Written By:
Date Posted: February 20, 2002

The Smart Fan's claim to fame is the thermal sensor. Basically, the role of this sensor is to monitor the case temperatures and adjust the fan speed accordingly. Warmer temps will cause the fan to spin faster, and lower temps will slow it down. Now, this is a good idea in theory, but in practice, it may not work as well as it could for most users. To reach it's highest speed of 5000rpm, your case temperature is supposed to be at least 35°C. I don't know about you, but my case temps rarely pass 30°C.

Another problem is the proximity of the sensor to the fan itself. Because this is supposed to be mounted on the wall of your case, temperatures will likely be lower in that area because air is either coming in or leaving the case by there, therefore the temperatures in that area will be slightly lower. It would be better if the sensor could be extended, so that you can place it closer to where hotter components reside, and depending on how warm they run, the fan can speed up or slow down more effectively. Anyhow, for those of you good with splicing wires, you can probably make this mod yourself.

Another use of the fan is something it was originally designed, or at least sold, for, and that's putting it on a heatsink. 60mm heatsink users will need to invest in a fan adapter, but here in the Lair, we advocate big coolers, and nothing here is bigger than our Swiftech MCX462. Performance is important to me, but either I'm going deaf, or getting old, but the noise generated by our 68cfm Delta 80mm is starting to get on my nerves. To combat the noise, and test performance, we'll be swapping the Delta for the Smart Fan.

Performance

AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.75v) @ 1.53GHz
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.85v) @ 1.61GHz
Abit KG7-RAID, with socket thermal sensor touching the bottom of the CPU
Lian-Li Case, with only the Enermax power supply fans, and rear exhaust fan on.
Prime95 is run for 20 minutes, or about 30 tests
Room temperature is maintained at ~23C/74F

First off, we'll test performance of the Smart Fan as a rear case fan. Temperatures of the stock fan and Smart Fan will be compared...

Because the Sunon fan is spinning at it's full speed all the time, the ambient temperatures are about one degree lower than the Smart Fan. Under full load, both perform the same, which would lead me to think the Smart Fan is reaching 50cfm as well. The Smart fan was spinning at ~3500rpm at this point.

Next up, we're going to be replacing the Delta on our Swiftech with the Smart Fan to test it's performance as an 80mm heatsink fan replacement...

Considering that the Delta is a lot bigger, I wasn't surprised with these results. The Tt Smart Fan does perform decently, and it's still under the 45°C mark. Anyhow, I know none of you care about stock speeds, so...

Here, we see the temperature inching towards the upper 40s. This is by no means in the danger zone, but performance freaks may say bah! The fact that it doesn't hit 50°C (which for me, is the maximum safe limit), looks like the Smart Fan is doing it's job of cooling off the Swiftech. By this point, the Smart Fan was spinning along at 4400rpm, so unless we mod the sensor to touch the base of the heatsink, I don't think the performance will improve much more than this.

Final Words

Although the performance may not seem that impressive, you'll have to remember that the selling point of the fan is noise control. Even at it's highest level, the fan was hardly noticable. Keep in mind that we're accustomed to Deltas around here, so to me, it's silent. At idle temperatures, I actually opened my case up at one point to see if the fan was on.

I wasn't terribly thrilled with the sensor placement, and I know modders can fix this, but Thermaltake could have saved a few people the hassle by making the wiring for the sensor a bit longer. Also, for those who just don't care about noise, a high cfm case fan will do just as good a job with cooling.

For me, I found the noise control worth the price of admission alone. It wasn't an awesome performer when paired with the Swiftech, but it performed well enough that overclocking was still possible, and temperatures were under control. Performance was up to par with most "standard" 80mm case fans in it's cfm-class range, and the fact that the sensor placement can be fixed (I saw this good guide at ) still makes this a decent purchase as either an additional case fan, or a replacement 80mm heatsink fan.

Thermaltake:

90%

Pros: Noise controlled, easy to install, multi-purpose application.

Cons: Poor sensor placement.

I'd like to thank Kenny of for the review sample.

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