Well, time to update the old journal with a few things you may or may not care about:

1: In the interest of science (or overclocking the living hell out of my poor processor), I've decided to have a go at doing a reasonably definitive real-world performance test on several of the computer world's favourite high-performance 120mm fans. These tests are all going to be as in-depth as possible, but aren't going to be measured in static pressure, cubic-feet-per-minute, rotations-per-minute, or any other relatively useless features like that - rather, these tests are going to see how well each of the fans tested can perform pushing air through a high-end processor cooler, and how exactly they affect temperatures. I will also be scoring fans on a scale of 1-10 on how quiet they are to my own ears (I don't have any dbA measuring equipment), and if at all possible will try to give an overall score of how well they perform on a noise-performance scale as well as possibly a price-performance scale. For the overall score I will also take into account estimated fan lifetimes and warranty lengths. I'll be testing all the fans at their full 12v rating initially, and any units that are moderately noisy (or more than moderately) will be tested at 7v and finally 5v to see how they do on the performance-noise scale. I'll accomplish these voltages with the LNA and UNLA adapters Noctua thoughtfully included with a fan I previously bought. The fans I have in mind to test are the following:

A run-of-the-mill cheap fan that comes with a fairly standard case (in this case a stock fan from my own Cooler Master RC-690 case)
Scythe S-Flex SFF21F 1600RPM (already own)
Noctua NF-P12 (already own)

The following fans are the units I'm considering as the new contenders. I'm only picking out 5 because that's the most I can fit into my case (I do want to use them after all is said and done) after replacing the stock fans in my case (and picking the reigning champion as my CPU cooler).

Scythe Slipstream 1900RPM (might back off to the 1600RPM version)
Panaflo H1 (38mm depth for extremely good static pressure, might back off to the M1 for noise reasons pending more reviews)
Silverstone FM121 (the FM123 is apparently a rather poor and noisy design)
Scythe Ultra Kaze 2000RPM (38mm depth for extremely good static pressure)
Yate Loon D12-SH12 2000RPM (cheap and very popular amongst budget-minded enthusiasts)

The list is a bit Scythe-heavy for my liking though - some other fans I'm considering are the Enermax magnetic-barometric 120mm units, the 120mm Arctic Cooling FDB fan, and maybe one of the SilenX fans many people swear by (and a seemingly equal number swear at). I might drop the Ultra Kaze in favor of one of those, although I do somewhat want to test two 32mm depth fans just to ensure that the static pressure really is that much improved by going from 25mm to 32mm.

Testing probably won't be done until mid-late April, so keep your eyes peeled if this is something that interests you.


On the music front, I've found myself gravitating back (once again) to the trancier side of the business (which is now known as Progressive House for who-knows-what fucking reason). With that in mind, here's a list of tracks I'm enjoying quite a bit:

Nish - Blue Sunshine (Sean Tyas Mix)
Brisk & Magitman - Cover Edge (Chris Allen Remix)
Jaytech & Matt Rowan - Noodles (Original Mix)
JdotP - Sid Bubble (Cedric Gervais Remix)
K Lavander - Lividus (16 Bit Lolitas Dancefloor Mix)
Quivver - Surin (Original Mix)
Noel Sanger - Natural Perfection (John C Mix)
Alex Armes - Last Lime (Original Mix)
Interstate - I'm Waiting (Tyler Michaud Remix)
Manuel de la Mare - Sphynx (Phatjak Mix)
Deadmau5 - Not Alone (Original Mix)

So there you have it folks - a test that most of you are most likely not interested in, and a few music tracks that most of you will probably find decent but forget about within a month. Ah well, enjoy 'em anyway.