Sumbeam Round Cold Cathode Fan

Performance: 5/5
Quiet Factor: 4/5
Visual: 5/5
Price: 5/5

Purchased from Xoxide.com

At some point, I plan on having a page dedicated to my computer and it's hardware, listing everything I have in it, cross-sections of benchmarks, etc. But for now, here's a small piece on a new toy I got for it that is not only cool but very functional.

The fan I did have on my CPU was going; don't get me wrong, it still works, but there were problems. First of all, it was between 60 & 70mm, and very thin - like 12mm, I think. I say 'between' because it wasn't exactly square; it had semi-rounded corners. Not only that, but it was metal on one side. So, when I got that fan with my SLK-800 cooler, I had to paint the fan braces so that the metal on the fan itself wouldn't cause a static problem with my cooler and therefore my CPU. All was OK with this at first, but lately - even with the stair-step ridges of the SLK-800 - it had started moving a bit on me, mostly due to it's thinness. And when it did, the fan braces would sometimes touch the fan itself, causing much noise. Not only that, but this fan, while doing a good job, sounded like a helicopter with it's high-pitched whirr. So it was time for a new CPU fan.

I decided early on that I wanted to get an 80mm fan since my cooler could take it. Why not? As I was gearing up to order, I read a story about these new cold cathode fans that interested me. And after seeing the performance of not only the fan but of the light itself (see below), it was decided - this was to be my fan.

Out of the box, I already like this fan. First of all, it's clear. Yes, transparent. A nice difference from all the black and colored fans out there. Plus this will allow the copper of my heatsink to shine through. Seconly, the cold cathode assembly isn't a permanant part of the fan - it is in a seperate mounting bracket so that you can put it on either side of the fan, depending upon your intended use for the fan. This is another great idea. And, the inverter has an extra input available so that you wouldn't need a second inverter for a second fan - you could use this inverter for both. A nice space-saver, to be sure.

Installing the thing was an absolute breeze. Plop the fan on the heatsink, adjust the braces, velcro the inverter into place, plug in a few wires, and put the switch (which comes nicely pre-mounted in a PCI slot bracket) on the back and bam, you're up and running. I realize that some people will want to mount their switch in a bay- or rhe- bus, and that should present little problem with anyone with minimal knowledge of their gear. But since I don't really lite it up too often, the PCI mount works just fine for me.

As for performance, let's get to it. Here's the specs from Xoxide.com's site:

• Dimension: 80x80x25 mm
• Air Flow: 31.7 CFM
• Speed: 2700 RPM
• Noise: 28 dBA (Ultra Quiet)
• Voltage: 12 VDC
• Current: 0.13 A

And one extremely impressive thing they don't say on that site is that this light - this tiny cold cathode tube - puts out 28,000 cd/m²!!! That's literally almost 3x as bright as your average cold cathode tube light. As is about to be demonstrated....

Here's a pic from Xoxide.com's site: That's a great shot that shows good detail of the light and the fan. But they had to have doctored that photo, because the reality of the brightness of that light is much more difficult to capture.

Here's a photo of my box with the light off, but everything running: I took it from this angle so that you could see how small the inverter is - it's that blue thing in the bottom left-hand corner. If you were to look at my computer directly from the side, you would never see it - it's very easy to conceal. And the other obvious thing from this photo when comparing the Sunbeam fan to the two exhaust fans - yes, it is really an 80mm fan.

Next, here's a shot of the light on with camera flash: Yes, there's a reason I did this (see below).

Here's an couple untouched shots in the dark (no flash) with the light on: When I said this thing was bright, I wasn't kidding!

Since it's next to impossible to even see what the hell it really looks like when it's on, I sped up the shutter and did a little clean-up work on the photo after the fact to give you a better idea; here's the results: Still not great, but seriously, this is about the best I could get with this thing. It's really just that bright. It hurts to look at it; I can't look directly at it for more than a second. But man is it ever perfect for the effect I wanted! And when I'm not in the mood for such brightness, I've got a nice little pyramid fan controller w/blue LED for a more calm glow. Funny, you can't even see that with this fan!

For performance, it performs as well as the fan I had before that was twice as loud. This fan has sleeve bearings and is nigh-silent in my case, where I have three case 80mm case fans and three hard drive coolers in addition to my dual-fan power supply. Believe me, if there's one thing I noticed immediately it was the drop in decibels. Also, I take issue with the listed RPM; I'm consistantly getting between 3000-3200RPM. My guess is that they rated it at speeds it will run regardless of system and/or power sent to it. But like I said, this thing performs fine at higher RPMs - it keeps my CPU running around 39-47 degrees Celcius, which is about 10-20 degrees cooler than the stock AMD heatsink/fan kept it. Also be to noted is that the fan is a cold cathode - with it on, the CPU temp is unaffected.

So, overall I am very pleased with this fan/light. It's a very innovative idea, and for $15.99USD from Xoxide.com, it's a steal. Especially when you consider that your average cold cathode tube light is at least $10 more than that, and 1/3 as bright. This fan is a sure hit with just about anyone.

Recommended by gØre.net!

TC

Exactly what purpose does the light serve?

It is cool though.

BlueBrained wrote:Exactly what purpose does the light serve?

It is cool though.

you just answered your own question. :mrgreen: