120mm Fan Testing on an MCR120 Radiator Round 6

[ericFX1984]

I might be able to send over a jabtech D12SH-12, maybe

[Martinm210]

I might be able to send over a jabtech D12SH-12, maybe

You have PM..

[Martinm210]

Enermax Magma

Another fan sponsored by Shazza

Since Shazza let me pick the fans, this was just one of those grabs because of the batwing blades. I also noticed the blade is removable so I was curious how it did.

NOISE LEVEL
It was about 1-2 dbA higher than the yate medium.

NOISE QUALITY
Very good, no apparent or obvious motor noises, ticks, or resonance peaks.

EFFICIENCY
Not quite as efficient as the yate medium, but close and still kept it under 2W at 12V.

CFM per RPM
Not quite as good as the yate medium. Not sure the bat-wing style is the most efficient, but perhaps it gives it that smoother air sound.

OVERALL
I liked the smooth sound, but it was a higher noise level than the yate medium. Removable blade might come in handy for cleaning or adding lube to the bearing long term.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzGeL01YhmM

[Martinm210]

Gelid Silent 12

Special thanks to charliehorse55 for sponsoring this fan..

It's a PWM fan and seem to exhibit some odd behavior for start up. It did not want to start any earlier than 6V and both 6 and 7V were really low RPM, then suddenly a big hop up at 8V. In the end, I really only was able to produce good results for 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12V.

Those results were fairly similar to a Yate medium with about .5 to 1dBA higher noise level. Noise quality was ok, nothing major bad jumping out at me, but also nothing really special in smoothness.

I do like the looks of the white on black though. It also didn't quite scale as high in performance as the yate medium, so it's really geared for low/mid RPM duties.

Overall did ok, similar to a yate medium with lower top end RPM and PWM ability.

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

[Martinm210]

Also FYI,
I ordered a HWlabs SR1 140mm radiator for the 140mm fans radiator based testing. I went with it since it was a low density radiator that is also over width. I figured it would have very low pressure drop and have very little obstruction of the shroud edges. It also uses M4 screws which I much prefer over M3 that some of the others are using.

Anyhow, it should be on it's way..

I can probably test with the adapter first, but I wanted to have a radiator template in actual 140mm form as well.

[Creekin]

I chose the Enermax UCTB14 for the removable blade, for cleaning.
As well as its low speed specs 750rpm/45cfm/15dba suit my HWL SR1s 140/280/560

looking forward to your results, especially your thoughts on the SR1s built in shroud...
thanks for all your effort!

[antiacid]

it just sort of occurred to me that this project would look wonderful in a neat web page that lets you pit 2-3-4-5 (or more) fans of your choosing against each others and get Martin's comments on each sections (noise level, quality, etc) displayed in a neat table. Community effort time?

I'm not great with webdev but I'm pretty sure I could fit a ghetto version of that idea into an excel spreadsheet!

Anyway, good to hear about the 140mm rad, I am very curious about that myself.

[SpuTnicK]

@Martin
I have noticed you changed you ampere-meter to some Radioshack device which I can't i understand what its measures? Does not look like it show current drawn - big numbers.
Can you explain what is it?

[Martinm210]

@Martin
I have noticed you changed you ampere-meter to some Radioshack device which I can't i understand what its measures? Does not look like it show current drawn - big numbers.
Can you explain what is it?

Yes, it's still measuring current, only it measures in milliamps.

Typcally, you can assume amps except the decimal is on the far left .0001 Amps, but with the Gelid it actually autoranged and moved that point around because the 6 and 7V steps were very very low.

The Centech meter was only giving me .01Amp resolution so it was to blame for the roughness of the watts graph...just not enough resolution at these smaller currents. I did check in ok though, the first tests was done with the old centech meter, the new one with the radioshack meter. There was no change on the noise or CFMvsRPM chart, but a bit smoother curve on the watts vs CFM chart in the middle.

Minor meter change to get better current resolution is all.

[Martinm210]

I chose the Enermax UCTB14 for the removable blade, for cleaning.
As well as its low speed specs 750rpm/45cfm/15dba suit my HWL SR1s 140/280/560

looking forward to your results, especially your thoughts on the SR1s built in shroud...
thanks for all your effort!

Yeah, I liked the enermax. When ordering it I thought...great here is another gimmick "batwing blades", but it actually seems to soften the wind sound. I like the fan even though it turned out to have a higher noise level than the yate, very smooth sound.

it just sort of occurred to me that this project would look wonderful in a neat web page that lets you pit 2-3-4-5 (or more) fans of your choosing against each others and get Martin's comments on each sections (noise level, quality, etc) displayed in a neat table. Community effort time?

I'm not great with webdev but I'm pretty sure I could fit a ghetto version of that idea into an excel spreadsheet!

Anyway, good to hear about the 140mm rad, I am very curious about that myself.

I've already talked with Skinnee about publishing this on his site after I get a majority of the work done. I just didn't want to wait on sharing the info as it gets done. This is all community sponsored, so I figured I'd publish it working thread style then wrap it all into a webpage later. I'm also holding back a little on ordering some more fans, figured I'd wait until I'm closer to being done so I can maybe order some fans that appears to be doing well or if there is some sort of trend I find, I can test some more in a particular area. I can also make this available by excel no problem..

[Martinm210]

Yate Loon D12SL-12 from P.T.S.

This is a fan I had lying around for a while, bought at Petra's since they had the better higher quality yates.

Yates have been known as an exceptional value fan for some time, and I have used them on several builds myself.

The finish of the fan is generally a little low, the stickers are never on centered and it seems like the blades are not quite balance, but in the end they do really well from a noise/CFM perspective. They also do not come with wire sleeving or any accessories...not even a box. They are basically an OEM type package, fan only.

Regardless of the absent package, the fan does really well. No apparent undervolting issues, no harsh vibrations or motor ticks, and a relatively good sound. Perhaps not as smooth in sound as some other, but the noise level is low and consistent throughout the voltage range.

My results had this fan pretty well matching the medium speed model with perhaps slightly lower noise levels. I say perhaps because 1dBA is possibly within testing error and 3dBA is considered barely perceptible. Personally, I can't tell the difference between the SM and SL models at like performance levels.

Previously I had thought the SM was better than the SL, but with this I think they are the same.

This fan gets my "Amazing Value" thumbs up.. ...

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUZCgbR5jEk

[Martinm210]

Thermalright FDB-12-2000

Another fan sponsored by Shazza...thanks!!

This was my first Thermalright fan, and picked the higher speed model to get a feel.

PACKAGE
The packaging was very minimalist, basically the bare fan in a brown box. No sleeving on the wire, etc...but the build quality looks good. It has a larger fan motor similar to the Scythe S-flex series.

POSSIBLE DEFECTIVE FAN?
Upon initial testing, I suspect the sample I have may have a defect. It sounds like something is very slightly rubbing internally which is fairly obvious in the videos at lower volts. Regardless, I pressed on to complete the whole test.

NOISE LEVEL
Was slightly worse than the yate medium baseline fan at very low volts, but a fair amount better at the higher speed area. Noise level was overall pretty good.

NOISE QUALITY
Due to the possible defect rubbing sound, noise quality suffered quite a bit at the low end. It wasn't quite as obvious at higher speeds, but it was still there to some degree causing some roughness and irregularity to the sound.

EFFICIENCY
The fan is extremely energy efficient. It actually consumed less power than the yate medium while producing much more air flow. Very impressive and probably a good indicator of the low friction bearing within and possibly a good long life indicator as well.

RANGE
The fan has exceptional RPM range, from 570RPM at 4V to 2060 RPM at 12V, that's quite a range..

OVERALL
I would really like this fan if it wasn't for the rubbing noise (poor noise quality) I had with this sample and I'm curious if it's just this sample or common to them all (I don't know?). Obviously at 2000RPM the motor needs to be stout, and it does appear to have some optimizations at the higher speed area. I'd be curious to see how the lower RPM models do.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdeL9PFN5EE

[systemviper]

@Martinm210
As always very impressed with your methodology, i made a lot of choices over the years
based on your data and when i saw the thread, i wondered how you could and would
make it on point and understandable. Very well done,

I am very impressed with your bench setup = Top Notch

[Martinm210]

@Martinm210
As always very impressed with your methodology, i made a lot of choices over the years
based on your data and when i saw the thread, i wondered how you could and would
make it on point and understandable. Very well done,

I am very impressed with your bench setup = Top Notch

Thanks!

The fan testing has been a challenge for me. Seems like it has taken me up to this round 6 to finally have some level of comfort with the charted results. Everything prior was a good learning experience..

[Martinm210]

Arctic Cooling F12

I bought this one myself, because it was cheap and I like the # of blades for pressure...I also never had an arctic cooling fan, so I wanted to try one out.

Turns out very promising, perhaps a yate loon/value fan contender costing only around $9 or so..

PACKAGING
Very minimalist, but they do have color printing on the little box. Also a little instruction manual, some case screws, and stickers. The wires do not come sleeved, but it does come with a daisy chain PWM plug. Apparently you can run these in series off of one PWM controller.

VALUE
I'm always on the hunt for value fans. Googling this fan brings up a cost of around $5-8, but I've seen it typically selling for $9 which is what I paid. So, it's not quite the same value as the $5-6 yates, but it is under the $10 mark. It's a good value.

WIRE GAUGE
If there was one thing I really don't like, it's the exceptionally thin wires. By far the lightest gauge wires I've seen on a fan, it's probably adequate for the current needs, but be careful...would be really easy to break if you tug too hard or shut it in a case door.

NOISE LEVEL
Was very good and perhaps very slightly better than the Yate medium. The test gave about 1dBA lower noise levels for the same performance CFM level as compared to the Yate.

NOISE QUALITY
Very good in most areas, but there were a couple of voltage points where it seems the fan blades created a low frequency pulsing type sound. But..outside of those couple of iffy spots the noise quality was very good. The higher number of blades seemed to really smooth out the fan chop and I never really heard any apparent motor type noises.

EFFICIENCY
Not very good, it actually consumed about 50% more power per CFM than the yate, this is probably due to the smaller motor and larger/greater # of fan blades.

MOTOR HUB SIZE
Just wanted to note this fan hub motor is actually smaller than most 25mm fans. This should be good for reducing fan hub dead spots.

CFM per RPM
Did very well, better than the yate medium by a bit.

OVERALL
I'm fairly impressed for the price. It's right up there with the yates & Zalman for being a good quality value fan. The PWM daisy chain feature would also be nice in some installations. My only real complaint with this fan is the tiny gauge wires.

I give it a thumbs up for value fan with smooth sound and better than yate looks

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XQVMutaETQ

[Church]

Regarding thermalright FDB fans i recall reading from Jordan's 120mm fan roundup, that yes, quality of these fans varies from fan to fan. Lotery/game of luck.

[penguins]

Also FYI,
I ordered a HWlabs SR1 140mm radiator for the 140mm fans radiator based testing. I went with it since it was a low density radiator that is also over width. I figured it would have very low pressure drop and have very little obstruction of the shroud edges. It also uses M4 screws which I much prefer over M3 that some of the others are using.

Anyhow, it should be on it's way..

I can probably test with the adapter first, but I wanted to have a radiator template in actual 140mm form as well.

you read my mind! i was thinking a couple hours ago after looking at a sr1 560.. boy i want one of those.. too bad martin doesn't have one to test fans yet!!!!

now i can sit back for the next 6 months and let you do the work... prolly still have to send you a fan or so to figure out which to get 4 of lol.

[Martinm210]

Regarding thermalright FDB fans i recall reading from Jordan's 120mm fan roundup, that yes, quality of these fans varies from fan to fan. Lotery/game of luck.

Good to know, I may order one of the lower speed models, seems like it would have been a good fan otherwise. By reading his review, he seemed to indicate the 2000 model was the worst and the 1300 was one of the better. I'll put the 1300 on my short list of possible fans I'll order later.

you read my mind! i was thinking a couple hours ago after looking at a sr1 560.. boy i want one of those.. too bad martin doesn't have one to test fans yet!!!!

now i can sit back for the next 6 months and let you do the work... prolly still have to send you a fan or so to figure out which to get 4 of lol.

I was on the fence on the 140 sized rad. Magicool makes a really low cost one that would probably be fine for testing, but they were OOS at the momemt where I was looking to place an order. I was looking really hard at the EK, but it's more narrow like the RS120 is which may obstruct the fan edges a little. Then I noticed the M3 screws which I've had nothing but trouble with in cross threading screws and that's just not something I want to fight when mounting many many fans. Sure I could drill it out and tap to M4, but I didn't want to bother. The SR1 is pretty expensive, but what the heck, it's really low density so that should be a good test case. I had some money in my fan fund thanks to some sponsors...so the SR it is.

But yeah, I am a bit short on 140mm fans, so I'll be looking to round up anything in a 140 pretty soon. I'll probably be ordering some as well, but I have a few in shipping right now highlighted in orange on the fan list.

[Martinm210]

NOCTUA P12

Special thanks to Masika for sponsoring this fan

I've tested and retested this fan a few times now on various test beds and this round on the MCR120 was it's worst yet. Not sure why, but the fan on this radiator resonated really bad at 12V and also a bit at 7V.

I've noticed a little resonating in my prior round of tests on the RS120, but it wasn't quite this strong.

Electrical efficiency and CFM/RPM is almost exactly the same as the yate medium. Noise level however was higher and noise quality roughly the same where resonance didn't occur, but much worse where I did have trouble.

Not a good test...I guess I expected more for the price and for it's high and dense blade count... The fan is also fairly limited in RPM range 840-1377 is all you get. On the bright side I do like the overall construction of the fan and packaging, the casting quality looks good and it feels well made.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD0_VRxtmhQ

[Utnorris]

Hey Martin,
If you need the old style San Ace fan or a Pabst fan, let me know, I have a few (something like 60 of them ) laying around I could send you.

[Church]

Martin: btw, can you add cfm/db lines of fan performance without rad on charts? It would be interesting to see, how much cfm what type of fan relatively looses. Probably would be good case for illustrating role of different fan blade shape/count/size.

[Martinm210]

Hey Martin,
If you need the old style San Ace fan or a Pabst fan, let me know, I have a few (something like 60 of them ) laying around I could send you.

Sent you a PM on OCN..that would be awesome, thanks!

Martin: btw, can you add cfm/db lines of fan performance without rad on charts? It would be interesting to see, how much cfm what type of fan relatively looses. Probably would be good case for illustrating role of different fan blade shape/count/size.

That's priority #2, first priority is rad based testing. 120mm fans first, then 140mm fans. Xbit and a few others have already done quite a bit of work on open air type testing, but I think this would provide some value, if nothing else a second test QC type check on my radiator based round.

I did create a case fan (no radiator) template, just haven't made it there yet.

Good luck on trying to determine performance based on characteristics or box specs though...every time I think I'm finding a generality..I test a fan that throws that off completely. About the only thing I have some feel for is high numbers of blades that sweep forward tend to produce smoother air flow type sound. I have no idea what to expect with the motors or bearings since you can't see the differences without taking the fans apart and the motor noise is almost more critical than the blade..

[Martinm210]

Coolink SWiF2 1201

Another fan sponsored by Shazza Very much appreciated

Never heard about this fan before, but I picked it out when Shazza gave me the option because I liked the higher number of blades and forward sweep. I think this is a good fan overall.

PACKAGE
This is more of your standard package and comes with some bright green rubber case mount nipples as well as case screws. The fan itself seems very well cast and constructed visually, and the wires are sleeved with heatshrink type tube. That's not as flexible as regular braided sleeving, but better than bare wires.

NOISE LEVEL
It was spot on the exact same level as the yate medium which is good.

NOISE QUALITY
The 11 bladed impeller is an improvement in sound quality over your typical 7 blade types. This tends to smooth out the air/wind type noises to more of a constant. I particularly liked the noise qualities of this fan at lower voltages. I did not notice any apparent motor noises or resonance issues throughout the voltage range

CFM per RPM
The 11 bladed impeller was a good gain per RPM over the yate medium and produced roughly the same CFM as the yate did at about 80 RPM lower speeds.

VALUE
Running around $15 a fan, this would be about average in value.

EFFICIENCY
Not as good as the yate medium, consumes roughly 50% more power per CFM.

OVERALL
In general the fan performed roughly the same noise level as the yate medium with slightly better sound quality. It was roughly similar to the Arctic Cooling F12, except it wasn't quite as low in noise level, but it was a little more consistent throughout the voltage range..

A better than average fan for an average price.

VIDEO LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W1QQRbTDJE

[Martinm210]

FYI, I'm throwing out my GT15. Tried testing it twice now in both batches and getting very different results. I simply think this fan is defective.

As a tester, this single fan has created me more headache by far than any other fan. For some undiscovered reason, it simply performs very differently by day.

I noticed in previous rounds that gave me very different results depending on the round. It performed anywhere from exceptional I mean beyond exceptional to only average or less than average. I had hoped it was all just my test rig and that there was some strange interaction with the old anemometer vane probe, so I've changed that. I also thought it could be a harmonic issue with the RS120...so I've changed that too.

I tested the Yate Loon D12SM12 AND the GT15 both in batch 1 and batch 2. The yate matched up almost perfectly +-.5dbA, while the GT gave two very different results(+-7dbA).

AND all this time, I thought "MOODS" were reserved for people...well...I think my GT15 has MOOD issues as well..

I still haven't figured out why, but this fan simply tests differently on different days. Perhaps it's a humidity thing, or temperature, or run time, mounting variable, or maybe I simply have a bit of dirt in the bearings that gets caught from time to time, or maybe I simply have a defective fan..

I do know that it uses actual ball bearings and in my own experiments with anemometer vane probes, the viscosity of the oil has a large effect on friction of those bearings. Also this fan has an extremely low torque motor so it spins with very little effort. Perhaps because this fan has sat on the shelf for a year plus, that the fan lube has settled or degraded in some way that makes it perform irregularly..

I've got an AP14 on it's way for sure, that I'll be testing, but this is what I have so far on the AP15. Test2 from Batch 1 didn't really show any harmonic spikes and performed exceptionally well. But Test 1 from Batch two, had a pretty big spike at 10V.

I guess I can accept some harmonic or variability in noise level, but I even have differences in power consumption and CFM per RPM and CFM per RPM which doesn't make ANY sense at all..

Maybe I have some sort of short or something going on here....I really can't make sense of WHY it tests so differently on different days...but it does.. Anyhow, I think I'm going to retire this fan, it is just too variable and odd.

We'll see if it's new AP14 brother behaves any differently. If the 14 performs consistently, I'll find a way to get another AP15 to test. The one I have now simply can't be trusted...

Anyhow, this is why I'm throwing this fan out. I simply can not pin down it's results. I'm going to assume something is wrong with it and seek another sample after trying out the lower models.

[Martinm210]

FYI,
Vapor is saving the day with another AP15 sample or two...

Whoohoo!

I'll plan on holding back my frustration (having ball peen hammer visions) until one more test new(and hopefully consistent) versus old (Whacky) GT15..