Anartik.com’s Blog

Scythe LGA1366 adapters for Scythe (and Reeven) coolers are in stock. They are available for sale individually and as a specially priced combo with Scythe coolers. PLEASE NOTE: The adapters do not work with the Scythe Orochi. The Scythe LGA775 stabilizer kits are backordered and we only got two more in the shipment. Of course we also have the Scythe Mugen 2 (AKA Infinity), in stock, that works out of the box with 775/1366/AM2.

Scythe has announced today variations of two existing coolers which we stock. First is the Kama Angle which they now call “Kama Angle Rev B”. The cooler and contents have not changed other than they threw a non-vtms 1366 adapter in the box. In the past “Rev B” has always represented a physical improvement in the cooler. We will offer discounted 1366 adapters with our existing stock.

They have also released a new Reeven core contact cooler which is for LGA775 only and does not include the adapter for AMD or socket 478. Here again the cooler is identical but you will see two levels of pricing on the net. We currently carry the RCCT-0901SP and the new part is RCCT-0901SP-775.

anartik.com

I don’t really deal with cases but being a Scythe dealer I was thinking about carrying them. As of today though Scythe USA has announced they will no longer be selling the Fenris Wolf because of unspecified issues. I don’t really know what the issues are but at a quick glance I see they have not received favorable reviews because of some material issues and difficulty of drive bay assembly. I must applaud Scythe for their quick action in suspending sales. I have been dealing with Scythe a year now and have had zero quality or defect issues with any of their products. I would suspect the Fenris Wolf will be back after the issues are resolved… although it may be some time with the lag of product flow from Japan.

anartik.com

Scythe LGA1366 adapters are finally on the way (after being delayed many weeks) and should be available sometime next week. There is a VTMS and Non-VTMS version. The real distinction is that VTMS is 2 piece and non is 1 piece. Each item lists what coolers it supports. Between the two they cover all Scythe coolers and the Reeven core contact. While these types of push pin mounts work and have been in use by Scythe for sometime I’m a little disapointed they have not gone to bolt thru kits for better stability (at the expense of ease of installation with push pin i.e. no mobo removal required). They just recently started offering CPU stabilizer kits (bolt thru kits) for 775 and AM2 and I would hope they release one soon for LGA1366. Also be sure to take a look at the new Mugen 2 which offers a rather unique universal bolt thru kit that fits LGA775, LGA1366 and AM2 all in one installation kit.

This is a new series I will periodically do where I pick an item and do a pricing snapshot. The first item is the Thermalright LGA1366 bolt thru kit for the Ultra series. IMO this has been an item many shops have gouged people on. That of course often happens with new items on the market and a reseller is the first to have a new item in short supply (now abundant). Of course it does not do a lot in furthering customer relations. This product is somewhat unique in that it allows the reuse of a previous generation heatsink at minimal cost which a lot of shops probably don’t like because the mainstay of a cooling shop is usually the burst of sales from coolers for a new CPU platform. It is what it is though; some will reuse and some will buy a new cooler.

Just to be clear the reseller price on this item has not changed since day one. I base my pricing on the cost of the item and a fair markup (not 200-400%). Below is today’s snapshot for pricing on this item. I won’t point anyone out but some sites have just recently dropped from a pricing level of $15-16. This is a listing of shops readily found in Yahoo search selling in the US. You will note some well known sites conspicuously missing but either they don’t carry the item or don’t carry Thermalright at all.

There are a whole bunch of gimmicks and claims these days regarding computer fans. Most of it is marketing BS plain and simple. The biggest claim these days is “silent” and while there are all sorts of gimmicks, especially in the bearing department, there is not a huge differentiation between fans other than maybe colors, speeds and overall quality. Not surprising the more marketing claims the higher the price. In all reality many manufacturers merely reduced the speed of fans, in many case to useless CFM levels, and called the fan “quiet”, “silent” or even “green” hoping Joe public would bite. In just the past few months numerous new players have jumped on the market with all kinds of claims and fans moving into ridiculous price ranges.

I have been thinking about doing this comparison for a while and finally knocked it out. The first installment is for the most commonly used case fan size which is now 120mm. This comparison is not about appearances, prices etc. but about a simple method of comparing fan performance using a simple ratio of CFM / dBA (noise). The graph is straight forward and shows you how 120mm fans rank by how many CFM you get per dBA of noise. I included pretty much all the 120mm models I sell and added some other “premium” price fans I don’t sell. Simply put the higher the number the better and if you want a quiet fan at the expense of airflow the Scythe S-Flex D ($12.99) and Scythe Slipstream ($8.99) low speed are hands down the winners providing the most airflow per decibel of noise. One interesting trend you will notice, even with Scythe, is the higher the CFM goes the lower the ratio drops.

On the high flow side the Scythe Slipstream H, YS Tech, Ultra Kaze H and Delta AFB take the honors as the most noise efficient fans. They may range from tolerably loud to very loud but they offer the most flow per dBA.

The only caveat to the whole comparison is it was done using published manufacturer specs. In a nutshell there is a standard method of dBA measurement but many don’t use it, do it incorrectly, or just plain fudge the numbers. You may also ask why I did not include Silenx fans… According to what I have read across the net in real user reviews their unbelievably low noise claims are false and the fans are grossly louder than claimed and I have seen at least one major reseller is trying to dump them. Personally I would not buy them and consequently I would not sell them because I try not to sell anything I would not use myself.

Update: A new graph has been posted with more models. The Noctua NF-12-800 is now #1 although at a price of $19-25 for a 34.7CFM fan. I really don’t care for the marketing of these fans (and others) where the flow is only provided as cubic milliliters per hour (m3/h) which can only lead to confusion of the user. You can convert from m3/h to CFM by multiplying m3/h x .589. m3/h can be obtained from CFM by multiplying CFM x 1.699. Here is a good website for doing flow conversions Engineeringtoolbox.com.

A second graph has been posted that will allow you to see the bigger picture of not just ratio but CFM and dBA.

Jim Phillips
anartik.com

120mm Fan CFM/dBA Ratios

120mm Fan CFM/dBA/Ratio

An Arctic Silver shipment is due in Friday January 30th to replentish soldout ArctiClean 1&2, 60ml sets.

I have been waiting sometime for a die shrunk, dual core 280 and I have to say I am a little disappointed in Nvidia. On the surface it looks like Nvidia’s single minded objective was to win back the single fastest video card title from ATI and the hell with the consumer. From the various test results I have read the 295 is indeed now the fastest single card beating the 4870 X2 pretty much across the board. What peeves me is they did not make a true dual core 280 or 285. In a nutshell they put downclocked 285 series processors on what amounts to a GTX260 architecture with 2 x 448 bit memory buses for a total of 1792MB memory (instead of 2 x 512 and 2048mb). In other words they did just what they had to do to beat ATI. Granted you can overclock (or buy overclocked) but the memory limitations remain and I would have to suspect the GTX285 parts are binned and better quality than the GTX295 parts. There has been a lot of mention that they reduced power consumption which comes from the die shrink but a lot comes from the clock reductions. It’s also a shame Nvidia is sticking with DDR3 vs. DDR5.

You can buy the GTX295 for around $500 which will give you the fastest single card but GTX280 or GTX285 in SLI will provide better performance at a premium. If you are limited by lack of support for SLI (X38/X48 etc) the GTX 295 is a pretty good option. For my part I will probably go with a single GTX 285 and maybe get a second when I ever get around to moving to I7 and X58. If you are looking for real price/performance look for deals on the GTX280. Retailers will no doubt scramble to dump old stock. Deals on the 4870 X2 are also worth looking in to as prices decline.

At some point you finally have to make the jump and upgrade and can’t always just wait for what’s next. I have already seen references to waiting on what’s next from Nvidia. If you have older hardware now’s a pretty good time to upgrade. I certainly would not lay out any cash if I already had a GTX280, GTX260’s or a 4870X2. I also would not expect Nvidia to be in any hurry to offer anything better until ATI makes the next move.

I was looking for this to happen since LGA1366 debuted and it finally did… Intel finally cut prices on LGA775 processors. Most notable (at least to me) is the cut in the price of the Yorkfield Q9650 3ghz Quad which has dropped from $550 to $339.99 with free shipping at the current cheapest online retailer. This Quad has great OC potential with a multiplier of 9 which should yield a stable minimum of 9*450FSB = 4.05ghz and 4.14ghz is also well within reason with proper cooling. Although an I7 would bring you a Quad with 8 threads the Q9650 sports good price performance and most of all provides a viable upgrade path for current LGA775 systems. Like I have noted before desktop applications and games are still few and far between to take full advantage of 4 threads let alone 8. By the time that functionality is fully realized pretty much all current hardware will be obsolete anyway. It really does not pay to buy hardware based on promises of future tech. The I7 is however better suited for servers and high end workstations where many applications are run at once or have specialty software designed for true parallelism i.e. rendering or video encoding.

Note: I believe the reason for the price cuts is not just about the I7 or posturing against the Phenom II. Intel is releasing the S series of Quads which feature reduced power at a significant premium. I don’t see any mention of a Q9650S but the Q9550, Q9400 and Q8200 drop from 95-65 watts. I don’t believe there will be any value for enthusiasts in the S series though.

I took a look today to see what the price would be for an I7 upgrade to my system. Today’s price is running about $1039 + shipping for an Asus P6T, 6gb Corsair DDR3 1600, and a I7 2.93ghz. Of course you could easily spend more with my current board of choice the Asus P6T6 Revolution at around $360. Upgrade paths are always on my mind but I think I will finally upgrade my 8800GTX first with a GTX285.

This will be the first politically orientated editorial sponsored by Anartik.com for an issue dear to me. First and foremost I am a staunch constitutionalist and don’t believe the constitution is a living document subject to liberal judges/politicians manipulation based on the current political whim. What concerns me is the future of the second amendment under the current administration and congress. Fortunately the Supreme Court finally ruled that it is the people’s right to bear arms and the court is likely to maintain that balance for some time to come. However the Supreme Court left a gaping hole for liberals to eat into when they said gun ownership was subject to reasonable regulation. Now is a time to stand vigilant against assaults on our constitutional rights. While I am starting to have a little faith in Obama as being a reasonable man (although he has been noted as the most anti-gun president in the history of the US), with more pressing priorities, I certainly don’t trust the current congress or his vice president Joe Biden (despite his rants about nobody will get his shotguns) who was the author of the original assault weapons ban and an outspoken guns rights opponent. The liberals do have the passage of the much stricter and permanent assault weapons ban on the agenda and if they get it passed I am sure Obama will sign it. If you want to do what you can do to protect our constitutionally guaranteed rights visit NRA.org and join today. The NRA stands to support our rights and will keep you informed on present and future assaults by politicians and organizations.

My family starting coming to America in the 1600’s, before it was a country, and has done their part in defending this country and its constitution in every war and conflict since. I fired my first gun at the age of five and I have responsibly owned and used guns (including high capacity and assault) all my life. I am a gun owner, NRA member, IDPA member, concealed permit holder, sportsman, hunter, competitive shooter, outspoken gun rights advocate, supporter of stiff penalties for gun crimes and an Army veteran with 4 years as a Paratrooper in the Infantry. I will continue to do my part and I urge you to do what you can to protect our rights. It’s not just about gun ownership rights and the right to hunt or compete it’s about the right to defend yourself and your family.

Jim Phillips
anartik.com