Zalman with 56 ohm resistor

[colm]

I couldn't find a review in search so I'll list my year with it and comparisons to other silent attempts.
I have learned towers gain an atmosphere and rather than go geek in what I still can't put into words, this fan was tested as the front fan below the hard drive in my slk2600amb antec. The total number of fans is 3.
That of course means every move is critical...
the 2.8e ghz intel HT cpu has a nexus at 1700 max rpm throttling on a custom ductwork sucking heat out of the thermalright xp-90 (very nice! since feb 2006)
The psu is monitored and throttling on its own by antec 300w with its oem fan reaching 2000 from a 1300 minimum (also very nice!).
The front fan has been three different fans:
a coolermaster so called silent at .14a. terrible fan~ I could hear the slow thump of a noisy fan - they just made it slower, (ridiculous)
a .16a cheapy with a nice curve on the blades and the fan lit up, max rpm 2300, very silent, but not an air mover for the rpms.

I went for the zalman with its 56ohm resistor I put right into the main wires leaving just one plug and neat. rpms near 2k in heat, less than that when cool (at the front it is always cool). I tried it as a cpu cooler on the xp90, no good. Does not like to throttle on resistor.
the result was 7.15 v on the volt meter, and a very smooth air mover. Fo reasons unknown, the hdd above it performs better with the zalman on this resistor than any of the three fans I have tried. It also does not blow too much on the board or peripherals and the system stays at 105 after playing hl2, considering the vid card is fanless, that is quite impressive.
It also helped feed the system the atmospheric bridge to truly feed the big xp90 making the slower cpu fan do a bigger job just as silently. Cool air moving has big value, but will avoid heat of hot air mass due to atmospheric difference. This fan worked very well for that on its resistor only. There is clearly a sense of forgiving bouyancy that is needed through the heat and cool meeting, and that is why I give this fan 2 thumbs up as a front fan. The reason I think it is better than a fan running equivalently without a resistor is the magic of the resistor being very gentle and sensing more than a simply quiet fan running strong and steady. I did lose alot of expensive equipment before I realized how much thought I had to put into cooling and acheiving silence. The resistored fan setup is very nice and I will even experiment with other scenarios and post results sometime.

As some recommendations I learned, the zalman is huge at heart (.34 a?) flimsy boxes will not like it, rubber mounting is good. The front in my case has the fan holder keeping it off of the box. No fan engine thumps at all on the resistor. I do not recommend it as a cpu cooling fan. The throttling ability is very small. This thing is huge when not resistored and quite loud. I am glad I found a use for it and truly made it a fan of choice for its location.