Who needs all those fans...

[nmmnp]

As a newbie modder, I've been using these forums for advice and have received lots of help and ideas. One of the big topics obviously is cooling, and the recommendations for lots of fans (especially intake) seems to be a repeating theme. I recently read the article "5 Myths of Cooling" on this site, particularly myth #5. It made me curious so I thought I'd make some comparisons on my machine.

I have an AMD 2000 on an ECS K7VTA3 that has a stock heatsink in a cheap case. I changed the 60mm screamer to an 80mm fan, used AS3 and got some rounded cables. I also have a drive bay cooler with twin 92mm fans that exhausts 80cfm, a 92mm Enermax adjustable as a front intake, and a rear exhaust under the psu. My temps according to MBM5 were 30/41 at idle and 36/46 under load. I disconnected both the drive bay cooler and the front intake and guess what? No change.. I added the bay cooler, no change. Added the intake fan, no change. I was going to add a side fan and blowhole, but who needs the noise?
I 7volted the drive bay cooler, turned the Enermax all the way down and I'm now using using cpuidle (It's amazing to watch the cpu temp plummet). My temps at idle are 28/27 (cpu temp lower than case temp) and I'm at 34/37 after running Prime95 torture test for 8 hours. Good enough for me...