Been lurking these forums for some time now and have found the members to be quite helpful and informative. So I've finally decided to come out of hiding to ask this question.
I am putting together a new system and have decided to cool my CPU (an A64 4000+) with an XP-120. I have searched the forum and read a lot of good suggestions on a fan for this heatsink. Problem is, most of these suggestions have been aimed toward acheiving silence, which is certainly a consideration but not my main goal, as when I need cooling most I usually have the sound on my games up loud enough to push any peripheral noise into the background. My problem is this - Thermalright's product page suggests a Panaflo that has 68.9 CFM. However, the Panaflo's don't appear to support speed monitoring which is an absolute "must" for me as I am anal enough that I have to be able to see everything that's going on in my computer. But most of the fans that I have found which do support monitoring are either well below that rating by about 20 +/- CFM or are ridiculously loud.
So, here is my question (two actually). If I get a fan such as this Cooler Master model will I still see satisfactory results with this heatsink during intense gaming and such, and if so does that imply that a high CFM fan like the Panaflo may actually be overkill even in such situations? And any suggestions for a particular moderate speed fan that doesn't quite reach the decibels of a leaf blower? I had thought perhaps a variable speed fan might be the ticket, but majority opinion on this forum seems to be generally unfavorable regarding the two most common which are made by TT and Antec.
Sorry for the longwinded, noobish post but I haven't ventured into the realm of aftermarket cooling since I put a Swiftech on my Athlon XP 1900+ (long overdue for an upgrade, wouldn't you say?). Thanks in advance.
I am putting together a new system and have decided to cool my CPU (an A64 4000+) with an XP-120. I have searched the forum and read a lot of good suggestions on a fan for this heatsink. Problem is, most of these suggestions have been aimed toward acheiving silence, which is certainly a consideration but not my main goal, as when I need cooling most I usually have the sound on my games up loud enough to push any peripheral noise into the background. My problem is this - Thermalright's product page suggests a Panaflo that has 68.9 CFM. However, the Panaflo's don't appear to support speed monitoring which is an absolute "must" for me as I am anal enough that I have to be able to see everything that's going on in my computer. But most of the fans that I have found which do support monitoring are either well below that rating by about 20 +/- CFM or are ridiculously loud.
So, here is my question (two actually). If I get a fan such as this Cooler Master model will I still see satisfactory results with this heatsink during intense gaming and such, and if so does that imply that a high CFM fan like the Panaflo may actually be overkill even in such situations? And any suggestions for a particular moderate speed fan that doesn't quite reach the decibels of a leaf blower? I had thought perhaps a variable speed fan might be the ticket, but majority opinion on this forum seems to be generally unfavorable regarding the two most common which are made by TT and Antec.
Sorry for the longwinded, noobish post but I haven't ventured into the realm of aftermarket cooling since I put a Swiftech on my Athlon XP 1900+ (long overdue for an upgrade, wouldn't you say?). Thanks in advance.
. . . it's the one I used before I went to Delta . . .
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