80mm -> 60mm Fan Adapter 5th October 2002

With Processors running as hot as they do these days, CPU fans are getting louder and louder in an effort to cool them.  For some users this isn't a problem, but for a majority of us the whine from those tiny things is excruciating.  "What's the solution?" I hear you ask.  Get a bigger fan, Ok, this may not seem logical to a lot of you, but we have some fan adapters and we intend to prove that size matters.  

As we can see from the picture above, the adapter has two connectable sides, one larger than the other.  The smaller side connects to the heatsink instead of the standard 60mm fan, an 80mm fan is then placed on the larger side and held in place with 30mm bolts (supplied).  At this point it is necessary for me to warn you that the fan's only blow air in one direction, normally this is onto the heatsink.  Once everything is connected, we're good to go.

Immediately after pressing the power button we could judge just how quiet these devices made things! My initial reaction was "Did I turn it on?".  The noise level had literally halved.  I used a multiprocessor system and some quiet Panaflo fans for the test.  The results are recorded below.                                                                                                                                                             

The table shows us that the following three things have all reduced: Fan RPM's, Noise Level and Temperature.  Normally when we reduce RPM's the Noise Level decreases but Temperature increases.  With these adapters this is not the case, this is due to the fact that it covers a larger surface area and can therefore push more cooler air onto the heatsink than its smaller counterpart.

You may have noticed that CPU2 is hotter than CPU1 both before and after we fit the adapter, this is simply because our extract fans are closer to CPU1.

Basically you can't go wrong.  At a street price of $7.00 (£4.55) these adapters should not only noticeably reduce the amount of noise coming from your computer but the temperature as well, which in turn will increase the life of those valuable components inside.

The only thing I should add is that you should use high efficiency fans like Panaflo and Papst - these are the quietest 80mm fans available and they push a fair amount of air too (depending on the model).

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