SPCR

http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/vga/0 ... etail.html

Kinda a negative that it's made specifically for those fans, instead of being able to add your own 120's per the thermalright t-rad2... but on the other hand, for the price, it appears to come WITH the fans... making it half the cost of the thermalright solution.

Anyone seen this reviewed before?

Atomic

edit: Correcting myself. Apparently the T-rad2 uses 2x92mm fans, or a single 120mm fan, by default. As opposed to the obviously 2x100mm setup on the scythe, along with a slightly larger surface area. Hmm... possibilities.

According to c't, this thing is whisper quiet and idles at less then 0.1 Sone in their test setup cooling a HD4850 (they measure at 0.5m with four microphones and average the values). It also performed better than the AC Twin Turbo with standard settings. However, they weren't too pleased with the fan control, as it seems to be manual via a PCI backplate bracket.

I thought about mentioning it, but I've been too lethargic recently (damn gloomy London weather).

I was pondering something like a 7-12 volt switch for the fans.. like say a lamptron bay controller setup. At 7 volts, they ought to be nearly inaudible, at a guess. And it would give the ability to dial them back up to full speed if heat/etc became an issue.

Atomic

I think the range by the supplied controller is 900-2000rpm, iirc.

Yeah, I saw. I was just thinking of the bay controller, because it's up front, and accessible... aka, convenient.

Overall, the product does look good. Not many reviews on it, but as was stated, it's apparently pretty quiet.

Atomic

Positives:
Relatively inexpensive.
Potentially "quiet" at lower settings.

Negatives:
Dual slot cooler + controller blocks three PCI slots.
Manual control.
Potentially "noisy" at upper settings.

My verdict:
Okay for some specific applications, but there are probably better solutions for the majority of the SPCR crowd.