Fan Mini-Review: Fan Roundup 3 Begins

[Ar3s]

Gentle Typhoon must be by far the gayest name for a fan.

i agree 100%

[zepper]

@Vapor: what spec of the fan should tell us it's a good one? the RPM or the CFM?

Neither are a reliable guide. Depending on your application it will be some combination of CFM, static pressure, and noise (dBA). No one spec alone will do for any application.

.bh.
(not Vapor)

[emoners]

thanks zepper. i was trying to see if there was some sort of pattern in the specs.

[TedShred]

Sorry if this is too OT. And I tried searching for the answer to this, but couldn't find anything specifically mentioning #'s. What kind of static pressure numbers for fans are good? I'm trying to figure out whether those hot-looking 120mm aerocool turbines would be good for rad fans - on the box it reads "Static Pressure - 0.072 Inch-H20". (Also reads 89.39 cfm)

[inCore]

Don't get them. I have them and although they don't look too shabby, they perform badly.

With only them spinning there is no air moving around my radiator. I've now hooked up some old Antec Tricools pushing some air from the other side before I some time in the distant future decide to get some other fans. Temperatures dropped significantly straight away, Turbines are just case fans and in my opinion, anything more than that is asking too much.

At least they aren't loud. Just make sure you don't bang them against random inanimate objects whilst they're spinning, they're quite fragile and aren't that well made.

[Vapor]

@Vapor: what spec of the fan should tell us it's a good one? the RPM or the CFM?

Neither will say how good a fan is....but the RPM is the spec you should look at when considering fans.

A 3000RPM fan is a 3000RPM fan and a 2000RPM fan is a 2000RPM fan and a 1000RPM fan is a 1000RPM fan. That is, someone who wants the cooling performance of a fast fan won't simultaneously get the noise profile of a low speed fan.

There's maybe 10-15% wiggle room between good fans and bad fans. That is, a good fan might move 10-15% more air at comparable noise levels than 'meh' fans or be 10-15% quieter with the same amount of airflow. Granted, there are also some really bad fans that are just abysmal and should be avoided like the plague.

Of all the stats, I do feel static pressure and dBA are the two least useful stats on a spec sheet (other than maybe designed power). dBA has little consistency from fan to fan or manu to manu (for instance, many implement different background noise reduction algorithms....that's how they get the single digit numbers on some fans).

Me saying static pressure will probably have a lot of people saying "blasphemy!" but hear me out. I'll agree that other than RPM, it's probably the easiest to consistently measure across manufacturers (based on Martin's rig he put together without much issue). But the way it scales (proportional to the square of RPM), is deceiving to most observers (a 3000RPM fan has 2.25x the static pressure of a 2000RPM fan, but moves only 1.5x the amount of air). Also, it's the opposite end of the P-Q curve of CFM, the end we're least interested in. If we had the entire P-Q curve of fans, the upper 20-30% is what we care about most, and the fans that have the best static pressure stats might not have the best airflow at a given restriction on the opposite end of the curve--ESPECIALLY when noise is taken into account.

Sorry if this is too OT. And I tried searching for the answer to this, but couldn't find anything specifically mentioning #'s. What kind of static pressure numbers for fans are good? I'm trying to figure out whether those hot-looking 120mm aerocool turbines would be good for rad fans - on the box it reads "Static Pressure - 0.072 Inch-H20". (Also reads 89.39 cfm)

I tested the 1000RPM variant in my fan filter comparison....it was horrible for anything other than open air.

[TedShred]

Don't get them. I have them and although they don't look too shabby, they perform badly.

With only them spinning there is no air moving around my radiator. I've now hooked up some old Antec Tricools pushing some air from the other side before I some time in the distant future decide to get some other fans. Temperatures dropped significantly straight away, Turbines are just case fans and in my opinion, anything more than that is asking too much.

At least they aren't loud. Just make sure you don't bang them against random inanimate objects whilst they're spinning, they're quite fragile and aren't that well made.

Thanks for that

...
I tested the 1000RPM variant in my fan filter comparison....it was horrible for anything other than open air.

and again

[Blazing fire]

Gentle Typhoon must be by far the gayest name for a fan.

i agree 100%

contradiction eh?

if you want to find his reviews, why dont you use the search feature....

"fan roundup" almost EVERYTHING is there.

thank you for playing

I am not playing...

[fgw]

vapor,

did you already have a chance to get your hands on the new thermalright fans:

http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_pa...oduct_fan.html

they use FDB ADDA fans and should go away for about $13 each:

* TR-FDB-1000 - 1000 RPM ± 10%, 38.9 CFM airflow, 15.8 dB/A
* TR-FDB-1300 - 1300 RPM ± 10%, 50.0 CFM airflow, 24.1 dB/A
* TR-FDB-1600 - 1600 RPM ± 10%, 63.7 CFM airflow, 28.0 dB/A
* TR-FDB-2000 - 2000 RPM ± 10%, 80.5 CFM airflow, 38.0 dB/A

interesting to see how they compare to good old sflex...

[Vapor]

They're the same thing, just available at more (and different) RPMs.

[WaterFlex]

Thank you, VAPOR! You made a great job.

[echn111]

I was going to buy a few more of the excellent Scythe S-FLEX's, which is a solid and proven fan. But then heard that Scythe was releasing a "better" product. And while I do not care for made up manufacturer's specs in absolute terms, on the Scythe website the specs of both fans ranges do claim that the Gentle Typhoon 120mm fans produce more airflow at lower noise levels than the Scythe S-FLEX 120mm products.

Now in general, when a technical product is released by the same company, which also claims that it's new product is better than the old one, on average it usually is better. Does it apply to the new Scythe Gentle Typhoons? Or it just more made up marketing and their old product, the Scythe S-FLEX is still better?

I would also like to see a proper review of the Scythe Gentle Typhoon, and am especially interested in how they match up to the proven Scythe S-FLEX.

[jdubol]

@ echn111 ( in French, but the figures are international ) :

http://www.octeam.fr/tests/refroidis...812241282.html

[Blazing fire]

Translated

http://translate.google.com.sg/trans...ial%26hs%3De2p

After the successful launch of slipstream??? This test shows otherwise...

[YukonTrooper]

LOL! Mellow Hurricane? Tender Tornado?

[Vapor]

Slipstreams are selling well, indeed it was a successful launch

Solid fans for totally open airflow scenarios as well, like aircooling in a Mountain Mods case

There are better options for radiators and fan filters though

(oh, and the ratings are bogus at best)

No clue on these Gentle Typhoons, but comparing ratings between fans is useless unless they're from the same OEM/ODM and product line (even then, the usefulness of said ratings isn't much better than an RPM rating )

[Blazing fire]

Oh I see. I forget that you test it in a restrictive setup like a BIX + 2 fan filters. That's when the slipstream looses out.

[echn111]

Thanks for the info on the Scythe Gentle Typhoon's guys.

Initial results do seem positive as they seem to beat the slipsteams in terms of cooling power to noise. That is, if I'm reading that review correctly as I found their diagrams a bit confusing. They use the same colours for completely different fans and the legend that was provided was a bit strange...

I'm not sure exactly how they tested it and it's too bad they compare them against the slipstreams as there will be some restriction in my case (i.e. fan filters, air duct etc.) and the slipstreams aren't great under those conditions.

[Blazing fire]

I'll trust vapor's testing more than them. He testes the CFM on a ave-high restriction setup. They just check the temps, which is not really accurate if you ask me.

[Vapor]

The fact it doesn't really beat out the Slipstream on a hsf does not bode well for it :-/

Are these Nidecs?

[ex2cib]

The fact it doesn't really beat out the Slipstream on a hsf does not bode well for it :-/

Are these Nidecs?

wow, posting on the forums while on vacation, now that's a model admin

[Ar3s]

The fact it doesn't really beat out the Slipstream on a hsf does not bode well for it :-/

Are these Nidecs?

yup the gentle typhoons are from nidec.

[Blazing fire]

On the XSPC forum, they claim it starts at 2v because of nidec. How true is that?

[DragoonXX]

any word of a new batch of fans going to be tested in the semi near, not to distant future?

[Vapor]

Status is somewhere between "postponed indefinitely" and "canceled"

My curiosity has run out on fans I've mapped the performance of various fans that perform great at low RPM, high RPM, on a radiator, off a radiator, etc. A lot of fans aren't that good though and most of my testing time went toward proving that a fan was subpar--which is never fun. I also think my test results are overemphasized by readers, which is more frustrating and annoying than it sounds at first, but it's probably the biggest reason I don't continue to at least test fans that have promise of competing.