Cooling them Hotties

[Dirk Broer]

Cooling is getting more and more important now CPUs and GPUs are spilling heat like there's no tomorrow in your casing.
How to keep the system cool? There are lots of choices:

1. Air. Add fans till there's no more room for them, though it may depend on your casing and the outside temperature whether air will be enough and the noise of 10+ fans in one system alone may be prohibitive.
2. Water. Lots of commercial products around nowadays. Costs a bit more than air cooling, but is less noisy and seems to work better too.
3. Liquid nitrogen. Works even better than water, because it is far colder.
4. Phase changer(s). For those who like to be on the cutting edge. You can even put a few in series to approach the absolute zero...

Air
There are a few things that are important for air coolers: The amount of air that gets moved, the pressure the fan can deliver while moving the air and the noise it takes to do so. In the past a 40mm fan was enough, now 120mm is the pretty much standard in modern casings. Fans have gotten bigger and bigger because bigger fans can push more air while making less noise. Those who buy a Cooler Master HAF 932 can get three 230mm(!) fans with it! The biggest problem with air cooling remains that you can not get lower temperatures than the ambient temperature -if you find air cooling who can achieve such a feat in the first place-, a problem that already painfully rises with our Australian and Southern US members, let alone those who live even closer to the equator...

Part 1: super-sized case fans (>200mm) Let's start with the utter kings of cool -at least in looks- of the air department:

Brand	Type	Diameter in mm	Speed in rpm	Noise in dB(A)	Airflow in cfm	cfm/dB	Airflow in m3/h	m3h/dB	Air pressure in mm H2O	pressure/dB
1st PC Corp.	FN-250	250	820	20.00	105.00	5.25	na	-	na	-
Akasa	AK-F2230SM	220	600	23.48	95.00	4.05	162.10	6.90	0.66	0.03
BitFenix	Spectre Pro	230	900	25.6	156.27	6.10	na	-	1.81	0.07
BitFenix	Spectre	230	800	19.9	97.80	4.91	na	-	1.08	0.05
Ichbinleise	EKL 225/800	225	300-800	11-29
Rexus	Rexflo 250mm	250	800	24.90	105.20	4.22	na	-	na	-
Rexus	Rexflo 360mm	300	600	21.60	126.70	5.84	na	-	na	-
ThermalTake	Thunderblade 23	230	800	15.00	76.00	5.06	na	-	0.49	0.03
Yate Loon	D22SL-12H	220	600	25.50	135.00	5.29	na	-	na	-
Yate Loon	D22BL-12H	220	750	31.80	168.00	5.28	na	-	na	-

These figures, however, are the manufacturers claims. In real life/testing other values might be measured, such as with the Akasa AK-F2230SM and the IchBinLeise 225/800, which both get thoroughly trashed by the reviewers, just as they do the Yate Loon products to a lesser extent. With these biggies air pressure is less important, as that parameter only becomes really useful when pushing air through/around things (water cooler radiators, CPU heatsinks, hard disks, SSDs)

to be extended....