TFC MONSTA testing complete

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06-09-2009, 07:22 AM
Vapor

Great testing as always, Martin :toast:

Big fan of breaking up the RPM vs. W graph by fan as well :)

As for the radiator itself, it seems it's a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Does well at both low RPM and high RPM...but its strength seems to be the middle ground (if you throw in a GTX360/420 on your testbed, it'll become more apparent). Either way though, it's not a miracle worker, "just" really good :eh:

Best thing about all of this, it seems you're slowly starting to creep back into testing more and more :up:
06-09-2009, 07:25 AM
SNiiPE_DoGG

I would personally suggest you keep that testing pace slow though :up: that way you dont get burned and we can all enjoy your excellent results from time to time :toast: :toast:
06-09-2009, 10:09 AM
eRazorzEDGE

very well done martin.

what i find interesting is that with the Monsta only using 3 fans, it almost does as well as a TFC 480 with 4 fans in the "watts dissipated at 10°C delta" graphs...

Monsta:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/493...nstatherm5.png

TFC 480 vs. GTX 480:
http://martin.skinneelabs.com/img/TFC480-Thermal7.png

i guess it goes to show the "quad thick" approach does have some benefit.
06-09-2009, 11:51 AM
Martinm210

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kayso

@Martinm210 - good job man, awesome !!!

I just want to ask, will be MONSTA enough for a single loop of Q9650@4.32 Ghz, GTX280 and NBMAX and 5-7 Degrees Delta ?? I'm beginning a new project with a ATCS840 and I'm very very interested to have a monsta inside my case :P

Play around with the PSU calculators and estimate your heat load first. Then you can use the 10C chart to slide up the RPM scale until you match your heat load. This will give you a ballpark on how much fan you will need.:up:

I always say a 10C delta is average performance, 5C delta is high performance. To look for a 5C Delta, take the Watts numbers on the graph and cut them in half.

Quote:

Originally Posted by affiliate13

Hi Martin,
Great info as always, thanks.

Did TFC mention 140mm Triebwerk models to you at all?
I think there was talk of them appearing shortly.

I would be interested to see how they might perform on this radiator.

They did mention looking into 140's, but I'm not sure exactly when. I think 140's are the way to go on this one, that's why I ordered the Koolance fans to try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shazza

Excellent review - thanks for the photos too. They really do show the size of this Monsta in comparison to your other rads. (You'll need steel supports when you load your Torture Rack with this guy).

Thanks, are you telling me the torture rack wasn't design for two 480s and a 360/420 in mind?....lol! Yeah, I'll have to use some aluminum channel or something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vapor

Great testing as always, Martin :toast:

Big fan of breaking up the RPM vs. W graph by fan as well :)

As for the radiator itself, it seems it's a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Does well at both low RPM and high RPM...but its strength seems to be the middle ground (if you throw in a GTX360/420 on your testbed, it'll become more apparent). Either way though, it's not a miracle worker, "just" really good :eh:

Best thing about all of this, it seems you're slowly starting to creep back into testing more and more :up:

Yeah, I think it gets it's low/medium strengths from the 140mm frontal area and the high speed strength from the quad thickness. Not the best combination for the sub 1000RPM range though...that's where something thinner or even lower density would make more sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNiiPE_DoGG

I would personally suggest you keep that testing pace slow though :up: that way you dont get burned and we can all enjoy your excellent results from time to time :toast: :toast:

I'm taking a break for a while. I really didn't plan on this one, I was actually more interested in testing the fans, but the rad came with the package. It's like giving my 2 year old a binki and telling her to hold it but don't put it in her mouth. I'm just not physically capable of installing something without testing it first....it's a sickness.:ROTF:

Quote:

Originally Posted by eRazorzEDGE

very well done martin.

what i find interesting is that with the Monsta only using 3 fans, it almost does as well as a TFC 480 with 4 fans in the "watts dissipated at 10°C delta" graphs...

Monsta:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/493...nstatherm5.png

TFC 480 vs. GTX 480:
http://martin.skinneelabs.com/img/TFC480-Thermal7.png

i guess it goes to show the "quad thick" approach does have some benefit.

Yeah, although keep in mind. For starters that first test was with "Water Out" so numbers will be slightly lower on that one if I recalculated...not huge, but some. Also the Monsta is essentially a 140mm frontal area design which generally has the biggest gains with raditors, thickness doesn't really help much at the slow speed side of things, but it does help with the higher speeds.

I expected the performance to be good with high speed fans, but I really wasn't sure what to think with the low speed considering this frontal area increase.

Overall, it's like Vapor said, sort of a jack of all. About the same as a PA120.3 around 900RPM and progressively stronger with stronger fans.

FYI,
Shane (HESmelaugh) just compared some of his numbers for me. His heat loads are a bit off from mine, but the trend seem to be very consistent. As always, we can't really compare across different test beds, but trends and relative performances should be similar.

Good stuff, I think we're in the same trend ballpark, that's always reassuring that I didn't completely screw something up..:up:

My comparison was lacking below 1000RPM, so I would use his for reference.
http://www.abload.de/img/mcompare4icc.jpg
06-09-2009, 03:22 PM
Surfrider

Out of curiosity, where do you pick up the 140mm Triebwerk fans?

I cant seem to find any listed anywhere.
06-09-2009, 03:44 PM
silverphoenix

Quote:

Originally Posted by eRazorzEDGE

very well done martin.

what i find interesting is that with the Monsta only using 3 fans, it almost does as well as a TFC 480 with 4 fans in the "watts dissipated at 10°C delta" graphs...

Monsta:

TFC 480 vs. GTX 480:

i guess it goes to show the "quad thick" approach does have some benefit.

at about 1350rpm yes, but once you pass that the GTX480 pulls ahead.

-note, On a side now I ponder this considering the price of the MONSTA, how about a GTX420 with push pull fans. The GTX has more FPI yes but push pull should help significantly especially at RPMs nearing 2000. And even with push pull fans the GTX420 would be cheaper and the thickness would be nearly identical 104.2 vs 105.7 mm thick. The only advantage the MONSTA would have then is the threading on both sides and the higher flow.
06-09-2009, 03:45 PM
Martinm210

Quote:

Originally Posted by Surfrider

Out of curiosity, where do you pick up the 140mm Triebwerk fans?

I cant seem to find any listed anywhere.

These were 120's the 140's aren't out yet.

I ordered these Koolance 140's, should hopefully be here later this week. I think the higher speed and curved blades should make them pretty strong performers.
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=23746
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...025hled_02.jpg
06-09-2009, 04:10 PM
Surfrider

Ugh.. blue LEDs. :(

Hopefully these hold up for me until the 140mm Triebwerks can be tested and proven.
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=20771
06-09-2009, 04:11 PM
eRazorzEDGE

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

Yeah, although keep in mind. For starters that first test was with "Water Out" so numbers will be slightly lower on that one if I recalculated...not huge, but some. Also the Monsta is essentially a 140mm frontal area design which generally has the biggest gains with raditors, thickness doesn't really help much at the slow speed side of things, but it does help with the higher speeds.

I expected the performance to be good with high speed fans, but I really wasn't sure what to think with the low speed considering this frontal area increase.

Overall, it's like Vapor said, sort of a jack of all. About the same as a PA120.3 around 900RPM and progressively stronger with stronger fans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silverphoenix

at about 1350rpm yes, but once you pass that the GTX480 pulls ahead.

i was pointing out how the "quad thick" Monsta, with 3x120mm fans, does almost as well as the GTX and TFC 480's with 4x120mm fans. i really want to see how it will compare when 3x140mm fans are on there.

but as for the price of the Monsta, it's just ridiculous. you can grab a GTX 560 from P-PCs.com for $60 less than the Monsta and undoubtedly have it perform better. even a GTX 480 performs better very close to the Monsta at 1600rpm (where i run my fans). i just can't see why people would pay that much for it :shrug:
06-09-2009, 05:08 PM
The Water Dog

Exelent work Martin:clap:
06-09-2009, 07:05 PM
eth0s

Excellent work Martin, thanks for doing the testing we all love!!! (At least I love it anyway.)

That Monsta is pretty impressive, it dissipates nearly 600 watts at a 10C delta, and that ain't too shabby. It really could be used as a one radiator solution for a single loop rig (i.e., one loop cooling cpu & gpu together.)

However those Triebwerk fans are kind of a disappointment. I really thought they would perform better. They must have low static pressure, there is no other way to explain it.

I can't wait to see how the 140mm's turn out. The 140's should really show what that Monsta can do. Especially 6 x 140mm's with shrouds in push/pull. (But where do u get 140mm shrouds? I guess learn to make 'em yourself.) That could cool maybe 750 watts at 10c delta, hmm? That would cool an overclocked i7 and 2x GTX280's SLI in one loop! Also can't wait to see how the Sanyo Denki's do on that Monsta rad. (hint, hint)

My final piece of advice is to spend more time indoors this summer, b/c motorcycles are dangerous, and you could get hurt out there. Or get stung by a bee or a wasp even. You can never be too careful, and Mosquitoes in North America now carry malaria, denge fever and West Nile virus. So you are much safer inside that spare bedroom running some more tests!!! (J/K, you should go out and enjoy yourself, just don't break that testing arm!)

Thx again, awesome stuff as always. :up:
06-09-2009, 10:24 PM
Martinm210

Thanks guys,
I've got the fan videos up if you're interested. This should give you a better sense of the sound quality from the fans. They are a nice smooth sound.

TK-121
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq-65qnTwAk

TK-122
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp_DWfCH0UU

And I'm off to the sand dunes for the weekend...cheers!
Martin
06-09-2009, 11:03 PM
dsumanik

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

These were 120's the 140's aren't out yet.

I ordered these Koolance 140's, should hopefully be here later this week. I think the higher speed and curved blades should make them pretty strong performers.

I went with the medium speed curved blade Yates on my Monsta's so far they same very decent and extremely quiet. If you get em unsleeved..5 bucks a pop, what a wicked deal. I spent alot of time looking at listed 140mm fan specs, it looks like the LIAN-LI 140mm case fan has the best listed airflow/noise/rpm ratio.

60+ CFM @ 900 rpm's

my yates need 1400 RPM for that. Hard to say what the koolance ones you ordered will need id guess at least 1000.

the lian li specs seems a little exaggerated to me, a ~35% rpm difference results in the same airflow for what looks like very similar fan blade design/sizes compared to these yates??

If it is true the Lian-lis will

A) Justify the increase in price
b) be the way to go on a monsta, because according to your results even when using 120mm's increasing the airflow past a point does not seem to benefit it very much..60CFM should do the trick and at 1000 rpm the lian li's will be silent.

At least my yates are pretty quiet at a 1000 rpm. At 800 you cant hear em at all really.

if the 140mm triebworks work good enough ill blow the cash to get em, its why i ordered the cheap yates i wanted to wait until those came out and see if htey were worth it. And just sit tight until some more advanced 140's come out. To be honest I am not really struggling temp/noise wise with my current setup though, its pimp lol.

let me know if you would like me to send you one of these yates for some testing..the era of 140mm has arrived, we need better fans!
06-10-2009, 04:26 AM
Sadasius

Good videos and thanks again Martin. Now my comments on those fans.

The TK-121 did not sound that bad. But for the amount of air vs price it really does blow.

The TK-122 however sounded horrible. You can hear the turbulence shifting into the metal frame on the motor. I think these fans are too thick and the pitch of the blades is not efficient to throw air as much as it is design to screw it like a cork screw.
06-10-2009, 04:47 AM
AndreaBZ

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/493...nstatherm5.png

TFC 480 vs. GTX 480:
http://martin.skinneelabs.com/img/TFC480-Thermal7.png

Excellent test.... as always! :up:
..........
According to me,this is not the best system to compare the two radiators.
It is a few misleading.
It doesn't consider the different flow rate that is in the system.
In reality the parity of performance is over the 1880 RPMs,
it depends on the composition of the system.
For example in this case is had to 2250 RPMs ..............
http://www.pctunerup.com/up/results/...3203_xxxxx.jpg

Require the test RPM > CFM (db) of the three fans!:D
06-10-2009, 05:12 AM
silverphoenix

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

Thanks guys,
I've got the fan videos up if you're interested. This should give you a better sense of the sound quality from the fans. They are a nice smooth sound.

TK-121
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq-65qnTwAk

TK-122
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp_DWfCH0UU

And I'm off to the sand dunes for the weekend...cheers!
Martin

wow the TK122 is advertised as 88.4CFM fan, and at 1800RPM i expected better than 25ish CFM through the radiator.

-edit also I notice you got new vids of the san Ace and GT AP15 up, can I ask why the CFM across the board seems to be reading 5 lower than your previous videos?
06-10-2009, 05:15 AM
SNiiPE_DoGG

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

Thanks guys,
I've got the fan videos up if you're interested. This should give you a better sense of the sound quality from the fans. They are a nice smooth sound.

TK-121
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq-65qnTwAk

TK-122
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp_DWfCH0UU

And I'm off to the sand dunes for the weekend...cheers!
Martin

awww and here I am forgetting to bring my headphones to work >.< I wanna hear these $35 beauties.... :rolleyes:
06-10-2009, 03:12 PM
Martinm210

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndreaBZ

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/493...nstatherm5.png

TFC 480 vs. GTX 480:
http://martin.skinneelabs.com/img/TFC480-Thermal7.png

Excellent test.... as always! :up:
..........
According to me,this is not the best system to compare the two radiators.
It is a few misleading.
It doesn't consider the different flow rate that is in the system.
In reality the parity of performance is over the 1880 RPMs,
it depends on the composition of the system.
For example in this case is had to 2250 RPMs ..............

Require the test RPM > CFM (db) of the three fans!:D

Not sure what you mean by the "not best".

I did test flow rate with one test, but that was before I switched to "Average of Water In and Water Out", so I didn't include it. I had to manually correct for the error from that method. Anyhow, the difference was very minimal from flow rate. >.5GPM was only 2% worse than 3.5GPM, so I didn't bother doing more. This one flow rate test alone took about 16 hours of testing. To do the same for every one of the other data points, I'd be testing for months. I gave up after this one test:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6895/badi.png

Also note that you can't directly compare my old test to this new method. The old Water Out tests will be incorrectly HIGHER than they would per this new method because they gain half of the water delta between in and out which can be as much as a 10% Error. On the high performance fans test, I measured up to 1.1C delta between inlet and outlet. So that's about .55C error in a 5C delta which is about 10%.

Anyhow, sorry, but you can't compare the two without recalculating per the same method. I found that my old "Water Out" delta method is in error, so I've changed to this new method of comparing to the "Water Average" delta instead.:up:

Quote:

Originally Posted by silverphoenix

wow the TK122 is advertised as 88.4CFM fan, and at 1800RPM i expected better than 25ish CFM through the radiator.

-edit also I notice you got new vids of the san Ace and GT AP15 up, can I ask why the CFM across the board seems to be reading 5 lower than your previous videos?

It all depends on pressure through the fan curve, but they seem pretty close to the 1850RPM Gentle Typhoons in terms of CFM per volt.

I'm not sure why on the CFM number. I had to reset up everything, so something may have been slightly different. I did run all of the last four tests overver again so at least though should be an ok comparison.

In general, I'm not satisfied with testing and my ability to quantify fans. It's very clear to me that dB numbers don't match my own perceived level of loudness and I have to think it's due to the different sound tones and mixture of motor vs air vs blade chop type noises. In addition, CFM is not the bottom line either because each fan has a slightly different dead spot and the blade design also distributes the air flow differently at the outlet. This is something that causes my air out measurement to be so inconsistent in radiator testing.

In the end, I feel fan testing is really simply too hard to do and come out of it with something that's very conclusive. Ideally it would be a noise quality per delta C type of comparison... Problem is...how do you quantify noise quality, it's very different from noise level, that I am sure of. Secondly, testing just one fan on a radiator takes at least 5 good runs on a radiator each of which takes about 2 hours per run. This means about 10 hours of radiator testing per fan per one noise position. As I've began to learn more about noise level, the sound tone does have some influence on how distance affects noise level. Soo...ideally again, you would need to measure noise levels at many different positions to do that any justice as well.

So...to do fan testing right, it would probably take something like this:

There's probably 50 different fans out there:

50 types of fans x 5 radiator testing points x 5 noise/distance measuring points x 2 hours each = 2,500 hours.

I raise the white flag and leave you with a couple of videos...enjoy!!:up::ROTF:
06-10-2009, 03:16 PM
SNiiPE_DoGG

Hey so I listened to the videos and that Triebwerk fan gets absolutely ruined by the gentle typhoon :rofl::rofl::rofl:
06-10-2009, 03:33 PM
loomy

http://en.expreview.com/img/2009/06/08/noctua_04.jpg

P14
06-10-2009, 06:22 PM
alacheesu

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

Thanks!

You could say the same thing about size difference between any of the slim and double thickness fans also, that it's not fair comparing a slim radiator to a double thickness etc. You could even say it's not fair comparing the 120mm rads that are 120mm wide vs. the ones that are 140mm wide, or the ones with 15mm fan spacing vs larger. Size is a factor, but I think noise and fan power being the same is always a worthy comparison.:up:

Sorry, I did not intend to imply that your test was done unfairly or that a comparison of 360 vs 420 rads was meaningless. It was just my opinion on the size/price/performance ratio of the monsta.
06-10-2009, 06:27 PM
Eddie3dfx

Martin, awesome testing as always. It's always nice to come out of retirement when these rare components come out that everyone is drooling over.
Next one might be the thermochill 4 rad :)
06-10-2009, 07:21 PM
SNiiPE_DoGG

Quote:

Originally Posted by loomy

P14

unfortunately featuring 120mm mounting holes :( why cant these companies release GOOD 140mm fans :shakes:
06-10-2009, 07:21 PM
*|T2D|*PopovS

Thank you for the test Martin. Not everybody can appreciate the work done and time commitment. :clap:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

If someone asks me which triple 120mm fan radiator has the ultimate performance in the 1350RPM range regardless of price, that would be the TFC Monsta.

This is very interesting, 1350rpm is nice quiet speed.
06-11-2009, 04:16 AM
AndreaBZ

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martinm210

Not sure what you mean by the "not best".

I did test flow rate with one test, but that was before I switched to "Average of Water In and Water Out", so I didn't include it. I had to manually correct for the error from that method. Anyhow, the difference was very minimal from flow rate. >.5GPM was only 2% worse than 3.5GPM, so I didn't bother doing more. This one flow rate test alone took about 16 hours of testing. To do the same for every one of the other data points, I'd be testing for months. I gave up after this one test:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6895/badi.png

Also note that you can't directly compare my old test to this new method. The old Water Out tests will be incorrectly HIGHER than they would per this new method because they gain half of the water delta between in and out which can be as much as a 10% Error. On the high performance fans test, I measured up to 1.1C delta between inlet and outlet. So that's about .55C error in a 5C delta which is about 10%.

Anyhow, sorry, but you can't compare the two without recalculating per the same method. I found that my old "Water Out" delta method is in error, so I've changed to this new method of comparing to the "Water Average" delta instead.:up:

To correctly compare the two radiators.
It is better to also consider the reduction of flow rate that HW 480 GTX
introduces in the system.(- 38 LPH)
This cause a loss of 0,2 degrees on the CPU.
To compensate this loss needs to increase the RPMs to 2250.
http://www.pctunerup.com/up/results/...338_xxxxx2.jpg
The spreadsheet,waiting for the new data:D,works with the old.
Thermal resistance (C°/W) vs RPM.

*******

How do I do to calculate the new C°/W ?
I don't have the data of the "Water Average" delta !
It seems me that also the C°/ W of Skinnee is an old method C°/ W
(old time C°/W) :D
If you have new data....:cool:
If you send me them..........:D
The spreadsheet will be more precise..
and it thanks yourself.:D

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