Originally posted by: Nick5324
I have on older rig running an 1ghz athlon (thunderbird), and the fan on it is loud. I'd like to replace it with a heatsink/fan that is quiet. I do not overclock this system. Right now, I'm looking at
this kingwin at newegg . Any suggestions for a quiet fan?
I bought a Spire WhisperRock IV for about $20 US. This fan is so quiet you can barely hear it when your ear is right next to it. It keeps my Athlon XP 2700+ anywhere from 36-40C at idle and my old Duron 900 would never approach 40C with it. I think I can very mildly overclock with it, if I ever cared to. Its also a nice looking fan, if that matters to ya.
Here's a link. Another thing I like about it, it came with the small square of thermal grease pre-applied. I haven't as of yet tried any good thermal paste, and though I plan to eventually, the thermal grease worked fine. I also appreciate Spire's design of the mounting mechanism. There is a slot which your flathead screwdriver actually fits into, so you don't slip up and fubar your motherboard.
The WhisperRock IV is better than the HSF combos that ship with retail cpus, but it is probably about mid-range in terms of after market air cooling solutions. But trust me on this one - its damn quiet and it does the job nicely.