A PC case is a steel box. It makes no noise of its own. The noise comes from the fans, and from whatever you put inside. So when we went looking for case noise figures, we already suspected what we would find: makers do not publish a figure for the case, only for the fans they ship in it.
That suspicion held. We read the product pages and product sheets for cases from nine makers. Not one published a noise figure for a case. Three, NZXT, Thermaltake and Lian Li, publish a rating for every fan they put in the box, and that is what this guide ranks. We found thirteen current cases with those figures, from 22.9 dBA to 35.8.
Every number here is the maker's rating for one included fan model, at a speed the maker states. NZXT lists it in the included fans section of its tech specs: model, quantity, speed, airflow, pressure and noise level. Thermaltake prints it in brackets after each fan in its cooling system row, for example "CT140 fan (1500rpm, 30.5 dBA)". Lian Li gives a block of figures per fan on the product page.
None of the three names a measuring distance or a test standard. None says whether the fan was measured in open air or in the case. And none of the figures describes a built PC.
So a case whose fans are rated at 24.1 dBA is not a 24.1 dBA case. Put a graphics card, a CPU cooler and a power supply inside and you add three more noise sources, none of them counted here. Meanwhile the panels decide how much of that noise escapes. Mesh lets it out; glass and damped steel hold some of it in. No maker we read puts a number on that.
What the figures can tell you is how loud the fans in the box are rated at their stated speed, compared with the fans in another box. That is worth knowing, because those are the fans you will run unless you replace them.
The ranking
We rank on the figure for the loudest fan the case ships with, since that fan sets the floor until you turn it down. The speed goes beside every figure, because it is half the story.
Figures tied to one stated speed:
- NZXT H9 Flow: 22.9 dBA for its three F140Q fans and 24.1 dBA for the rear F120Q, at 1,350 ± 150 RPM.
- NZXT H3 Flow, H5 Flow and H7 Flow: 24.1 dBA per F120Q fan at 1,350 ± 150 RPM, with one, two and three fans in the box.
- NZXT H6 Flow: 25.1 dBA per fan at 1,200 ± 240 RPM.
- Thermaltake Ceres 330 TG ARGB, The Tower 300 and CTE C700 Air: 30.5 dBA per CT140 fan at 1500rpm.
- Lian Li LANCOOL 217: 34.3 dBA for the 170 mm fans at 1550 RPM, 34.2 for the 140 mm at 1800 and 33.2 for the 120 mm at 1900.
- Thermaltake The Tower 500: 35.8 dBA per standard 120 mm fan at 1500rpm.
Figures beside a speed range, kept apart: Lian Li prints the LANCOOL III's 140 mm fans as "200~1800 RPM ... 33dB-A" and the LANCOOL 207's as "450~1900 RPM ... 34.86 dB-A". It does not say which speed in the range the figure belongs to, so we do not rank these against the rest.
Unclear, kept apart: NZXT's H7 Flow RGB ships one F360 RGB Core, three fans on a single frame, rated 23.3 dBA at 1,700 ± 200 RPM. NZXT does not say whether that is one fan or the whole unit.
Speed explains most of the spread
Look at the speeds and the ranking stops looking like a contest between brands. NZXT rates its fans at 1,200 to 1,350 RPM. Thermaltake rates at 1500rpm. Lian Li rates the LANCOOL 217 at 1550 to 1900 RPM. The ratings rise in roughly the same order.
The best evidence is inside NZXT's own range. The H6 Flow's F120Q fans are rated 25.1 dBA at 1,200 ± 240 RPM, a slightly higher rating at a lower speed than the 24.1 dBA F120Q in the H5 Flow. Same fan model name, different case version, different figure. Small differences between these ratings do not mean much.
The practical point is that a rating at a high speed does not make a fan loud in your build. The LANCOOL 217's two 170 mm front fans move 142.56 CFM at 1550 RPM by Lian Li's figure, far more than NZXT's 60.2 CFM F120Q. Turned down to move the same air, they may well be quieter. No maker publishes the figure that would settle it.
Picking a quiet case from these
Count the fan mounts, not the fans. Fans are cheap to add and easy to replace. A case that takes 140 mm fans at the front and top lets you run large fans slowly. The H9 Flow, Ceres 330 and CTE C700 Air ship with 140 mm fans; the H5 Flow and H7 Flow take them.
Check the CPU cooler clearance. A tall tower cooler running slowly is quieter than most small coolers running fast. The H7 Flow clears 185 mm, as does the Ceres 330. The CTE C700 Air clears 190 mm.
Mind the stock fan speed. NZXT lists 3-pin connectors for its F120Q fans, and a 3-pin fan is slowed by voltage rather than a PWM signal. Check that your motherboard's fan headers support DC mode before you plan a fan curve.
Replace the loudest fans first. If a case ships with fans rated well above the rest of your build, our quietest PC fans guide covers replacements with published ratings. The CPU cooler and the power supply matter as much; see the quietest CPU coolers and quietest power supplies.
Mistakes buyers make
Reading a fan rating as a case rating. A 22.9 dBA fan does not make a 22.9 dBA PC.
Comparing ratings at different speeds. 24.1 dBA at 1,350 RPM and 34.3 dBA at 1550 RPM on a much larger fan are not a like-for-like comparison.
Ignoring what else is inside. The graphics card is often the loudest part of a gaming PC under load, and no case changes that much.
Assuming quiet branding means a quiet figure. The cases sold on silence publish no figure at all.
The silent aisle
Fractal Design's Define 7 product page lists three Dynamic X2 GP-14 fans in the box, and its product sheet gives fan mounts and dimensions, but neither prints a noise figure; the noise fields on the product pages we read for the Define, North, Meshify, Pop, Era, Focus and Node cases were empty. Cooler Master's page for the Silencio S600 describes foam, mass-loaded vinyl and two Silencio FP fans without a number, and its US site would not load for us. Antec's P101 Silent page mentions anti-noise panels and prints no figure; nor do its P10 Flux, P20C and Flux pages. Phanteks' Eclipse P600S and NV5 pages list the fans but no figures, and so do SilverStone's PS15 and Montech's AIR 903 pages. We could not read be quiet! or Corsair at all: both sites refused our requests, so we cannot say whether they publish a figure. These cases may be quiet. Their makers' pages do not say.
We did not measure any of these cases or their fans. Every figure is the maker's own rating for an included fan model, quoted as published with the speed it was given for, and none describes the noise of a whole case or a built PC.
