My test computer was a P4 3GHz with a Geforce 5200 by Nvidia. Getting off the factory fan was an easy enough process and the equipment added in with the VC2000 made sure that I would have the proper brackets needed for installation. Putting the fan on the card took a whole five minutes to do and that was because I was really scrutinizing the process. Please remember to remove your card from the motherboard and to send all small children who feel it is their job to help out, into another room.
Once the fan was actually installed on the card I noticed a couple of things. For one, the fan doesn’t cover as much surface area as the factory installed one. For two, the fan sits fairly high on the card. Since it is a thick fan, this ended up causing a little bit of a problem for me on my test system.
When reinserted into the motherboard the fan’s design was so thick that it infringed on my other card ports. So much in fact, I had to do some rearranging and in the end had to remove my ethernet card so I could actually begin testing this bad boy. So potential buyers need to be aware of the spacing needs that this fan requires.
Once in, I ran the regular accoutrement of tests:
Temperature of the card prior to the installation 57-61 degrees with a median temp of 59. The CPU core has an ambient temp of 42 degrees.
Temperature of the card after installation 52-56 degrees with a median temp of 54.
Now quantum physics and advanced calculus tells us that this is a drop of five degrees, but I noticed even more of a difference when I was playing some of my games. In fact the more graphically demanding game the greater the difference between the two fans. Far Cry ran at 69 degrees where it normally ran at 79 and F.E.A.R. ran at a whopping 14 degrees cooler when this fan was used. So it appeared that the number increased as the demands of the graphics were ramped up. In fact the specs state that this bad boy has a chip threshold of 120 degrees. Easily within most overclocking demands.
