Fan Spec Comparisons Useless?

With my latest build I'm currently looking at fans, deciding what to buy. There's an aesthetic element involved but I'm most interested in performance.

I'm actually making a comparison chart of all potential 120mm and 140mm fans.

Except for Akasa few fan suppliers seem to provide noise level dB(A) figures for the range of speeds the fan supports. The figures all appear to be single figure dB(A) and CFM ratings at max RPM.

In my primary PC I have Akasa Viper 120mm CPU cooler and case fans capable of 1900 RPM, used along with a couple of 140mm (1600 RPM) case ones. I have the BIOS set to use 75% PWM on all of them and even under heavy load in the height of summer, it rarely reports four figure speeds. Even when it does they're kicking in temporarily to get the temperature down and go nowhere near their 1900 RPM max speed.

So the question: is it fair to judge a 1900 RPM fan like the Akasa Viper 120mm whose published figure is 28.9dB(A) at max speed when it is being used more...

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