Conclusion
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
As you can see, the answer to the question we first posed in the title of this article is not a simple one. If you were looking strictly for improved cooling over the capabilities of the Delta 60 mm 37cfm fan then you’re disappointed, because it’s just not there, even when there was a slight improvement , you’ve got to measure the cost of the Fan Adapter and 80 mm fan against what you actually gained. The situation might be somewhat different in a full tower case, but I choose a mid-tower because 4 out of every 5 cases sold is a mid-tower with a few mini-towers thrown in to the mix.We could get into a long discussion dealing with the design and engineering of fan adapters, should they have struts or baffles to better direct the air flow, do we need a real high powered fan to create the force required to accomplish better cooling etc., etc. But the real answer may lay with the fan itself. Until one is engineered to funnel the force of air it creates into a much narrower channel, I really don’t see how there can be any real effective marriage between an adapter and fan. Unless it’s for the reasons stated below.
Where the fan adapters can pay off is when you replace a noise polluting Delta 60 mm fan with say, the quieter Sanyo Denki 80 mm without loosing performance. The same advantage goes to those users who have been running low performance fans. They can improve their temperatures without the noise level increasing or by a minimal increase at best.
Having worked in the metal working industry for 30 years I’ve grown accustomed to noise and never really paid any attention to the whine of the Delta fan that is until now. After achieving the same cooling level with the 80 mm Sanyo Denki fan that I had with my Delta the difference in noise level was even noticeable to me.
I will keep one of the last two Fan Adapters on my heatsink with the Sanyo Denki 80 mm fan. I can now even hear myself think!!!! Be sure to visit the Amdmb.com Cases and Cooling Forum.
My Thanks
Go out to; Tony of Plycon, Scott of HighspeedPC and Kevin & Scott of CPUfx for supplying their Fan Adapters without which this study would not have been possible. Special thanks go to, Michele & Jim of Millisec for supplying the Sanyo Denki and Panaflo 80 mm fans used (can you believe that I ran out of Panaflo fans) And last but not least the heatsinks were provided by KD Computers and The Overclockerz Store.
