Radiator frontal area chart

[NaeKuh]

So you are right because you have more posts and older account? :/
I waited for this argument.
Lets eot.

are u really trying to go head to head with me in thermo when it clearly shows u lack the knowledge in physics to argue with me and thermo?

do you honestly think everything i have said doesnt apply to thermo?
Do you think im really not that fair?? because its not me.. its thermo thats not fair...

WOW i cant believe you made me post again... now im really done.

[TeslaNick]

As a related query, can anyone recommend a good primer or discussion (book, website, etc?) on this sort of thing? I've found a lot of stuff scattered over the net, but it can be contradictory and jargon-y. Is there a book called something like, "Introduction to heat transfer and fluids and liquid-cooling applications" that I could pick up off of Amazon?

[defect9]

Naekuh, take the fan speed part out. I agree that anyone who believes different fans and speeds have no difference is silly, but this graph shouldn't be comparing different fans and fan speeds. hell, the graph clearly states surface area, not even performance.

anyone who would could compare a tarded fan to a good one, well, this chart ISNT SAYING THAT. I don't care what the OP said after that, I'm speaking for the chart. It should be renamed to frontal surface area, but that, in my view, is an easy mistake to make and can be easily fixed.

It's not the end of the world, this can be cleaned up, but for funks sake, you're expecting engineers in a market driven by shiny . thank the OP for making a chart of frontal surface area, offer ways to improve it without being loud and obnoxious (note: I'm not saying you're totally wrong), and stop expecting filet mignon from Denny's cooks.

So, to the OP, thank you for the chart. Consider renaming it to "frontal surface area (approximate)" to be more accurate, and lets let this thread get cleaned up.

[paulbagz]

Wow poor OP.

All you wanted to do was set out to make an easy to read graph oh how many fans can fit where based off rough surface area.

The whole OP was about surface area, nothing more.

Guess there will always be high horse riders that derail threads and try to make people out to be inferior.

Oh wells.

EDIT: Defect, just read your post as I made mine, summed up everything I was going to say lol

-PB

[PiLsY]

I think the point (and Naekuh's point if he doesn't mind me paraphrasing him) is that frontal area is almost completely irrelevant because there is no comparable core or fan across all size platforms.

In my own opinion it has its worth for answering the "will this cool my pc" threads we see all the time. If you're going into actual performance data then its irrelevant - but in that case you wouldn't be looking to use this as a source anyway. Like Defect9 said above there's not many engineers left. You dont need to know that much about anything you can buy off the shelf. Especially when its REALLY SHINY.

[Gamekiller]

People won't contribute to the forums if you treat them so badly. If you can't just kindly counter with facts and leave your ego out then you might want to refrain from posting.

Anyways, I've been looking for a reason to use this image for a little while.

[aerial]

I don't really feel offended, no hards feelings.
It is just misunderstanding, to take this graph purely as performance display, as several people before already mentioned.
At least somtimes discussion can be productive.

[subtec]

Magicool has 120/140/180 rads that have the same or similar cores.

The chart should really be labeled 'frontal area' IMO, as 'surface area' confuses the issue a bit since technically the surface area is all the heat dissipation area (i.e., all the fin surface area) added up, which obviously varies considerably with FPI and thickness.

There's a lot more to performance than comparing either frontal area or surface area, since e.g. tighter fins require considerably more air pressure, and fan performance in general, among other things. So I'm a bit skeptical as to the absolute value of the chart; at best, it might give you a ballpark of relative performance.

Also, re: mayhem's comment that deadzone area goes up with rad size - in absolute terms, of course, but not as a percentage. The ratio of deadzone to swept area stays the same. However, I can see it requiring a deeper shroud to fill out those deadzones with a bigger rad vs. a smaller one. So in practical use, a bigger rad is likely to have a larger effective deadzone (unless using a deeper shroud to compensate).

[skinnee]

I concur, surface area is not a good label.

However, the other thing I see here is that we took a simple, low-level comparison and complicated the out of it. Are the additional items brought up valid, yes. But look at the intent of the OP... simple look at the numbers as you scale in size, considering all factors the same. Are there a couple gross errors in the wording, maybe, but it doesn't change the scale that size follows.

Or, my little vacation has me too relaxed to go bat crazy over a chart.

eta: One thing is for sure, I need to get use to the swear filter again.

[Boulard83]

Im using a single 140mm rad on my rig and its doing a very good job with 2 Yates 140mm @ 1000rpm but im Push/pulling with shrouds both side ....

[Martinm210]

[Waterlogged]

I also completely disagree with the topic title. When I see "surface area" I think frontal area + thickness + fins (basically everything that's going to have a significant impact on dissipating heat) and this is far, far from that.

[paulbagz]

Wouldn't that be more the radiators "volume" per se?

Isn't Area simply LxW?

-PB

[aerial]

Well, if rad is thicker or has different fpi, surface area changes (combined area where heat exchange occurs).
But if you take same class of rads, same build techology, same fpi and same thickness (and again this is not just theory, there is plenty of such rads, and such choice is pretty common, people pick rads within same brand and type very often), only difference will be that larger rad has lower restriction, and 120mm quality fans most likely have edge over larger fans, but it is also an assumption, based on fact that other fans hasn't been tested. But as even tests linked in this thread show, there are differences between fans, but they are not that significant. Still surface area (and given that rads are same class) also frontal area is most important factor that determins performance.
I will change surface -> frontal some time soon.

[Waterlogged]

Wouldn't that be more the radiators "volume" per se?

Isn't Area simply LxW?

-PB

Volume (in this context), would be what capacity it could hold in water, which isn't anywhere near the same amount as the surface area of the rad.

"Area" (as a term), is very generic, it can be both 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional. When you say surface area, it implies the area that the air will flow over, while frontal area implies that only the front part of the surface area is taken into consideration.

[paulbagz]

Volume (in this context), would be what capacity it could hold in water, which isn't anywhere near the same amount as the surface area of the rad.

"Area" (as a term), is very generic, it can be both 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional. When you say surface area, it implies the area that the air will flow over, while frontal area implies that only the front part of the surface area is taken into consideration.

Thanks, that's the part I wanted clarification on.

-PB

[aerial]

I edited first post, thanks for all tips, now should be more clear.

[Chainlink]

The graph gives off the wrong impression because it has the title 'per type/amount of fans'. Wouldn't the title be better as 'per cross section'? But it makes no claims about performance, it is only a visual representation of LxW based on the different radiator sizes available on the market today.

However, I don't necessarily think we need a graph like this, everyone knows more rad = more cooling capacity. And there's the point that you can't compare different sized cross sections because of the poor fan performance over 120mm. So I think to most people the graph is basically useless. It points out the obvious and at the same time could be misleading to those who don't fully understand the complexities of watercooling or 'thermo'.

Is anyone going to fry their equipment because of the OP? Doubtful. Could they spend $1K+ on cooling hardware and end up dissapointed? Probably. So I guess the big question is the graph helpful? I'd say no.

[aerial]

The fan number reduction is main point of going for wider radiators there. There are people who actually want to reduce amount of fans they use in their setups.
Otherwise there would be no point to ever move from 120mm rads, if you could just add more of them to expand your loop. That scales up nicely, except one little thing - you end up with so many "little" fans, you can forget about silence.

But if it is only about performance, I agree there is no point to risk anything and try out larger fans, if you can just stick to confirmed solution (120mm rad + best known fans).
Unless you have no room for it in your case. There are for example cases that fit either a 360 rad on top panel OR a 2x180 one. You can't use two 360 instead of one 2x180. In such situation even performance wise, best GT push and pull combo can't match superior surface of 180mm rad.
Wider rads use space of conventional cases more optimally, they fill the case almost entirely, while a 120mm leaves plenty of space on both sides. They are the solution how to squeeze more into the same case, which at some point becomes better despite disadvantages of that approach (fans).

[Church]

aerial: smaller fan number is not panacea (percieved double loudness by human ear is 10dB, but doubling similar fan noise source count usually increases loudness by about 3db .. resulting in that you need ~9x (1x2(+3db)x2(+3db)x2(+3db)+something) fans for them to be twice as loud as single fan, and usually if smaller number of fans is gained by scaling up their size, then noise gains get more then offset by worse available alternatives of bigger fans and by much worse pressure characteristics of bigger fans (for comparable noise bigger fans usually have to turn at slower rpm-s, but if flow scales up linear with rpm increase, pressure - exponentially, + you get much more open area between fan blades, not helping pressure either.).
So imho 140mm fans should be about the maximum one should go, but best efficiency wise rad design = wide rads, like for 200, 180 or 140 (if it needs to fit in 5.25 bay enclosure) fans, but with integrated shrouds intended for use of 120/140mm fans. BTW, with such design one can easily encrease even more fins surface area with higher FPI with rad's airflow resistance staying about the same - as fan has to get air through/over higher frontal area, overall resistance decreases. Increasing frontal area to decrease airflow resistance is common design feature in industrial dust filters, for example.

[Waterlogged]

The problem I see here is the argument about reducing fan count by using larger fans/rads (140, 180, etc.). The rub for me is...GT's, MartinM proved that the GT AP-15 is still a better dBA to CFM performer than any 140mm fan (Link). If your worried about noise from the extra fans, just go with a slower GT model like AP-13 or AP-14. Don't get me wrong, more frontal area is still more frontal area. . .that I'll be cooling with GT's. After all, every rad on the market today (and possibly in the foreseeable future) will still have it's performance directly tied to how much air you can force through it, and I prefer to do it quietly as possible.

[gmat]

My GT's have a noticeable motor whine at intermediate speeds, which is highly annoying when they are on an automatic controller. I also have 140mm fans and those produce a lot less motor noise, just a whoosh sound.
The sound nature & quality is as important as the dBA measurement...

[Waterlogged]

My GT's have a noticeable motor whine at intermediate speeds, which is highly annoying when they are on an automatic controller. I also have 140mm fans and those produce a lot less motor noise, just a whoosh sound.
The sound nature & quality is as important as the dBA measurement...

Then you should step down to the next slowest GT. I have a build in progress that will use 2 ap-13's for this very reason, I'd also like to get my hands on a few ap-12's but they seem to have been "erased" from the Nidec PDF and practically every shop in North America. . .in fact, I think I just bought the last 10 ap-13's P-Pc's had (will every have?), as those too have been "erased" from the PDF.

[defect9]

I think aquatuning.us is the only place you could find ap-12s in stock at this very moment

[Waterlogged]

I think aquatuning.us is the only place you could find ap-12s in stock at this very moment

...and I think I've made my feelings on them known loud and clear. (sig)