What if I used an 80mm to 120mm fan adapter, then used a 120mm fan? That would give alot of airflow and would also be quiet.
Thanks.
It might work with a fan adapter but I wouldn't count on it. The Thermalright heatsinks have a wire that straps the fan or adapter ...not your conventional bolt on method so you may have issues that way.
Besides ...the 80mm is the most efficient fan with those heatsinks anyway.
You should study the fan attachment method before trying the adapter so you can have a better understanding of what I mean here.
But I thought adapters would work well as the air will be concentrated in the middle?
Thanks.
which heatsink are you referring to?
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited July 2004
First problem: The adapters won't work on the SLK heatsinks
Second problem: Adapters are worthless.
Axial fans cannot deal with any kind of backpressure, which is what an adapter creates; they have a hard enough time dealing with the backpressure created by the heatsink. Putting an adapter on a fan could quite easily cut the airflow in half. The best setup on the SLK heatsinks is an 80mm fan.
What Geeky's posting there is the God's Honest Truth about fan adapters and especially the SLK heatsinks. The only time that you might see an improvement using a fan adapter is with a heatsink that is designed for the fan to suck the air out of the heatsink like the Alpha heatsinks and that's debatable if you will see any improvement even then. With heatsinks that are designed for the fan to blow through them, a fan adapter adds too much backpressure and extra turbulence for them to be efficient. Remember, an axial flow fan loses a tremendous amount of it's flowrate when it's bucking even a tiny amount of backpressure.
I've also got quite a few of Thermalright's heatsinks and my best results have been with the 80mm fans, even on the heatsinks that can mount the 92's.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited July 2004
Mudd, even if the fan is pulling air out of the heatsink, you'd still have the same problem. Backpressure and vacuum are all the same thing to an axial fan; fans like the Delta EHEs with their focused flow fins are much better than regular axial fans, but even they can't handle pulling any significant vacuum/backpressure to speak of. This is why a single 49cfm Sunon 120mm squirrel cage fan will outperform a 75cfm SmartFan2 on a SLK-900 heatsink, and 2 of them will kick a 92mm tornado's ass into last week.
...... Also, Thermaltake has come out with the SilentTower 4 in 1 CPU Cooler for Intel P4 478 & Socket T, AMD K7 & K8, with Heatpipe Cooling, Model "CL-P0025 that looks like it should work very well too, but I haven't seen anyone post results with it yet. Plus, it will cost you over $50 shipped, so it's no bargain basement deal either. Sidewindercomputers has the Thermalright SLK900A for sale right now for $29.95 and they are a great company to deal with too.
I have one & have posted pics on another thread i think (cant be arsed to find it, just got back from Sweden Fully loaded on my P4 rig it reads at about 37c i think. Is specifically got it for its universal heatsink & cos its quiet. I'm well pleased with it.
Hey, I'm glad you are having a good experience with it Jimbo! I've seen it at Newegg's site but I din't know anyone who was running it; sounds like it's a stellar performer for you and is a worthy competitor to the rest of the high end aircooling solutions out there.
Finally Thermaltake comes out with a true high performance heatsink.
Geeky if you notice, I did say that even when installed on a heatsink like the Alpha's that any performance increase is debatable. However, when set up on an Alpha with it sucking through the adapter, it's not having to deal with the turbulence and eddy currents as when it is trying to blow through a fan adapter. You do lose some efficiency, but not like you do when blowing through it.:)
You could try it out but I'm afraid that constricting it that much will kill any potential flow increase due to the 120mm fan's size, but I've never personally tried that out. If you can find a 120mm>80mm adapter for cheap, you might give it a whirl and see if it makes a difference on a case fan. Personally, I just mod the lower front opening to fit a 120mm case fan on my cases that I've modded to fit 1 there with a dremel tool.
Actually I also cut the hole out to match the fan too, besides drilling new mount holes. I used a 120mm wire fan grille to get the size hole I needed to cut.
Comments
Besides ...the 80mm is the most efficient fan with those heatsinks anyway.
You should study the fan attachment method before trying the adapter so you can have a better understanding of what I mean here.
If you really have your heart set on a 120mm go with the xp-120 instead of the sp-97. Here is a review of the intel version. http://www.systemcooling.com/thermalright_xp120-01.html
52.24CFM, 2500 RPM at only 21 dBA.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Second problem: Adapters are worthless.
Axial fans cannot deal with any kind of backpressure, which is what an adapter creates; they have a hard enough time dealing with the backpressure created by the heatsink. Putting an adapter on a fan could quite easily cut the airflow in half. The best setup on the SLK heatsinks is an 80mm fan.
I've also got quite a few of Thermalright's heatsinks and my best results have been with the 80mm fans, even on the heatsinks that can mount the 92's.
I have one & have posted pics on another thread i think (cant be arsed to find it, just got back from Sweden
Finally Thermaltake comes out with a true high performance heatsink.
Geeky if you notice, I did say that even when installed on a heatsink like the Alpha's that any performance increase is debatable. However, when set up on an Alpha with it sucking through the adapter, it's not having to deal with the turbulence and eddy currents as when it is trying to blow through a fan adapter. You do lose some efficiency, but not like you do when blowing through it.:)
Regardless of price, can an 80mm Panaflo case beat a 120mm Panaflo case fan with an 80mm to 120mm fan adapter?
Sorry if my posts seem a little repetitive, but I want the best for my computer!
Thanks.