Personally I wouldn't say it was all about decibles. Esp. since it can be hard to judge volume levels reported by different manufacturers. They (fans) are generally tested in ideal conditions by themselves. and given a dB rating.
I take many things into consideration mostly.
My cat.
I've had a few fans (mostly sunon) that at 5 or 7 volts must have put out some high pitched elec. noise cause they drove him nuts. I thought he was going insane until I happened to shut the computer down once while he was in the room.
My wife.
theres a tiny buzzing sound from the 90mm zalman at 5v or 7v.
I can't hear it unless I'm right next to it, but my wife spent half a day tracing it out. She swore up and down it was moving around the house and mostly near the fridge. That was fun.
Me.
I'm sick of noise. I don't even like the sound of air moving against things. I had a fanless computer far a day, but my nerves got to me and I put the fans back in at 5v and 7v.
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