Written By:
Date Posted: February 20, 2002

It's nice having the biggest heatsink on the planet, with the biggest, loudest fan you can find. What some people neglect however, is the system cooling. Properly routing your internal wiring is a good first step, and investing in quality case fans is another. You can buy generic fans for about 5$, and higher quality, higher RPM ones for a little more.

As you probably know, faster fans usually, always result in more noise. Now, to be honest, in about 99% of all cases, your heatsink fan will likely drown out the noise of the case fans (more on how we can fix that later), but cutting down the decibals with quieter case fans is a good start. In comes Thermaltake's Smart Fan. For those of you who've read our Volcano 7 review, you already know about it, because it's the same fan. Whereas before, it only came with the heatsink, now you can buy it off the shelf as a standalone fan.

Specifications

P/N: A1214
Fan Dimension: 80x80x25 mm
Rated Voltage: 12VDC
Started Voltage: 7VDC
Rated Current: 0.18AMP ~ 0.45AMP
Power Input: 2.16W ~ 5.4W
FAN Speed Control Setting: 2900 rpm at 25°C~, 5000 rpm at 35°C
Max. Air Flow: 46 CFM at 2900rpm, 53 CFM at 5000rpm
Noise: 27 dB at 2900 rpm, 39 dB at 5000 rpm
Bearing Type: Two Ball Bearing
Life Time: 50,000 hours
Connector: 3 PIN

Like on the Volcano 7, you get the nice Tt fan grill. I'm not going to get into aesthetics too much, but if you're tired of the regular fan grill, this is a nice change. Either way, at the very least, a fan grill will keep stray wires from interfering with the operations of the fan blades.

Here's a shot of the fan itself, the good ole 80mm Everflow. There are two connectors not pictured here, one for power, and one for RPM monitoring. Thermaltake also includes all the needed screws and 3 to 4 pin adapter in case you don't have enough on your motherboard.

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