Quote Originally Posted by Vapor View Post
TBH, I really liked the CPU tests as well...shows just what the extra noise can gain (in that scenario at least...). It did mostly corroborate, but you're right, a few key parts were different. One key thing about it is that it took fan geometry into account....especially hub size and things like that. No doubt it's useful the more I think about it, but damn it's a PITA....lol.
Good points as well. Blade and Hub geometry are kinda actually the big question here. Some folks claim that pretty much any fan turning at X rpm wil move the same amount of air as any other same-size fan spinning at X rpm... even though thier own testing data doesn't really support that claim.

I "don't know" if there's any truth to that claim or not, so I'm interested in finding out . Some fans have really large hubs, reducing the blade size... some have really small hubs (like the Scythe 100mm fans), allowing for larger blade sizes and then some (like the SilenX) have blade wrapped up onto the hub. Then you get to the 'scooped' fan blades, like used on a Cooler Master Hyper Tx, with a rounded/knob hub-cap, then you have your Golfball blades (with a fairly large hub), etc.

Is that all 'just' marketing gimmicks? Or does it make some measureable difference (ie. if it makes it quieter or at least more pleasing, maybe I can run it faster for more cfm compared to some other fan, etc.).