Yesterday I bought something that I know I should have bought a long time ago. In fact, I should have bought it at the same time that I bought my video card. In case you didn’t know, the stock fan that comes with this video card is by far the noisiest ever. It’s the loudest in their line of video cards, and I think it might even be the loudest across all cards. I admit that I didn’t know that it was going to be that noisy when I first bought the card, and I was disappointed to find that it made all my other efforts to make a quiet case pointless 
Without the video card, it was hard to tell if the PC was on! With the card, it sounded like a jet engine waiting to take off.
The solution: Zalman VF900-cu.
When I installed it last night I was beyond happy. The quiet HSF, quiet case, and the quiet case fans were in blissful silence alongside this masterpiece. My case was silent again! This piece of kit is fantastic. Go get one if you need peace 
February 6, 2007
Stock fans are often noisy as hell and I think it’s been getting worse in recent years (take the Xbox 360 for example).
I think it’s actually even worse than just a noise problem, cos it means the bearings in the fan aren’t very good quality. Eventually they could clog up and slow the fan down after a while, meaning your expensive video card or CPU overheats and gets damaged.
I’ve got a stock fan on my Radeon 9800 (though it is quiet enough for me), but the fan on my CPU (Athlon 1800+) is rated for a much quicker processor and it a lot quieter than the one it came with. The PC is quiet enough I can hear the hard disk seeking quite clearly.
Whatever happened to magnetic suspension bearings?
February 7, 2007
The HDD is the noisiest part of the computer now, but it’s definitely bearable. The only computer that I’ve heard to be quieter was a laptop - so I’m happy with that.