The NF-R8 is "quite old" now, and for its price, there are better fans, such as BeQuiet, NB, etc... For me the NF-R8 is a "golden oldie"... golden, but in my opinion overtaken by newer fans. Fans are not like computer components. They don't just get "old" (ie, the technology made obsolete by faster...

Why do system builders continue to make these systems with underpowered Atom CPUs when a substantially better CPU, like an i3-2100, is not much more expensive and can still be passively cooled? An Intel ITX board + a Pentium G630T is a nice combination that's only about $50 more than the board in t...

"I smell a rat" was a poor choice of words but my Pineview CPUs often report impossible temperatures to the OS. I trust Mike's thermometer but not the CPU's. Obviously if I was reviewing a computer I would tell the reader what the CPU reports. It's useful information. But maybe someone can tell if ...

Maybe I missed something, but the article only seems to give case temperatures. How hot were the cores during the stress test? Yes, you did. See the table "Operating Temperatures" here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1251-page4.html Max CPU core temp was 45C. So the CPU column is the actual c...

Maybe I missed something, but the article only seems to give case temperatures. How hot were the cores during the stress test? I have a Cedar Trail box from J&W Minix that has a big heat sink and no fans. The cores idle at up to 60C, and during a stress tests they can get up to 85C. I'd like to know...

What have other people's experiences with the reliability of Enermax supplies been like? They look nicely made, but the failure rates I've seen are dreadful.

I'm not sure I'd recommend the Akasa Apache. I bought several about 4 or 5 months ago. I was impressed by their quietness when I got them, and the little noise they did make was a very tolerable whoosh. Now they all seem to be rumbling in a very annoying way.

A lot of fans sounds pretty reasonable on the day they are bought, but start to grate on the nerves after just a couple of months. I think even the best show some degradation is noise performance within a year. Are there any long term reviews of fan noise performance around?

Steve

Two reasonable arguments, but I think they are flawed. Its certainly true that the hardly any low end motherboards will be matched with exotic tower coolers costing as much as the motherboard. However, those are generally not too bad for crossflow cooling, anyway. The more expensive the motherboard ...

Whiny computers are driving me nuts, so I've just started trying to achieve near silence for the first time. Components in the computer industry always seem to be out of step with each other, and such a case is annoying me right now. I looked around for people writing on this topic, but I didn't see...