Buying a fan for the SLK800, noise VS. performance

I would like to hear your opinions on choosing an 80mm fan for the SLK-800. At first, my initial choice was the Vantec's Tornado (80x80x38 84.1CFM) Fan but I've read on many webpages that this thing is VEEEEERY loud. I plan to overclock my Athlon XP 1700+ to 2600+ (I know that my processor is capable for this, TbredB .. etc) so my question is, do I need a fan as loud as the Tornado for this kind of overclocking? Or should I settle for a quiter fan that would still do the job all right? What should be the max dBA I should look for when looking at fans and what CFM should be enough for my SLK-800 to keep the CPU running cool?

P.S. Do I need to buy anything else besides the heatsing, fan, and arctic silver 3 (shim I believe they are called?)

How unbearable the noise will be is a relative measure. Everybody's tolarable level will be different. If you look at Tom's heatsink review, they set the tolarable level around 40db. I had a Volcano 6cu+ and that was rated at 39db, I couldn't stand that. On the other hand someone might consider it quite. If your not sure what dba to get, get one of those variable rate fans. You can test which combination best suits you.

40DBa considered tolerable?

My god that's almost the loudness of normal conversation in a quiet room! That would drive me nuts. Any fan making that much noise would find itself in my junk box very quickly.





--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

I've talked extensively about quieting things down in other threads.

In essence my approach is to knock a little bit off the speed of the fans with a resistor... add 1mm self-stick vinyl linings to the case panels, pad the hard disk on vinyl tape, rubber mount fans, get rid of as many fans as you can, increase airflow through the case and sometimes I even do a mod to the fans themselves (taking the sharp points off the ones with curved blades really quiets them down).

The "industry standard" for DBa is to measure at one meter from the source. 1DBa is considered the threshold of normal hearing. 40DBa is about the level of a softely spoken conversation. "Talking over the television" chatter is at about 60DBa. An engine with no muffler hits about 100DBa...

But it isn't just a question loudness... the quality of sound matters too. Something that makes an annoying sound will appear louder than something making a neutral or pleasant sound, even though both measure the same on the instruments.

If you want to really have some fun with home theatre which --aside from gaming-- doesn't really need a lot of horsepower... consider a socket 370 board with a Via C3 chip and passive heatsink. Use a hard disk enclosure, stick a temperature controlled fan in the supply and the whole thing would be nearly silent. (I'm seriously considering this for my own use, btw.)



--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

1 meter? That's what I thought. I still wonder if some fan noise claims are accurate though. If I recall the "A" in dBA stands for A-weighting which means filters are used in the measuring equipment to approximate human hearing. I assume that if someone claims dBA in their specs then they must measure using A-weighting but must they measure at 1 meter or is this just a convention?

The sound from these little Delta fans is absurd. People usually describe them as sounding like hair dryers. That is an underestimation in my opinion. I doug up the specs and I discovered the manufacturer states 46 dBA, not 40. This explains part of the large difference between the Delta and the YS Tech TMD. The rest is definitely due to the irritation factor like you described.

Building a home theater only PC is pretty simple but building one that will also do gaming is my goal. Don't really have the room for two PCs.

I already knew about rubber mounts for disk drives and case fans but quieting these isn't yet an issue, not as long as I still have a loud CPU fan.

Anyway, I'm going to try the fan slowdown mod you suggested as a starting point. Later I'll add a more efficient heatsink. I'll play with different system speeds to find a compromise between cool and quiet enough for DVD playback and better performing during gaming.

I'm not a hard core gamer so I don't think I'll have hard time finding a balance.





<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

Hey, you gotta start somewhere. I would say nay to a Tornado, but at the same time, I would pass on a super quiet, low RPM Paspt. Here are my recommendations for cpu fans:
1) Y.S. Tech Adjustable (48.7cfm 39.5 db)
2) Sunon KD1208PTBX-6A (53cfm 40.5 db)
3) Panaflo FBA08A12H (39.6cfm 32 db)

Call me Caine.

Teq,

we have gotten pretty far off topic.

Pitsi,

I was considering the SLK800 but I feel at 500+ grams it's too heavy. The SK7, also from Thermalright, cools nearly as well. I think it's heavy too, something like 475 grams. The Spire Falcon Rock II/Speeze RaptorCool 1 reportedly cool similarly as the other heatsinks when using the same fans. (The included fan is the low CFM variety. Quiet at 25 dBA but limits cooling). Don't know the weight but being primarily aluminum with a copper insert it's probably much lighter. I can't find these in the USA.

I think I'm going to give the GlacialTech Igloo 2500 a try. Reportedly it's able to cool an XP2700+ using only a 25 dBA fan. It's all-copper and only weighs 280 grams. I plan to use a YS Tech TMD fan (36 cfm) and use some sort of speed control.

I'm ordering one from Newegg as I type this...

It was $15 USD shipping included.


<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

The integrated mobos are the tiny ITX form factor. Maybe this has something to do with the cooling selections.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

Yeah, SLK800 is probably not a good idea for a system that will be going to LAN parties.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>