I have to say quiet. The fan noise makes me insane to if its to laoud. So thats why i have Fractal Design Define XL with its nicely sound dempening :D

it really depends on the system.
my game system is running noctua's

but my DIY servers run vantec/paps/delta/gentle typhoon 5800rpm
the pro-liants run there own fans but they are load aswel

rather quiet till medium, but of course its more about how well the fans cool my rig.

but of course good fans can cool good and still remain as quiet as possible.

so id say a balance between performance and noise both.

but real noisey fans would be a huge no-go for me

but fans which make a slight sound i actually like.
in a way i find the soft hum from them calming and soothing.

I don't want fans with noise levels above 20dB. I'd just buy a computer case with acoustic panels regardless of what I do.

I'll want to have the biggest fans I can get that can move a lot of air with less noise whenever possible.

I like the 120mm fans of medium performance power and adjust their speed down to a point that doesn't bother me.

I am with you Rodney.
I like to buy very high CFM fans and put them on a fan controller.
This way I can lower the voltage to the fans when surfing the net and raise the voltage when gaming.
I do not like to go to low though as I like to keep my processor highly overclocked.
My 5.1 speaker setup easily drowns out any notice of the fans at high voltage while gaming.

I have all my fans on a fan controller. Silent when just surfing but I crank them up fro gaming or bench runs. I where a nice headset so I can not hear them when gaming.

In the middle, not too loud, but decent performance as well.
But my computer always sounds loud in my room. it somehow amplifies. It doesnt sound so loud when I take it to other places.

quite is better if you're a normal pc user. but if necessary, go big and noisy for better performance

quite is better if you're a normal pc user. but if necessary, go big and noisy for better performance

I don't really care much about sound, as long as it moves much air.

I prefer medium or quiet. It's important when I'm producing videos that there isn't too much background noise.

The only thing i hear is my HDD's...so quite for me.
But i like to the increase the fan speed when benchmarking for a bit more air flow

The kind of sound is what matter the most for me and that the fan do not change speed all the time. But I do not like it when it gets too loud either regardless of how it sounds.

Medium speed fans that undervolt alot ,for a quiet computer.