Well it's not as good as I remember it, must've been too busy shooting for my life to pay much attention. Pretty much the same loop the whole time, aside from a few transitions. Pretty good for the time, though.
Really comes down to three things: price, noise, and space. Get one that meets your needs on all three, and you'll probably be happy. Or pick two categories and compare/compromise on the third if you are flexible.
Yeah, 15mm is small, and they make 10mm thick fans too! (but they're less than 60mm and spin > 3000 rpm minimum, only really good for unrestricted air or if you have no alternative)
Don't forget to check/update the time in the OS as well. ntpd (or whatever the daemon is) on linux doesn't update the OS time if it's off by too much, not sure about windows.
Here's ss and Arctic's slim fans specs, fwiw:
Assuming they are accurate, the arctic fan would be way better on a heatsink or with a very restrictive filter/mesh in the way, but it'd be more than double the noise at top speed. Either ss fan would be way quieter, but also have much less static...
Noctua's slim 120 is okay, not super quiet but it pushes a decent amount of air for the noise. Silverstone's slim 120 is very quiet, but probably doesn't push as much air.
Keep in mind, the noctua fans included with their CPU coolers are tuned differently than the ones you buy individually. The...
Actually physics states that things which are hotter have more energy, and can change states more easily. This is why memory can degrade faster when it's hot, but it's also why some processors are unstable when they are cold, but run perfectly stable when they are operating at normal temperature...