Effectiveness of 92mm fan/adapter on 80mm heatsink?

Towermax · Post by **Towermax** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 9:57 pm

In my spare system, I've got a Thermaltake Silent Boost on a 2800+ Barton (undervolted to 1.55V and underclocked to 2700+.)

Temporary pause for obligatory damning of Thermaltake.

(Give me a break--I got it for $5.00 and it's a big hunk of copper.)

Resuming now . . .

I swapped out the nasty TT fan for an 80mm Nexus. And it works well--at about 1300RPM, it keeps the CPU core temperature right at 50C running Prime 95 and 45-49C doing Folding@Home. But it's winter and my basement office is quite cool.

Still, I'd like a bit more cooling, and/or a bit less noise, and something that will do better in the summer heat, if it ever comes again. And I'm spoiled by the Ninja running fanless in my primary system.

I happen to have a spare 92mm Nexus, and am thinking of using an 80 to 92 adapter to mate it to the Silent Boost. What improvement could be expected?

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:16 pm

I happen to have a spare 92mm Nexus, and am thinking of using an 80 to 92 adapter to mate it to the Silent Boost. What improvement could be expected?

None, really. The 92 Nexus doesn't really push any more air. The difference in blade area is barely over 10% and at the same RPM, that's all the airflow increase you can expect. Then the adapter will case impedance loss, thus eliminating the minor gain. W/o changing the heatsink, all you can do is maybe lower the temp within the case by optimizing airflow.

Towermax · Post by **Towermax** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:33 pm

MikeC wrote:The 92 Nexus doesn't really push any more air. The difference in blade area is barely over 10% and at the same RPM, that's all the airflow increase you can expect. Then the adapter will case impedance loss, thus eliminating the minor gain. W/o changing the heatsink, all you can do is maybe lower the temp within the case by optimizing airflow.

I was afraid of that.

Don't think I can do much to improve airflow--Antec Solo, 120mm Yate Loon exhaust at 7V and 92mm Nexus intake at 5V, Smartpower II 350, excellent cablegami. I mean, I could turn the case fans up, but that solution is worse than the problem.

Well, I'll keep my eyes open for a cheap Katana or SI-97 or something like that.

Getting the Ninja in my primary system redefined "quiet" and "cooling" for me. Wish there was a Socket A adapter for the Ninja. Wonder how hard it would be to make one--this is one of the Socket A boards with heatsink mounting holes . . .

Gojira-X · Post by **Gojira-X** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:15 am

You could always mount the (slightly more available) 80-120mm adapter onto the Silentboost.

Aside from that I think your only option would be to look around at other coolers, specifically Big Typhoon/Silent Tower/Sonic Tower by Thermaltake, Zalman 7000 AlCu and Thermalright Si-97.

The SPCR list for socket A does not include all the coolers currently available You may be able to mod a cooler.

Towermax · Post by **Towermax** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 10:04 am

Gojira-X wrote:You could always mount the (slightly more available) 80-120mm adapter onto the Silentboost.

Yes, that was my first thought. Unfortunately, the CPU socket is right at the edge of the board and there is not quite enough clearance for a 120mm fan.

Gojira-X wrote:Aside from that I think your only option would be to look around at other coolers, specifically Big Typhoon/Silent Tower/Sonic Tower by Thermaltake, Zalman 7000 AlCu and Thermalright Si-97.

Agreed. 7000 AlCu won't fit this particular board without modding the clamp to clear some nearby capacitors, but any of the others should work unmodified.