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Vantec Tornado 92mm Case Fan Review
Product: Tornado 92mm Case Fan
Author: Weiye Zhou
Date Published: 02/29/04
Price: $13.00 (Purchased with heatsink)
Purchased at: Sidewindercomputers.com
Introduction
After deciding to buy the Swiftech MCX478-V heatsink, I realized
that I had to also find a good fan for it. I heard that the Tornado series case
fans, made by Vantec, were excellent for cooling a heatsink. At first I was
skeptical, because of the 56.4 dBA noise rating, but after thinking it over,
I figured, "What the heck! I might as well get the fan!" I mean, it
does have a rated 119CFM, which means that the air will be moving right along.
This is one of the best heatsinks on the market, so I figured that I might as
well get one of the best 92mm fans on the market too.
Specifications & Features (from Vantec Website)
Features
Specifications
First impressions and Installation
I quickly opened the box so I could get my grubby hands on the fan! The first thing I noticed after opening the box was how big it was! I decided to compare it with a regular 80mm fan by taking a picture, which you can see below. Another thing that I noticed was the pre-installed fan grill. This is used so that you will not cut off one of your fingers! It operates at 4800rpm. The fan blades are fairly big. The installation procedure depends on what you intend to use the fan for. You could use it for your case or for your heatsink. In this review, I'll be mounting it to my heatsink. It was a snap; all I had to do was snap in fan rivets from my Swiftech heatsink, and I was done. The following are pictures for your viewing pleasure (click on them for a bigger view),
Picture of the box: It has a good design and all of the info that you'll ever
need to know.
The fan itself with pre-installed grill, screws, 4pin molex connector for power,
and a 3pin connector for monitoring the RPM via your motherboard; it's big!
Here's the Vantec Tornado 92mm fan compared to a normal Antec 80mm fan; you
can clearly see the difference.
Testing
- Idle was tested by starting up Windows and leaving it idle for about 30 minutes
and then collecting the temperature reading with the Winbound Hardware Doctor
v2.71.
- Load was tested by starting up Prime95 and letting it run the torture test
for about 30 minutes before collecting the temperature reading with the Winbound
Hardware Doctor v2.71.
- Ambient temperature was 21C during testing
- Processor was overclocked from 2.6Ghz to 3.25Ghz on a P4 "C" at 1.65V
- Comparison was between the Vantec 92mm Tornado fan and a Sunon medium speed
80mm fan
- Artic Alumina was used as the thermal paste
Test bed
P4 2.6C @ 3.25Ghz / Abit IS7
Swiftech MCX478-V Heatsink / Vantec 92mm Tornado / Sunon 80mm
Radeon 9500Pro
1GB Corsair XMS-3200C2 RAM
Western Digital 36GB Raptor
Aspire 500W PS
Windows XP SP1
