Which CPU fan to buy

[Gray]

Mmkay, at the moment i have a Smart and SilentVolcano 9 CPU Fan for my Athlon XP 2400+.

At its top speed (4800rpm) it cools my CPU at (What i feel?) is high - Hangs around 37º-40º. Now, because its running at 4800rpm, its also very... very loud (48db).

When i first got it, it didnt bother me, but my mum (who is funnily enough partially deaf) is complaining constantly about the fan being too loud... She can hear it in another room apparently which means it must be loud :/.

I did turn the fan speed down earlier, to its 1300rpm, it seemed a bit low but i wanted to try it, as soon as i fired up a game, the PC turned itself off firing all the warning sounds you dont want to hear (It switches off automatically once it reaches 70º).

So, this fan ive had for, uh, say 2weeks must go... Ive heard alot about the Zalman Flowers, but is there any other CPU Fans out there which would just do just as good a job as the Zalman, and just as quiet?

Will the Zalman do a better job at cooling my cpu than what the Volcano did? (The Zalman is 2500rpm/33db compared to the 4800rpm/48db of my Volcano) I dont really want my CPU heating upto more than 40 really speaking.

One thing that worries me about the Zalman is its design... It looks far too different than the rest of the Fans ive seen, it also looks bulky... One of the problems with my System is there doesnt seem to be too much room anywhere.

My Motherboard is an NF7-S, and as stated, my CPU is a 2400+.

Any tips/suggestions would be good

 

[sibanac]

35-40°C is a pretty good temp for that cpu.

Athlon cpu's have a high max operating temperature between 85°C and 95°C acording to AMD
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/FAQ_Rev05_ENG.pdf

They also mention a normal operating temperature of 60-65°C

So you are way under their posted specs.

Zalman will not cool as good as a vulcano

 

[Doh_boy]

Get an aero 7+, top fan. Only problem is that it's a bit heavy. I've got a 1Gb AMD and the fan keeps my processor around 30c. Granted it's not overclocked BUT it's still a top fan.

 

[Chameleon]

I recently upgraded to an Athlon64 and use a the 'Zalman CNPS7000A-Alcu Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-008-ZA)' which can be viewed here:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Zalman_121.html

They will do a similar one for your cpu.
All I can say is, it's very quiet, very well made and keeps my cpu at an amasingly low temperature.
In my experience, most noise comes from the PSU. Globalwin do some very good quality, low noise psu's.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Globalwin_psu.html

Also check your case fans. You can make them less noisey by making them run at 5.5 or 7 volts, rather than the standard 12v.
Lastly, the only other things to cause noticable noise problems are fans on some of the motherboard chips and the graphics card fan. You can find alternatives here:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Other_Coolers_57.html

Oh and also (you can tell I've been looking into this recently can't you hehehe), there's some useful info and products here:
http://www.quietpc.com/uk/

 

[SawTooTH]

Water cool it !

Mine, Barton 3000, is 45 oC and thats the internal temp (apparently) not surface mounted that is cooler. Case temp 33oC. I have my radiator outside the case.

Quiet as a water pump.

Fun to build too

 

[RandomBastard]

I use an Aero 7, and my cpu temp is 30C under normal load, <40C under max load and my system temp is 15C (yes i know thats less than normal room temperature, its cold in here all right?)

 

[SawTooTH]

I use an Aero 7, and my cpu temp is 30C under normal load, <40C under max load and my system temp is 15C (yes i know thats less than normal room temperature, its cold in here all right?)

You should buy your pc a sleeping bag to warm up.

 

[Danya]

Had my system running in 13C ambient the other day, cpu was 20C normal and 25C max load. Water rocks.

BTW in my experience PSUs aren't that noisy, crap northbridge fans and HDDs make up most of the noise from my PCs.

 

[Xavier]

Zalman will not cool as good as a vulcano

Most Zalman coolers will do a significantly better job than the volcano cooler.

Zalman rate their flower coolers on the P4 as capable of dissipation up to 150W. The full copper AMD flower isn't much different.

 

[.Wilier.]

I hate having to say it, but *cough *

 

[xane]

I recently upgraded to an Athlon64 and use a the 'Zalman CNPS7000A-Alcu Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-008-ZA)' which can be viewed here:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Zalman_121.html

Don't you have trouble with them overhanging other components, like the RAM sticks, etc ?

 

[Chameleon]

No, none whatsoever Xane. Has that been a problem on some boards in the past? I use the Asus K8V. I'll see if I can post a small picture of my insides later

 

[Chameleon]

Don't you have trouble with them overhanging other components, like the RAM sticks, etc ?

As you can see, there's not exactly room to swing a cat between them, but you can use the first ram slot fine with the zalman in place. The only reason I'm not using the first slot is because I couldn't even get to the post screen in any other ram configuration than this on the k8v .... it's some common bug with this board, from what I've read.

 

[Xavier]

Don't you have trouble with them overhanging other components, like the RAM sticks, etc ?

If you look at the 7000 series in profile, they taper inwards a good 20mm well before the base of the heatsink. Otherwise the cooler would never make contact with the CPU because of collision with all the vregs around the socket.

Xav

 

[Damon_D]

Running my new 3200 AMD 64 at 2300 mhz ( 300 mhz overclocked ) at 32 Celsius with the Zalman

 

[Tom]

I don't ahve a CPU fan. I just chuck some coca cola over mine every so often, keeps it nice and cool and it smells nice too!

 

[Mr.Monkey3]

My AMD 2600+ runs at 49 degrees under 100% load. But then I've overclocked it quite a bit.
I used to run it at 79 Degrees, and encountered no problems at all (stable under p95). I've sinced dropped the temp by watercooling.

Zalman are very good. BUT in that other thread there are even quieter fans : http://www.soadvanced.com/store.htm which are less noisey than zalman (not that zalman is noisey, but..). Use this and the biggest heatsink you can fit (the zalman cpu heatsink is huge) and you've got a system so quiet you won't be able to hear it.

 

[xane]

I ended up getting this, it was cheap and does the job and is very quiet too.