For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if this increase system noise levels. In general the Zalman 9500 and 9700 can be considered very quiet, but performance of either cooler is not standout against the competition - at least where noise is concerned.
To test idle and load noise levels, a Zalman Fan Mate 2 fan controller was used to dial in the lowest and highest fan speeds the fan could achieve. The difference in noise levels between low and high were negligible with the Scythe 120mm fan, so only high levels, which are generally below the system noise floor are reported. Tests were also run with a push-pull dual fan setup using two Scythe 120mm silent fans. These results are reports in the noise graphs as Dual Fan.
There are virtually no power supplies that do not have a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make a few expensive fanless power supplies, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the power supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter of the high performance power supplies. The noise level of the power supply was 38.3dB from 24" (61cm) and 47dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with an open side of a mid tower case 6" from the open HSF and 24" from the open HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case with a further reduction in noise.
The low-noise results with the Scythe Infinity are truly impressive. The stock single fan configuration scored some of the lowest noise results we have tested so far, generally remaining at or near the noise floor at both measurement distances. Even more impressive were the results with a dual-fan push-pull configuration. Noise results barely increased with two fans, again remaining at or near the system noise floor. Considering the Scythe matched our highest Tuniq overclocking results when running two fans, this is very impressive silence.
As already pointed out, any 120mm x 25mm fan should be mountable on the Infinity with a set of Scythe fan wires. The shipping fan is 1200 RPM and selected for silence. It's hard to complain about the noise measurements with this fan - single or dual. However, if you have a favorite silent fan or performance 120mm fan it should mount and work fine on the Scythe Infinity.
While the Scythe matched the Tuniq in overclocking and tied for the best OC with an air cooler, it is clearly the winner in silence at high speeds. This is true whether you run a single stock fan or dual silent fans. The Infinity is certainly bulky, as are most effective heatpipe towers, but fans of low noise cooling should definitely add the latest Infinity to their shopping list.
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