Yate Loons are a big deal. In modern computers, we've shifted toward numerous large, quiet fans...so price becomes more noticeable in end-cost. And they're the least expensive fans you can buy, come in many varieties, and ultimately, pretty damned good. Actually...some are great and others suck.

In my testing: one thing became very clear, the one variable for determining quality is place of purchase. Petra's Tech Shop Yate Loons outperformed the others by quite a bit. And most importantly...they performed differently. They had different physical characteristics.

Simply, Petras has different Yates than everyone else.

Further investigation and chatting brought up this important fact: Petras is the only retailer to deal directly with Yate Loon. Other retailers (Jab-Tech, P-PCs, etc) unfortunately use a middle-man. This middle-man can apparently sell them fans at costs below what Yate Loon would sell to them, so the business choice was clear.

Why did Petras stick with Yate Loon directly? Not sure...but we should be glad they did. Their $4 Yate Loons are among the best-as-tested fans, competing and beating fans 2-6 times their price. Furthermore, they really don't have any 'bad' qualities other than being sleeve bearing (which isn't a bad thing for most people, but it makes a difference for some).

How are PTS fans different from non-PTS fans:

1) different voltage scaling. 12V may be similar...but at 5V the non-PTS fans spin noticeably slower (but aren't that much quieter, if at all). This could be a good thing, but it does sacrifice tunability in the mid-range.

2) different radiator performance. The fans may have identical blade structures, but put them both on a radiator and suddenly the non-PTS is sucking wind. PTS Yates have CFM-loss numbers comparable to most 38mm-thick fans. They're excellent on radiators.

3) different performance growth over time. 0-hour numbers are very similar. That is, take the out of the box, plug them in and test, and they appear to be the same. Run them both for 24-hours and retest and like most fans, the PTS Yates get 1-2% better. The non-PTS fans drop back nearly 10% and often develop odd noises. Ultimately, performance for the long-term is important, not performance right when you get them. PTS fans have a major advantage here.

4) external appearance. There are minute differences in external appearance, the 5xx are very noticeable, 6xx less so, and 7xx nearly or exactly identical. This means that new fans are no longer externally discernible. This is not a good thing...at least with the older fans you could pick them up, look at them, and know which one was the good one.

5) internal appearance. PTS has done a take-down of some of the various offerings and the internal differences were shocking. Nothing 'bad' necessarily, but it was clear they are very different fans.

So yeah, they're different fans, let's see some graphs and show the performance discrepancies.

Open Air:


Radiator:


CFM vs. CFM-loss%:

(hint for this graph: separate them into two separate groupings: black plastic fans and clear plastic fans...)

Okay...I think I've said enough on the subject and I'll let the numbers do the talking