SILVERSTONE FM121-B 120mm Case Cooling Fan

Pros: Plenty of kick to FORCE air into a case (my use, see Other Thoughts).

Fan controller nice addition to "tune" air flow, providing tradeoff of flow to noise.

Would not put one of these in an HTPC, but if cooling is your primary concern, this is it. Besides, having worked in a server room for many years, bit immune to fan noise.

Cons: Sheepishly admit it took me a couple of minutes to figure out where to connect fan controller. There's a SHORT black wire 2 pin connector for this on the fan; controller wires plenty long to reach.

Also admit, on receipt, thought Newegg had shipped the wrong fan. Had ordered both the FM121 and FM121-B fans. BOTH have FM121 on front of box; displayed fans both white. The side of the box has the [silver | black] (for fan controller color) noted.

Other Thoughts: Have 2 Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS4UM+B external 4 bay cases. Even with the on-board rear exhaust fan set to high, disks, on PROLONGED transfers, start to heat up above my comfort zone. The case's front door drops down flat, and the front disk retaining bracket can be removed. A 120mm fan sits quite nicely on the laid down front door.

Have an expansion bracket PCI power panel w/(3) 4 pin power connectors on back of case, with an Okgear 48" 4 pin molex sleeved fan cable extension run to external case shelf.

1. First try: Cooler Master R4-S2S-124K-GP 120mm Case Fan which I had on hand. While it might be fine for removing dead air inside a case, not the "throughput" I was looking for.

2. Second try: Silverstone Air Penetrator AP122 120mm Case Fan. While its "directed" air flow was a bit stronger (using the "hand test"), still not the "throughput" I was looking for.

Now I did what I should have done in the first place: used Newegg search tools to look for HIGH CFM 120mm fans.

3. Third try: Silverstone FM121-B 120mm case cooling fan. WINNER. ADDED bonus: the INCLUDED fan controller. Even at 50%, plenty of "push" to force air into the case. If a disk starts to run hot, can just crank up the fan.

Certainly no louder than the on-board fan when set to high.

Not using the included "3rd monitoring wire" as it's being used to cool an outside case.

Might even play around with "tuning" noise, adjusting exhaust fan speed (3 speeds) and this intake fan for optimum cooling/noise level.

Bottom line: if you need to force air somewhere, this fan can do it.

Pros: this paired with the noctua nh-d14 is amazing. i've got this fan mounted of the back directly lined up with my noctua keeping my cpu chilling at 15-23 Celsius sometimes going up to 32 when playing a game.

Cons: nob could be more sensitive, but it does a good job, no egg for that. good fan

Other Thoughts: i would recommend this product, good so far.

Pros: Great fan, not using the fan controller and am quite happy with the noise level at full power. My 80mm Vantec fans are about 100x louder than this fan so I wouldn't have cared anyhow.

Cons: None

Pros: Awesome fan, way better then the stock fan that came with my Coolermaster V8, the temps are much better with this fan. CPU cores are in the low 30's and under load don't even get out of the 50's. Much better temps then with the stock fan.

Cons: None really, besides when it is at max fan speed it is pretty loud but there is no reason that should be a con.

Other Thoughts: The fan controller works perfectly, only down side is i didn't have a floppy disk drive compartment in my case so i had to run the fan speed controller out the back of my case and just have the wire on the side of my case and the controller sit on the top of my case, which is fine by me.

Pros: bought this fan side witht the noctua to see which works better, and this has a better focus of aitflow. Got my temps down quite a bit from upgrading from my corsair and rosewill fans.

Cons: can be quite loud on full. Doesnt bother me much being that this is for a media center and sits across the room from me, but if it were specific for a gaming pc i would prefer the noctua

Other Thoughts: overall for my needs, works better than the noctua. swapped my noctua fans for rear and top output and thesse bad boys for direct airflow on my heatsink. lowered by around 4 degrees

Pros: -moves a ton of air

-unmatched static pressure at the 120mm size

-very nice looking controller panel and knob.

Cons: -needs a 2 connector, your 3 pin controller panel won't work unless you do some chopping and splicing

-NOISY. like a wimpy vacuum cleaner. it's rated at 40dba. according to most charts, this is very low ambient. laughable. this thing does not produce 110cfm at ambient noise levels.

- fan frame prevents usage as a cpu fan. it's a solid bushing from one hole to the other side. have a look at cpu fans. they aren't connected because you need a way of insterting the retention clips

Other Thoughts: this would have made a fantastic cpu fan. unfortunately, the frame style precludes that. i might do some chopping and sanding to get rid of the straight through bushing

Pros: Pushed a lot of air, and kept parts cool.

Cons: One of the blades broke off, within a day of use. Causing it to raddle and shake. Also the speed control NEVER worked.

Other Thoughts: Worked great, before it broke.

Pros: Great fan for moving high volume of air. I have 2 in my HAF X case, one in extra drive bays blowing air across top portion of case and one in fan shroud blowing across my AMD Sapphire 7950. Yes it is kind of loud sound wise, but knew that when buying and doesn't bother me.

Cons: none

Pros: Dropped max GPU temperature from 104c to 80c after using this as a replacement for my stock case side 120mm fan (22c ambient).

I bought this to prevent my graphics card from overheating and freezing during gameplay and it serves that purpose perfectly.

I crank up the included fan speed control knob to full for gaming and drop it down to 1/4 for normal quiet operation.

Cons: The speed knob bracket does not have appropriate holes to make it flush with the 3.5" bay of my Cooler Master Centurion case front panel.

For me this isn't a significant con since the knob is tall and having it a little recessed makes it less likely to be hit accidentally. Also drilling 2 holes is trivial, if I really needed to.

Pros: 110cfm, all ball-bearing and includes a controller & grille. This is the only fan I use with Corsair H50, H60, H70 and H100 liquid coolers. I always do push-pull configs and 4 of them with the H100 is an unbeatable combination. I have no idea of how many I have purchased myself combined with others I recommend them to but so far not one failure or complaint. A top-shelf product.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I've actually grown to like the white fans, they add a "different" look when combined with the silver grilles in a black case. They also look nice with silver aluminum or steel cases.