There are a slew of companies that make products to keep our CPU, Chipset and VGA cards cool, most people just focus on those things mainly for cooling, but what about your ram? Yes most companies now provide heatspreaders on their ram but when you are overclocking it, sometimes that heatspreader is just not good enough, and may actually hamper your success at overclocking and even overall system stability. Yes there are a very few companies that make active ram cooling solutions, and today for review I have a new product from Cool It, it is aptly named the ‘Ram Fan’ and that’s pretty much what it is, a small fan that actually mounts directly to your ram and keeps it cool…
Cool It Ram Fan
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: Cool It Systems
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Cool It RAM Fan
Provides direct air flow to cool RAM and motherboard components.
Simple to Install
Simply clips onto all
standard DIMMs
Plugs into any available fan header
Cools The RAM
Eliminates any risk of your RAM overheating.
Provides the ultimate in overclockability.
Cools Motherboard Components
Provides direct airflow across the motherboard to cool heat sensitive components like the chipsets and voltage regulators.
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The New Standard for Cooling Computers
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A Better Look at Things
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The packaging for the Cool It Ram Fan is pretty simplistic, but works well. It is essentially a clear plastic box/clamshell, yeah it’s the sealed type of clamshell… Through the front we have an unobstructed view of the Cool It Ram Fan itself and can read a bit about it as well…
On the back we find basic install instructions and some more information about the Ram Fan.
Opening up the package we find the Ram Fan and that’s it, nothing else included with it. The Ram fan does have a standard 3-pin connector to power it.
Flipping it over we can see the actual fan, and get a better look at the clips that attach the Ram Fan to your ram. The Ram Fan enclosure is made from aluminum to further help dissipate heat and to make it look better.
The Ram Fan attaches to the actual sticks of ram by way of tension, the aluminum housing acts as sort of a spring clamp or clip, it fits into the notches on your sticks of ram.
The Cool It Ram Fan not only cools your ram but it also blows air on an components near the ram as well, so it does serve a dual purpose.
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Installation, Testing and Comparison
I just happened to be installing my new EVGA motherboard, so receiving the Cool It Ram Fan for review worked out well for me. One thing very nice is that you don’t have to really do anything special to install the Ram Fan, no tools are needed for installation, it’s extremely easy to install. You just pull it apart a bit and clip it to your ram, plug it in and you’re done.
I installed the Cool It Ram Fan on two gigs of OCZ Spec Ops DDR400 Ram, in the following picture it looks close to my waterblock but actually isn’t at all, the Ram Fan sits up nice and high to provide adequate clearance for the block. Although I could foresee installation problems with some of the larger air CPU coolers on the market and even possibly some slight installation problems with some types of ram out there that have larger than normal heatrspreaders on them.
I’m sure you noticed in the pictures, but I didn’t mention it, the Cool It Ram Fan does have two blue LEDs in it, and they are fairly bright actually.
After I got the Ram Fan installed the first thing I noticed was the noise level, with the side of my case off it was pretty loud, and even with the case side on it was a bit to loud for my tastes. The Cool It Ram Fan drowned out every fan in my system, until of course the dual 7900GTs fans came on…
Personally the Ram Fan is just too loud for my tastes, but I do like it and the idea of it, it helps to keep your ram cool while cooling other components on your motherboard. So I decided to see if I could slow the fan down to make it quiet, there is no third wire on the Ram Fan, so no RPM sensor, which means I can’t control the speed though any software or monitor it’s speed in any way. Which basically meat the only way to slow the fan down was to lower the voltage getting to it. To do that, I used a Low Noise Adapter that I received with my Noctua NH-U9F CPU Cooler, and all that is is a male and female 3-pin connector with a couple wires in between and a resistor already built in-line to lower the voltage getting to the fan, worked perfectly, now the Cool It Ram Fan runs silently, but still keeps my ram cool.
I did bring out my trusty ThermoHawk, non-contact thermometer to measure surface temperatures of the ram, since the OCZ does have heatspreaders on it I could only test the surface temp of the spreaders themselves. I did find that there was a few degrees difference in the temperatures while using the Cool It Ram Fan and while not using the Cool It ram Fan, so it does work. While I didn’t get into any super overclocking, obviously we know that having fresh air blowing on the ram will help any overclocker out, even if it is a gain a four of five MHZ, it will still be a gain in the end.
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Summary:
The Cool It Ran Fan is something that I can say is a must have for everyone, even if you aren’t an overclocker you can benefit from the Ram Fan. The design is well thought out and yet very simplistic, installation could not be any easier really, it works and works well. The Cool It Ram Fan is almost perfect, notice I said ‘almost’ there, with a small improvement of adding the ability to adjust the speed of the fan it would be perfect, all Cool It would have to do is add the RPM wire, then it could be controlled and monitored with SpeedFan or any other such program, this way it could run silent when need be, and at full speed when the extra cooling is needed or required. Otehjr than that the Cool It Ram Fan is a great little product that I can Recommend anyone getting…
DragonSteelMods gives the Cool It Ram Fan a 4.5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Looks great
-Cools ram and other components
-Very easy installation
-Well made
Cons:
-Loud, with no real way to monitor and control fan speed
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I would like to thank Cool It for the chance to review the Ram Fan and for their support of DSM.
Find the best price on OCZ Ram at ShopZilla!