92mm PWM Fan Recommendations

Voldenuit · Post by **Voldenuit** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:00 am

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy a Thermalright Ultima 90 to mount on an ASUS P5E-VM HDMI motherboard, and I'm canvassing recommendations for a good, quiet 92mm fan with reasonable airflow to stick on it.

The Thermalright mounting mechanism will only fit 25mm deep fans, and the ASUS motherboard will only control the RPM of 4-pin PWM fans. This cuts down on my available fan options. I'd like to avoid 120mm fans due to space constraints.

So far, the options that I know of include:

Panaflo H1A 92mm fan w/RMP sensor - spins up to a rather high rpm (2800) at max. Hydro dynamic bearings, not that they will make that much difference if the fan spins up to max.

Scythe Kama 92mm PWM fan - ostensibly slower (2500 rpm), but +/- 10% puts it in the same ballpark.

Arctic Cooling 9 PWM fan - not sure if it will be compatible with the mounting clips on the Ultima.

Anyone with prior expericence with any of these fans or who can recommend me better alternatives? Many thanks in advance.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:42 am

To the best of my knowledge, the Panaflo is not a PWM fan.

Except for RPM, the Scythe and A-C PWM fans are direct equivalents. For low to medium-power CPUs, go with the slower one, meaning A-C. It has ordinary open ears, as does the Scythe as well. For high-power CPUs, you might need the non-quiet 2500RPM of the Scythe. The fact that you're also considering a Panaflo "H", which is high RPM and noisy as all get-out, indicates you may have a hot CPU to deal with!

All of these are inexpensive fans. It would be reasonable, if in doubt, to buy both the A-C and Scythe 92mm PWM fans to try.

PsychoStreak · Post by **PsychoStreak** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:46 am

I've been using the Scythe Kama 92mm PWM fan in several systems now with good results.

Using speedfan I've found that with the Ultra-90 (the Ultima's predecessor) I can crank the RPM down quite a bit and maintain good cooling, and it becomes very quiet below 2400RPM.

I do wish all fan headers were PWM capable now.

I doubt you'd actually need an H1A if you went with a Panaflo. Before the Scythe, I was using L1A's with the RPM sensor with no problem.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:34 pm

If I was in your position, I would use the controllable 3-pin fan header instead (with SpeedFan) and a Scythe Kaze-Jyu 100mm fan (it has 92mm holes).

Voldenuit · Post by **Voldenuit** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:42 am

Cool, thanks everyone for the advice.

Nice pick on the Panaflo - didn't realise that it wasn't PWM until Felger pointed it out. Took a close look at pics and confirmed that it does only have 3 pins.

Lawrence: not sure if the TRU90 mount is compatible with 100 mm fans. Also, I'm using speedfan at present on my current PC (Asus A8NSLI), and it has a few limitations:
1. Doesn't work until windows loads and someone logs in
2. Doesnt' have a smooth ramp curve. It'll idle until it hits the thermal threshold and then ramp up to maximum.

From Lawrence's review of the A5E-VM HDMI, QFAN + PWM Fan on Silent or Optimal might be the best option for me. I'll settle for the Scythe 92mm PWM fan for now as it seems to be the most available option.