 10 dollars. Of course I had to take a look, and I'm glad I did.Now, when I built my computer, I bought a CoolerMaster case (CM690). This case has room for 7 case fans I believe. It came with three of these very same model fans, so I already knew from personal experience that they were very quiet and did the job. Certainly worth 3 dollars a fan, no doubt; plus I wanted to add some extra fans since I had so many available mount areas in the case and the daily temps are in the upper 90's right now.Ordered them, got exactly what you see in the picture. It's been said before, it's only 4 fans, and 12 screws for mounting. The fans are three pin. In my case, I have areas for 7 fans, but my board only has 3 headers! So I feel a lot of you are going to have to either get a couple of 3-pin splitters or something for these to use them all.The fan cords themselves are approximately 12" long. My front fan cord will not reach any of the fan headers on my motherboard, so I had to use the dreaded 4-pin molex adapter /slash/ monstrosity that turns your tidy cable management into a rat's nest. I would really recommend something like this -- http://www.amazon.com/1FT-TX3-Power-Splitter-Cable/dp/B002DY7M1G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1277947201&sr=8-1That will allow you to hook up 2 of these fans into only 1 motherboard fan header -- plus, it gives you an extra 12" of cord. With 24" of cable (including the fan's cable itself), it should reach to the darkest corners of any sized case, and will be a lot more manageable and cleaner looking than the hideous molex/4-pin adapters.So how about the noise? What can we compare it to in real life? Ok -- right now, in my case (1 foot from me, at about shoulder level) I have 6 of these fans running, plus the CPU fan. I would most closely compare the noise level to that of an air vent or air conditioner intake when your central AC is on. Just a very low, non-distracting flowing air noise.Now if I get crazy and crank them to wide open, they are a bit noiser, but really not too unbearable. I would compare 6 of them at full speed to the noise level of maybe... an electric toothbrush? This is a bit distracting, as it actually catches my attention (as said though, the case is 1 foot from me, nearly level with my shoulders/head).If you let the motherboard control the speed of the fans, they are very near silent. It sounds like maybe a newer CD-ROM drive steadily spinning a CD at idle (*not* revving up).So if you are even questioning getting this... just spring for it. They may not be super high-end wind tunnel 250CFM fans that will allow you to use your computer case as a second freezer, but they do the job, and they do it well for such a tiny amount of money. On a side note, I recommend CoolerMaster products in general... especially their cases. Sturdy and well thought-out designs.P.S. -- fan direction and airflow is sometimes a science, depending on where your mount holes are and what kind of heatsink, etc, you have. Personally, this is my config:1 front fan pulls air into the case, over the hard drive bay area1 back fan, obviously pushes hot air out the back2 top mounted fans, with air flowing upwards and out of the case (my thought behind this was hot air rises, so at the top of the case is most likely going to be hot air that I want to remove from the case, not blow it back in)2 side mounted fans (this one is tricky, as one is over the add-in card area... which I have pulling in cool air -- and the real question is: what about the fan mount right above the heatsink? I'm using the Intel stock heatsink & fan, which blows air straight up off the processor, which would be perpendicular to the side of the case. my thought here was at this mount area, have the fan blowing air *out* of the case, since hot air is going to blow off of the heatsink, into this fan, which will expel the air out the side of the case)Point is, though: When you start working with 4, 5, 6 or more fans... you're creating areas of high and low pressure, which can make the heat move differently than you might expect. Some configurations that I expected would dramatically reduce case temps in fact did the opposite and raised my temps!The only things I wish these fans had but don't are 1) shielded/covered cables. looks a lot nicer when the three yellow, red and black cables are wrapped in a black shielding. I imagine this could be done with some duct tape after you got your cables routing where you want, so it's not a big deal... and 2) maybe if the cables were a little bit longer... like maybe 18" would be great, for larger cases. It gets annoying having to reach in and unplug the side fans every time I want to take the side cover off! Other than that, this pack is the cat's pajamas.

This item shipped fast through amazon prime, easily replaced my previously non-functional rear-internal-wall fan with one, and used an amazon 4 pin molex to four-way-split 3-pin fan adapter to compensate for a typical motherboards lack of 4 additional 3-pin fan connections, allowing 1 molex connection to power the 3 remaining fans internally, placed strategically in my case w/o screws near the CPU and GPU which with a 3.0ghz 6-core AMD phenom 2 x6 overclocked and an EVGA (NVidia) GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 card, easily heats up while gaming in a system without an advanced cooling system. One without an extra molex connector can even buy a 4 pin y splitter, provided they don't have a weak supply, and use it to gain an extra connection. However, if you have a weak power supply, you likely don't have a strong enough system to merit needing a 4 fan setup of any size, especially 120mm. But if you want a cheap way to ensure that your PC has enough ventilation, especially aiming at least one fan toward either a warm-running cpu or gpu to help ensure performance and reducing burnout risk, this is the way to do it. That, or go with the www.amazon.com/Vantec-SP-FC70-BL-Spectrum-System-Adjustable/dp/B000233ZMU/ref=pd_sim_e_1 PCI fan right below your GPU or so. ANY open PCI sized slot in the back will work, it is also powered by 4 pin molex, and only uses a PCI card slot to be held steady but is unnecessary, especially if you are trying to put it in a different type of PCI slot. The reason it uses a PCI slot in the first place is that its an area to pump air OUT of the PC through the back, so htis may really do wonders for a warm GPU with an open pci space of any sort directly underneath for immediate fanning of gpu fan heat outside rear of case right below. For the best of BOTH worlds, with one open molex connection: buy this 4 pack, buy a molex y splitter (super cheap from Amamax through Amazon for In-US-shipping rather than hong kong), a zalman multi-connector for the fans, and a vantec or other (although vantec has great reviews for its price), and get both PCI slot fanning under your GPU AND 4 120mm fans for around 30 dollars total. If this isn't good enough for you, spend a few times more on supplies and hours of labor and go for DIY internal liquid cooling projects.

I don't know what to say about these. They're everything you could ask for, especially at the price. They're quiet, they're cheap, they move air, and they're easy to install. 5 stars. They probably don't move as much air as some high end fans, but instead of having a couple fancy fans, I got a bunch of these. System is staying cool.One note: The cables are short-ish at 12 inches, but I was hooking these up to a fan controller in a mid-tower case. The fan controller had some extra cord length to work with, so I had no issues, and probably wouldn't have had any issues even if I was hooking them into the motherboard.They are being used in an NZXT elite 210 case with an NZXT Sentry Mesh fan controller. Working perfectly. No idea how long they'll last, but even if they do poop out after a while, they're cheap enough to replace.