[mickopla]

Could i use a Vantec Stealth 80mm fan with the Zalman Flower instead of the stock 92mm fan they provide. Even on silent mode is fairly noisy and my temps at idle on my Athlon XP1600+ are 47c which is higher than i had with my previous Heatsink and fan from Akasa. To be honest i have not been impressed with the Zalman Flower at all.

[Cerberus2k7]

The Flower is Zalmans worst. If you want something good from Zalman, pick up the 7000-AlCu. Or you can get a Thermalright SP-97 But the 7000-AlCu is very quiet!

[Valk]

With amd, noise is all relitive. you will need to give it a bit more airflow to keep it happy, at the cost of higher noise.
that 92 mm that came with the zalman pushes a lot more air than a stealth.
if you want to increase your cooling and keep it quite, i suggest you get a panaflo 92 mm. The bearings on the zalman fan are anything but great, so you will notice the difference in noise. it will also outperform the zalman in cfm.

[mickopla]

Thanks guys. I think i will try the Panaflo 92mm. Panaflos are getting so many good comments in the forums.

[Valk]

Thermalright makes way better heatsinks than the zalman. however, zalman has the crown when it coems to decent performing heatsinks that emit next to no noise or vibration.
the 7000-CU is a great sink. its ginormous and damn quiet, but it uses the same fan as zalman packages with their flowers. so in the end, the bearings will die. I might want to pick one up and modify it with a panaflo core instead, it will make 1/3rd the noise and cool better.
it would be pretty darn easy to mod too, just epoxy it to the copper of the heatsink.

if the panaflo doesnt work, i would get a 7000 if noise of concern. or an slk 947U. that is a GREAT value heatsink and is compatible with like, anything. its huge, takes huge fans and would be really quite ^^

I used to have a 1600+ as well before i got this chip. the older athlons got really hot. my current cooling was only able to keep that chip at 41 idle at close to stock operation. my roomates 1800 is a pretty good indication, as its running 45º idle with the sk6+ and pany combo i put on it.
expect it to run a little hot.

[Cerberus2k7]

hrmm...valk, how would you go about that? I never knew that about the Zalman fans and I have a 7000-AlCu.

[mickopla]

By positioning the 92mm fan on the heatsink in a slighty different place i managed to get my CPU temp to drop to 41c idle with a case temp of 25c. This is with the fan running at full speed. Taking into account from the previous posts that this CPU gets damn hot these are not bad figures. If i positioned a case fan on the side panel in line with the fan on the heatsink blowing air in would this drop the temp even more??? i