Making a new Tower

i had that HD and within 3months it failed , go for samsung or another brand lol

CFM stands for cubic feet per minute. It is a measurement of how much air a fan moves per minute.

I wouldn't get caught up in the RPM numbers. A higher RPM does not necessarily mean a fan moves more air. Higher RPM fans tend to make more noise and the additional rpm may not provide anything you need--just more noise. It's tough to gauge what fan is best in a particular situation without actual experimentation. There are a lot of variables---your case design, your heatsink, other fans in the case, work load, room temperatures, etc.

So more CFM is more important than more RPM?

Yes. 1 rpm is fine---if the fan moves enough air.

If 2 fans are identical, the one with more rpm will move more air. But 2 fans are not identical and the slower rpm fan may move enough air. Why make unnecessary noise when the slower fan does what you need? A lower rpm fan may move more air than a higher rpm fan. It depends on blade count, blade length, blade design--and rpm.

Just think of the propeller on a little airplane versus a large one. The little propeller may have a higher rpm, but it will move a LOT less air.

cfm= cubic feet per minute- fan speeds usually go downward with larger fans---how much air it blows is more of an indicator of noise than actual cooling- faster (usually) means more noise and a smaller fan- but even noise comes varies according to its enviroment- So I wil stick to the opinion you cant pick a cooler from specs-

If a fan on unit A blows 21.2- 76.8 cfm (at system idle fan idles too- when processor heats up by 'doing' more than the mobo tell the fan to speed up and blow more air across the heatsink.)

Anyway- cooler A blows 76.8 cfm and cooler B blows 112.6 cfm then which one does a better job of cooling?


Who knows- there is more air and probably more noise blowing across the heatsink of cooler B- this will not run cooler than unit A if the heatsink design is ineffective- (or maybe it will actually displace more heat- lol) There is no real answer to your questions other than CFM= cubic feet.......... and read the reviews-

A note about airflow- Unit A in case A with motherboard A-- works great so that guy says AWESOME DUDE- now guy 2 buys unit A- puts in case B that has motherboard B- different things can happen, maybe the ram won't even fit- or everything fits but cooler doesn't work as well because the airfow is quite different. Inside case B- where is the power supply and all its wires? do they block airflow? how about the northbridge- does it have a large heatsink and blocks some airflow- how about MB powersupply wires or dvd drive wires- do they block some airflow in one case but not the other? If guy 2 writes a review and says WELL IT WORKS but not much better than stock......

Another thing is installation- two guys with identical setups might get very different results. Read the cooler manufacturers instructions and follow them to the letter- get a tube of artic silver too- it is KNOWN to be great thermal paste. The thermal paste makes 100% 'contact' between the cpu and the heatsink- without it there will be gaps as neither are PERFECTLY flat- a gap that can only be measured in 10 or 100 thousandths of an inch is still a gap and will not transfer heat well.

so google and read professional reviews on both your canidates- then double check newegg reviews- the newegg reviews are good because the pro's prob have the motherboard sitting on the bench and dont have clearance or airflow problems- their focus is the cooler itself NOT will it work for every and all circumstance- the newegg guys are a crapshoot of tech level but all real life installs--

Happy reading

Bill

Well, I'm sticking to the current fan I had in build, its perfect for my needs.

Sorry again, but one more question, which graphics card is better:

This: Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N440D3-1GI GeForce GT 440 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

or

This: Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100287VGAL Radeon HD 5670 (Redwood) 512MB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Honestly I think you can get a better card than either of those for just a bit more money. You can get the Gigabyte GTS 450 for just a bit more, and it has more than twice as many stream processors as the GS 440.

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N450-1GI GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I find that the best "bang for your buck" cards live in the $150-$250 range so that's where I normally go, but that would be for a gaming card. You haven't really said what you're going to be doing with this computer. If I were getting a graphics card, it might be this one:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N465MT-1GI GeForce GTX 465 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

mastacox said:

Honestly I think you can get a better card than either of those for just a bit more money. You can get the Gigabyte GTS 450 for just a bit more, and it has more than twice as many stream processors as the GS 440.

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N450-1GI GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I find that the best "bang for your buck" cards live in the $150-$250 range so that's where I normally go, but that would be for a gaming card. You haven't really said what you're going to be doing with this computer. If I were getting a graphics card, it might be this one:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N465MT-1GI GeForce GTX 465 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Highlighted a couple of his statements cuz there right on- (well 150 -200?) - also the nvidia vs ati battle rages on and many are firmly fixed one way or the other-

The cost does not NEED to be right now- get up and running then add card later-

cut/past from another thread:

link, hope this helps-

Best Graphics Cards For the Money: March 2011 : March Updates

Bill

Why does the GTX 465 have a lower core and memory clock than the GTS 450?

In a nutshell, because it has 352 processor cores instead of 192. Trust me, the 465 is a lot faster (and lightyears ahead of the GT 440).