DrCR - thanks for a very well made post; havent been looking that hard, to be honest - spent all of 1 hour at spcr.com in total, and not looking at fans; had heard globe being thrown around and had found a reasonably cheap stockist

DrCR's post covers pretty much everything on the current state of the art on fans. Thanks again for his patience and persistence in compiling all that stuff and goading the threads into producing good info.
Just to summarize my own experiences of testing a LOT of 120mm fans. I put the best ones on a BIP II radiator and measured airflow vs rpm and relative noise vs rpm. Undervolting is assumed, and was adjusted to give best performance.

1) There is no quiet 120x38 mm DC fan. They all have considerable motor noise and moderate bearing noise.

2) In the 120x25mm fan category the Nexus 120 is the best. A close second goes to the Globe S1202512L-3M and the SilentX 120. Both have slightly more motor noise than the Nexus. The Globe can push more CFM at max voltage. The Silentx has the dubious distinction of being one of the most expensive fans on the market (4X the Globe) and their claimed noise figures are blatant marketing lies. However it is comparable to the Globe in airflow vs noise. It appears to be a remarked Adda fan.

3) If you need more airflow than the Nexus 120 will provide at 12V you are not going to get a quiet fan as the airflow noise becomes dominant. Get a Globe and adjust to your needs.

4) The 120x25mm fans CFM drops off considerably more than the 120x38mm fans when dealing with the backpressure of a radiator. However they STILL end up having a better CFM vs Noise ratio than the available 120x38mm fans.

Bottom line - If you want the quietest system buy a Nexus 120. If you're not fanatical about the noise but just want quiet, get the cheaper Globe which has an upper CFM around 50% more than the Nexus. In all cases, adjust the fan voltage to achieve the results you want.

For the Fanatics - you can get the absolute best CFM vs noise out of a Sunon A2123 230VAC fan undervolted, but you have to deal with the AC end of it. See this thread
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=17002

hats off to spcr and crew, a truly fine compilation
pH, add to your linkage ?

Yeah, the SPCR community is great. But of course, it has its knack just like everyone else. For example, the watercooling section isn't exactly spectacular (there's a core with know-how there, just not a lot of action and in general not sufficiently extreme for my taste. :D ), and that's why I come here, to the watercooling site. But at the same time, less so in recent times due to an apparently growing quiet computing fad, I sometimes crack-up over the "quiet" computing advise recommended here.

What's pulling for SPCR is that you know where the info is coming from. What one site calls a "quiet" PSU, SPCR could totally trash. One site may glorify a nice shiny new case, SPCR may give it a no go due to its poor disposition with regard to airflow at low CFMs.

So if I’m looking for quiet (or the coveted silent) related info, I go there. Otherwise, well, it’s obvious I’m not posting over there at this moment lol.

Linkage would be good indeed. I'm not too sure about a sticky though. While there, again, seems to be a quiet computing fad nowadays, I think we all would agree the core focus here is different than SPCR, sometimes drastically, and hence, what's a sure thing at SPCR could totally tick a guy from here. I can just imaging a delta screamer user getting in a shipment of Nexus fans and wondering where his room air-circulator went (or thinking his computer is wasted and isn’t turning on lol).

DrCR

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for sure, but it is quite enjoyable to find a site where info is sought, evaluated, and respected
neglected often is the most basic: a definition of terms
the number of 'silent' vs. 'quiet' arguments I've had is appalling, a morass of subjectivism
many of these words can only convey a sense, when one is attempting to quantify
VERY difficult to find a 'solution'

morass. hey, that's some nice vocab.

Yeah, before everyone had to refer to a standard reference, and for a long time it was a good Japanese (not Chinese) sample of the 80mm Panaflo L1A (often called the Japanaflo on the SPCR forums). But if the poor newguy had never heard one, he was still potentially in another ballpark. (On the side, a Japanaflo's noise characteristics are way different i.e. superior than its 120mm sibling)

Now it's starting to become a science. Just an example, from the presently latest post on the SPCR mainpage:
Jordan's Quiet DampTek'd Home Theater PC

I'll go ahead and include this here, even though it's mentioned in the above thread, just so no one misses it perchance.
This is solid stuff, no doubting that. :D

DrCR

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Another pitch for that sunon 2123....it's a steal at ten bucks.

Thanks for that tip, Ferd.

update
 

OK just replace the Papsts with 2 Panaflo L1As at 9 volts (lowest voltage my Nexus Fan Controller will give with fans of this power rating). All I hear now is the sound of air moving :)
Apart from..... the Neo2 Platinum NF3 chipset fan :rolleyes:
But since I am going to replace this board soon with a DFI NF4 Ultra-D I'll live with it.
Looks like the postion of the NF4 chip on the DFI board means it will be a ***** to fit a w/b to.....