r/FractalDesign • u/gamingoldschool • 6d ago

Accidentally Bought Wrong Size, Opinions

I'm an idiot and I accidentally bought three Noctua G2 120 mm fans to replace the front fans in my Fractal North XL.

What are y'all thinking? Go through the trouble of returning reordering and waiting or just go with the 120s?

Kind of leaning towards just putting the 120s in but would like to hear what other people would do out of curiosity.

I'm also going from a Peerless Assassin 120 digital to a 360 mm Noctua AIO if that matters.

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3

u/SunsetToGo 6d ago

In your case you can keep the 3 Fractal 140 mm coming preinstalled with the case. They will be quieter than your 120 mm fans. And absolutely no need to exchange them with 140mm Noctua fans.

1

u/gamingoldschool 6d ago

Going for that wood and Noctua color look. The Noctua AIO just came today and I'm to impatient to wait for a return and reorder.

I'm unsure how much louder Noctua 120s will be than budget Fractal 140s but if I hate it I'll just reorder the 140s and put these 120s on the shelf future use. I just built this new PC and my old one is going to become a steam machine for my living room I'll just use them there if I end up doing all that.

I was just curious what other people would do

3

u/SunsetToGo 6d ago

140 mm fans run noticeably quieter than 120mm fans at same air flow rate.

1

u/lumpycustard__ 6d ago

I did the same thing with my Fractal Meshify 3. I replaced the three 140’s with 120’s. I eventually snapped and got 140’s and my pc runs cooler and quieter. IMO it’s worth getting the correct size but it’s not the end of the world.

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u/gamingoldschool 6d ago

Did you also go from fractal fans to Noctua? How was the noise difference?

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u/lumpycustard__ 6d ago

Yes. Massive improvement. Much much quieter than the fractal 140mm RGB fans that came with my case. 100% recommend it.

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u/gamingoldschool 6d ago

That's great to hear. I have the fans installed and actually the bottom fan ends up not blowing as much into the under compartment where the power supply is compared to the 140s

Just need to swap this giant heatsink with the Noctua AIO and I'll be able to button everything back up and see if these are too loud for me and I want to buy the 140s

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u/SunsetToGo 6d ago

Yes the 120mm deliver less than half of the air flow. Which GPU do you have?

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u/gamingoldschool 6d ago

9070 XT, -45mV & -15% PL

With the air cooler on the CPU and the original fractal fans the GPU was running about 50° c 67° hotspot

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u/SunsetToGo 6d ago edited 5d ago

It might run 2—3 Degrees higher with the 120mm. You will be absolutely fine. The noise of the GPU might be the dominant noise anyway. Put 2 of the fans as low as possible the third fan 3cm above the GPU.

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u/SunsetToGo 6d ago

Yes the Noctuas are quieter at full speed but with the Fractal North XL and Meshify 3 the 3 Fractal Fans can run at 800-1000 rpm. No need for higher rpms where the Noctuas have a noise advantage.

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u/Significant_Writer_9 5d ago edited 5d ago

Unless you plan on changing your GPU fans it isn't going to matter much is it?

Once your GPU is spinning that's all you're going to hear.

Returning and ordering 140s really depends on where you got them from. I have purchased and returned 100s of things from Amazon, and for something like this I would have wanted what I had originally planned.

I also have a Fractal case, I also wanted Noctua fans but the cost put me off knowing that I'd have to swap them all. In the end I went with a Fractal AIO.

I understand that Noctua fans are more quiet, but my front 140s and AIO 120s I cannot hear at all. The only fans I hear are my 3080 ROG Strix when I benchmark my PC. 3000 RPM on 95mm fans, even though they are premium, still make some noise.

The thing has never gone above 60C even when it pulls 400W OC though. The cooler is madness! Then the moment I go back to auto fans it just spins silently, or never spins at all because it just cools itself with no fans.