[bgavin]

The Zipang stock fan does an excellent job of cooling the CPU. It fails to properly cool the VRM. The fan is simply under powered for this task.

I do not have a variety of 140mm fans at my disposal, so I use what I have for testing. The 120mm Panaflo 12U is at the opposite extreme from the Zipang fan. It keeps both CPU and VRM cooler than the reference Intel cooler. As you note, the 2750 rpm fan noise is outside the Zipang design intent.

There is a lot of middle ground between 900 and 2750 rpm. According to my vendor, Evercool is preparing to enter this market in June with their EC-14025x12E series of 140mm fans with fluid bearings. The RPM range is 600 to 1800 by various model. All of these fans will fit the Zipang, and one of them will keep the VRM cool without requiring a lot of noise.

Scythe has a market-leading product in Zipang, except for the fan. With a proper fan, Zipang would be a serious contender to the Thermalright Ultra 120 that is the benchmark for extreme cooling. Zipang has the added benefit of down-draft VRM cooling that the verticals do not have.

IMO, there is coming a big market for 140mm fans with fluid bearings. The larger fans moves more air with less noise, and the fluid bearings last much longer than cheap sleeve bearings. This is important because Zipang mounts the fan in the horizontal position, which I understand is early end-of-life for sleeve bearing fans. Scythe can lead the way with 140mm fans, or get left behind.