Gamers’ Toy
28 Feb 2005 @ amazon.com
Well, this fan is huge comparing to stock Intel fan. And it does a good job. Installation can be a little bit difficult if you have already assembled whole PC (like it was in my case). This fan doesn’t use push pins as stock fan does, so you have to screw it to a metal plate (comes with fan) on the inner side of your Motherboard. Takes some time, but this method is better, because you will not crack your Motherboard trying to insert those push pins.
However, after install my wife claimed about its noise. Yeah, I have to say that when you are working with word processing, using Internet, or listening some music (like my wife does) stock fan runs on 1800RPM (divine silent). But when I’m playing FlatOut, FarCry or Doom3, it jumps to 4600RPM (like a vacuum cleaner). I even bought headphones to be able to listen game sounds. Now this Thermaltake fan runs always at 2500RPM, it is a little audible, but keeps my CPU 10ýC lower than stock fan at highest load, and it never goes any louder.
This bottom line is: if you are an office worker or Internet surfer, stay with stock fan, but if you are a hardcore gamer (like me) get it and overclock you CPU as high as you can.