120mm Fan Testing on an MCR120 Radiator Round 6

[Utnorris]

Hey Martin,
What did you think of the weight of that Pabst fan? Built like a tank isn't it?

[Martinm210]

Great Glad you like the dutch candy

Yes, you win... Your fan gets cuts in the testing line...

UPDATE11-20-10
Sorry, I meant to test this one this morning, but my 6-32 screws were too short. I'll have to run down to the hardware store and get some threaded rod or longer screws. I hasn't seen the new bench just yet...

@martin:
They must of started manufacturing the batches earlier this year, I purchased my fans 2 from hondacity, and another 3 from a forum member on the H in april.

I have samples of both batches. For me the acoustic problems don't start until 1000 rpm or so, but I chucked that up to air turbulence hitting the fan motor. I wonder when the "new" batch was actually made.

I'm debating switching them for ap-14s, since I never run them about 1250.
I'm always amazed when people say they are quiet at full rpm. Makes me think that I either have bad examples, or they have full ears, or possibly they haven't mounted them on anything that has restriction.

Oh, heh, almost forgot. No sleeving on non of the fans.

I really do think the lower speed models are better if you plan to undervolt the 15. I havn't processed it yet, but I really liked what I subjectively heard when testing the AP-13.

GTs continue to impress....

Great stuff, Martin

Thanks for sponsoring, I feel much better about the 15 now that I've had a chance to try some of the new batch. That old batch 15 I had really had some harsh spikes in resonance. While I found some very minor amounts in the new batch, it was really small in comparison.

yeah

maybe someone will recognize it

I don't have a clue...

Hey Martin,
What did you think of the weight of that Pabst fan? Built like a tank isn't it?

No kidding, it is a BEAST...must weight a pound. I'll have to put it on a scale and see

[Martinm210]

FYI,
I got Vapor's Sample B GT15 processed. It was really close to the sample A results and now that I've listened to the audio, I can't really tell the difference. If anything the sample B was perhaps a bit grittier on the bottom end, but was more consistent throughout the voltage sweep. I'll update the GT15 post with this info to keep the data together:

Also notice the bottom end of Sample B. The Arctic Cooling F12 is actually much the same, perhaps better at the 4-5V range. It's just hard to conclude anything when they are that close. My sound meter floor appears to be 31dbA, so it gets to be a bit suspect down that low.



COMPARED TO ALL FANS TESTED SO FAR

[Martinm210]

Gentle Typhoon AP-13 (Old Batch?)

Another thanks to Vapor for sponsoring this fan..

With the 15 and 14 doing well, I figured the 13 would follow suit and it does.

NOISE LEVEL
It falls pretty much in line with the AP-14 in being one the the very lowest noise/CFM levels for it's range, although there was a little bump at 9V.

NOISE QUALITY
It's fairly good like the other GTs, but I think at these really low RPM levels the ball bearings start to become one of the more pronounced noises. Some of the other sleeve or FDB (Sleeve variants) don't have that. It's really quiet and minor, but I think as you approach the 1000RPM and below range some of the other options begin to look more promising. I'll call it average to above average since there isn't any motor tick, but some ball bearing noise. I did find one little resonance bump at 9V, but it's pretty hard to detect other than the sound meter picking it up.

RELATIVE TO THE GT14 & GT15
I think it's roughly the same as the GT14, and a hair better than the GT15 at like performance levels. The GT15 seems to have more problems with resonance bumps than the lower speed family. This could all be sample variation, but what I've seen so far.

OVERALL
Very very good at 12V with a dbA level about 4-5 dbA lower than most fans, but that slowly diminishes as you lower the RPM levels. I think once you get down to about 800RPM, it's no longer doing any better than many other fans if you consider both noise level and noise quality. Some of the other fans have quieter bearings using sleeve, or FDB. With that said, it's still doing a fair amount better than the others at 12V or 1200RPM. It gets fairly competitive below about 800-1000RPM.

I'll give it a thumbs up for really low noise/cfm ratios from 1000-1200RPM.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioJCAFARTY







COMPARED TO ALL FANS TESTED SO FAR

[Martinm210]

NZXT Case Fan

Special thanks to Vapor for sponsoring this fan..

I always like the higher blade count fans like this.

NOISE LEVEL
Very good, it's a good 1dbA better than the yate medium at slower speeds and about the same at 12V at like performance levels.

NOISE QUALITY
Very good, it has a slightly smoother wind type noise than 7 blade fans and generally performs consistently at all volts with no odd harmonics or motor ticks. Generally a good smooth consistent sound.

I'll give this fan a thumbs up for overall consistently good performance.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqcOCCtiXI







COMPARED TO ALL FANS TESTED SO FAR

[bing]

Hey Martin,
What did you think of the weight of that Pabst fan? Built like a tank isn't it?

No kidding, it is a BEAST...must weight a pound. I'll have to put it on a scale and see

If you haven't powered it yet, just fyi you will have to install it backward, it has a reverse air flow than normal fan does, just watch the vertical arrow sign at the frame.

[Martinm210]

If you haven't powered it yet, just fyi you will have to install it backward, it has a reverse air flow than normal fan does, just watch the vertical arrow sign at the frame.

Thanks for pointing that out, I wouldn't have thought it did that and I'm generally really bad at reading directions..

[Martinm210]

Noctua NF-S12B

Thanks to Vapor for sponsoring

This fan surprised me. I had been going on the assumption that for a good radiator fan, that you must have high blade count and large dense blades. It "Seemed" to make sense and under those assumptions I completely expected this fan to be only good in an open case type condition....I was WRONG!

NOISE LEVEL
It's good, actually a bit better than the yate medium at slower speeds and continues to do at least as good as the yate medium baseline fan all the way. At 8V it was better than most fans.

NOISE QUALITY
Very good, no odd resonance issues, just good smooth consistent sound at all levels.

OVERALL
It's a good fan, performs better in Noise/CFM than the yate loon medium and has a good smooth consistent sound at all RPM levels.

Still not quite sure how this one does better than the noctua P12 on my test rig...but it did..perhaps the P12s were bad samples.. Lesson learned, do NOT judge a fan by it's looks, there is no correlation between numbers of blades, density, thickness, bearing type, etc....looks mean nothing at all....

FYI, I noticed my Amperage meter is going whacky here. I had to retest for amperage separately to get the correct wattage. Not sure why, but under a retest the milliamps was reading just fine. I'll have to watch that. Anyhow, don't use the amperage in the video, it's wrong.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyO5vXs13Pc







COMPARED TO ALL FANS TESTED SO FAR

[Vapor]

Whoa, didn't expect that.

[Vampiyer]

That the Noctua doesn't make an offensive sounds is important.

I just got (3) Thermalright TY-140 fans from SVC. They all make a bit of a quiet "liquid" sputtering noise. This is much better than ticking, grinding, or whining, but it's still annoying. Fortunately, this was at the full 12V-RPM, and it's only audible up-close. There is some motor growl, but it's relatively constant, and quiet.

I hope to get them on the voltage controller later and see how they behave, but I'll be on non-stop trips through to mid-december

X-bit labs seemed to think these TY-140's were the best of the 140mm fans, but I think the AP-15 (120mm) is of a better design. It's not a huge issue to me because I wanted them as 140mm case fans for my 700D, and for that, they may outperform the 120mm AP-15 anyway.

Looking at them now... they're quite big... and they will not easily mount to either of Martin's radiators (need to use gasket tape). The airflow also isn't as strong as I expected, but it's diffused over a larger area, and the hub is quite small. It's also not as ugly as I expected... I may just paint the frame matte-black and be done. I wouldn't dare paint the blades of any fan and risk affecting performance.

Nice work again, Martin.

[Church]

Performance of NF-S12B is really surprising seeing it's blade configuration. I wonder though if it will be able to keep up on high FPI rads as well as good, where high pressure should mater more then on low-middle finned MCR.

[THOMO]

53db for 35cfm??? Why so low?

My generic el-cheapo 120mm fans running on 19v make those sound very loud. The cfm of those are horrificly low.....are you sure you've wired them up properly?

[Martinm210]

53db for 35cfm??? Why so low?

My generic el-cheapo 120mm fans running on 19v make those sound very loud. The cfm of those are horrificly low.....are you sure you've wired them up properly?

Restriction, radiator plus some restriction in the flow chamber. You really can't compare between two different test setups. I'm using a zoom H1 handy recorder for audio which has really sensitive 90 degree xy stereo mics turned up to 100 percent manual gain in a quiet room in the middle of the night. Very sensitive.

Yes I' sure it's wired ok, fans are just very sensitive to restriction and why I'm intentionally testing through a radiator as opposed to an artificial open air test that has little or no restriction.

While neither one of my meters are calibrated, I am using a fan to ensure all the batches are tested the same, so relative performances should be ok within a resonable amount.

[Martinm210]

Whoa, didn't expect that.

That the Noctua doesn't make an offensive sounds is important.

I just got (3) Thermalright TY-140 fans from SVC. They all make a bit of a quiet "liquid" sputtering noise. This is much better than ticking, grinding, or whining, but it's still annoying. Fortunately, this was at the full 12V-RPM, and it's only audible up-close. There is some motor growl, but it's relatively constant, and quiet.

I hope to get them on the voltage controller later and see how they behave, but I'll be on non-stop trips through to mid-december

X-bit labs seemed to think these TY-140's were the best of the 140mm fans, but I think the AP-15 (120mm) is of a better design. It's not a huge issue to me because I wanted them as 140mm case fans for my 700D, and for that, they may outperform the 120mm AP-15 anyway.

Looking at them now... they're quite big... and they will not easily mount to either of Martin's radiators (need to use gasket tape). The airflow also isn't as strong as I expected, but it's diffused over a larger area, and the hub is quite small. It's also not as ugly as I expected... I may just paint the frame matte-black and be done. I wouldn't dare paint the blades of any fan and risk affecting performance.

Nice work again, Martin.

Performance of NF-S12B is really surprising seeing it's blade configuration. I wonder though if it will be able to keep up on high FPI rads as well as good, where high pressure should mater more then on low-middle finned MCR.

Yeah, it still surprises me, perhaps because of the steep blade pitch. I think my test rig is adding some restriction by itself, so if anything it would favor more pressure oriented.

I give up on trying to guess what works or doesn't in a fan type...just when I think I understand something a fan test pretty well dismisses it.

I might pull out my spare P12 and test it in batch 6. I just don't get how the S12 could do better..?

[Church]

Martin: at the end probably simplest is to treat fans as some kind of black box with specific airflow/pressure/noise characteristics. Too many variables are at play there that can enhance or destroy performance/noise ratio. Good silent bearing & engine can allow fan to run faster with acceptable noise allowing in return to compensate sub par design of blades, good blade design can push more air with more pressure at lower rpm-s allowing to mask inefficiencies on engine part or thin fan thickness. And inconsistent manufacturing quality can destroy whatever potential both design of blades and engine might have.

[Martinm210]

Martin: at the end probably simplest is to treat fans as some kind of black box with specific airflow/pressure/noise characteristics. Too many variables are at play there that can enhance or destroy performance/noise ratio. Good silent bearing & engine can allow fan to run faster with acceptable noise allowing in return to compensate sub par design of blades, good blade design can push more air with more pressure at lower rpm-s allowing to mask inefficiencies on engine part or thin fan thickness. And inconsistent manufacturing quality can destroy whatever potential both design of blades and engine might have.

Yeah, I'm just going to plug them in and see. No use in trying to guess...

[Martinm210]

Scythe K-Flex H

This one was sponsored by Hondacity in my earlier rounds

I hung onto this one because I thought it did better than I had recorded previously. It was a good thing I trusted my ear more than my old sound level meter, it did really well.

NOISE LEVEL
A bit better than average by a couple of dbA, really pretty good overall.

NOISE QUALITY
Very good, no resonance, motor ticks, or other unwanted motor noises. Generally good.

OVERALL
A very good fan all around. Not quite as low in noise level as the GTs, but it's a good strong fan with good noise quality and very capable at all RPMs with no problems. It also has a bit more top speed performance over the GT15, so a good scalable fan.

I'll give this one a thumbs up for it's large range and very good performance in both noise level and noise quality.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPW3N6Ti7Aw







COMPARED TO ALL FANS TESTED SO FAR

[Martinm210]

FYI,
Figured out what was going on with the RadioShack Amperage meter giving weird readings from batch 5 from the NZXT onward.

A case of user error..

I accidentally hit the select button somewhere between the AP-13 and the NZXT switching it over from DC amperage to AC amperage. It still gives me numbers, but they are wrong. If you look close enough at the video, you can see a little ~before the milliamp reading, this means AC milliamps mode.

While the amperage is of minimal importance, I need to fix that. I did a quick amperage only retest of the Noctua and KFlex,but I still need to fix the NZXT. Anyhow, disregard the amperage reading in those videos, they are wrong.

Unfortunately it means the 5 video I had completed after that are also no good for amperage....whoops! Everything else is ok from what I can see though.

I will watch that AC mode select button more closely...me and simple DC only meters get along better..

[Martinm210]

Got a few more done in batch 6, I may just go ahead and retest the last few from batch 5 since I've found that I not only left the video camera in SD, but also messed up the amperage meter settings.

Here is my check in test on batch 6, it looks ok, so I'll start processing these as time permits. Busy weekend though, gotta go out with the cub scouts to collect canned foods today...

Anyhow, this batch should be good...made sure the camera was in high def this time and the amperage meter is DC mode...

[penguins]

need more coffee? i was wondering when i saw that graph, wow that fan is really efficient.. keep up the good work

[Martinm210]

Noise Blocker M12-S3HS

Special thanks to SeeingRed for sponsoring this fan.

This fan has been on top on some of the open air type fan testing, so I was curious to see how it does on a radiator. It does very well, not quite to GTs in noise level, but really good noise quality.

NOISE LEVEL
Very good, about 1dbA lower than the yate medium across the board, and better than average amongst all fans tested.

NOISE QUALITY
Extremely good. Good smooth sound, no motor ticks, no resonance issues, fairly smooth air sound.

OVERALL
While not at the top for noise level it is very good, and the noise quality is really good regardless of the voltage applied. I'll give it a thumbs up for overall goodness.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5YfozTMKuc







COMPARED TO ALL FANS TESTED SO FAR

[SpuTnicK]

@Martin
Nice test results so far. Great job.
When will we see the result of San Ace fans' performance?

[Martinm210]

@Martin
Nice test results so far. Great job.
When will we see the result of San Ace fans' performance?

Thanks!
I've got the 25mm versions coming up next rendering the 9S1212H4011 now. I tested Vapors 38s in batch 5 but the amperage readings were bad, so I'm going to rest those, probably tomorrow morning. I can comforyably get about 6 fans done per batch. I was trying to test late at night 3-4am, but that was too much. I get up everyday at 5:00 any on the weekdays, so I'm going to keep doing the testing early on weekends. That should give me roughly 12 fans done per week to work on rendering. The actual test is pretty fast, its the video rendering, photos, and extracting of data to the charts that takes the most time.

Anyhow, the two 25mm versions should be up later today, and if testing goes per plan, the 38s later this week.

I really like the industrial qualities you get with these fans, but I'm not seeing anything jaw dropping in terms of sound level. The high speed H model would be the first 2500rpm capable fan that doesn't tick when undervolted though, that's good..

[Utnorris]

I hope you plan on testing the San Ace 38mm fans at 5v. I think that is where they really shine. I am also curious as to how the Pabst does. I tried it out and 7v was the lowest I could go on it, but man did move some air, not very quiet, but I guess that's the trade off.

Edit: Also, anyway to reorganize the list based on best performance either in noise or CFM?

[Vampiyer]

Having owned several San Ace fans, it's my belief that if any one of them challenges the GT, it'll be the 9S-M model only.

I don't own that one - this is just my prediction based on the other Sanyo Fans I've owned. The Silent series is the only one left to compete, and the M-speed model is the perfect match.

I don't think the undervolted 38mm San Ace fans have great sound quality. They're better than any other fan I've used simply because I cannot hear the tick with the case closed, but they're still not quite up to par with the GT.

When I want more power, however, the 38mm San Ace is king - and that's why I keep them.