how quiet can you get a vantec tornado?

stupid me shorted out my thermaltake smart fan (the original, not 2) so i need a new fan for my ax-7. i'm thikning of going with the vantec tornado, but obviously, i odn't want to leave it on full blast all the time. i have a baybus i can hook it up to...
But is there a way i can figure out how many CFM's, RPM's and dBa's it will be putting out at 7 volts so i can know if i'm still getting adequate cooling for my overclocked athlon without killing my ears all the time?

why didn't you buy a lower rpm and cfm, dba fan if you don't want to use the full potential of a vantec tornado?

I used to have a Vantec Tornado and i think i'm going deaf. Think i'm going to use it for summer

With a rheo you can get the tornado down to about 2k rpm. Im not sure what that would be in cfm but it cools my 1600 (in sig) enough to sleep at night. Be careful though if you use a rheo on your HSF. Make sure you have enough juice to start it.

greasy burger, i'd use the vantec on full power when i'm doing intensive tasks....i'm just making sure the volume can get low enough where it will be tolerable, yet still provide adequate cooling....thanks for the info tismedt..i'm assuming the 2k rpm's is with the rheobus turned all the way down? which would be about 5 volts??? what kind of temps do you get with this setting?

The Vantec and Delta 80cfm fans have almost the same cfm output and noise levels.

When I slow my Delta fan down from 5.7k rpm to 4k rpm, it's DBA is almost the same as my 120mm sunon fan which is rated at 35dba. Very, very tolerable and my cpu temp only went up by 4-5c. I can actually hear myself breathe again at this noise level.
Pretty quiet considering that at 5.7k rpm, the dba is 52.5.

Listen to the actual fan noise at www.sidewindercomputers.com

Just be sure you have a rheostat that's rated high enough to handle the tornado. The Radio Shack rheos will start to overheat if you slow the fan down more than 15%.

hmm, i have a baybus, and i took some fans off of it last night in anticipation of the higher power draw of the tornado...i'll have to check on the power rating per switch.

Edit: Uh oh, i just checked on my baybus and it's rated 6W per switch, the tornado draws 9W...what to do?

after looking around on the net, it appears i might have to go w/ a delta fan. the tornado just pulls too much power, and the delta pulls around 6.8 watts, which i hope my baybus can tolerate. you guys know of any other fans that push a lot of CFM, but that i can turn down to still give good cooling for my overclocked athlon? the 50 CFM sunon's look alright, but i was looking for stronger....where's a good place to buy the delta or any other recommendatoins you might have for cheap?

Rheo's can be pretty sketchy, and prone to "operator error" so I'd use a baybus or other switch-based fan controller, such as the Thermaltake Fan Controller. I have one hooked up to my 80cfm Delta, and leave it on Medium (which I'm guessing is 7v) which puts it around 4500rpm, down from 6500rpm. At 7v, I earball the sound to be around 40cfm or below.