Titan Fenrir & CM Hyper 212 Plus: Direct Touch Revisited

[MikeC]

Noctua qualifies their fan as a high pressure designed for heatsinks product.

There is are simple compelling reasons to ignore all claims about airflow pressure in silent computing:

1) at the relevant <1000rpm speeds, the differences are not really measurable.

2) even if it is, it doesn't make enough of a difference in temperature... and a minor adjustment up or down in speed will instantly compensate for pressure differences.

For silent computing, you can simply forget about pressure: it is irrelevant.

[tc93]

I'm not sure what to think of this review, because pretty much every other review of the Titan Fenrir has it performing much better than the Hyper 212.

Plus this review started out with being unable to seat the heatsink correctly. Which might explain it?

But then again, that seems to be how everything is for hardware. One person will say just the opposite of what another reviewer said.

[ice_v]

I'm not sure what to think of this review, because pretty much every other review of the Titan Fenrir has it performing much better than the Hyper 212.

Plus this review started out with being unable to seat the heatsink correctly. Which might explain it?

But then again, that seems to be how everything is for hardware. One person will say just the opposite of what another reviewer said.

Quite true, but I think u shouldn't give too much credit to the possibly incorect positioning of the heatsink...it does not seem to influence in any negative way it's performance...great review by the way

[danimal]

cpu cooler testing isn't a controlled experiment, because every cpu cooler presents a different impedance to the fan.

maybe so, but let's hope that if a heat sink has more impedance, it also has tighter fin spacing, and therefore more surface area. That said, if you use the same fan every time (the control), than you can get a fairly accurate comparison as to which heat sinks are more efficient at dissipating heat!

i understand your point, but the lack of controls i'm referring to happened with the spcr mugen2 review, where we see that the nexus fan couldn't put out enough air pressure to take full advantage of the high-impedance mugen2.

slipstream: 9V 12 dBA 38°C 17 0.22
nexus: 7V 12 dBA 40°C 19 0.24
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article961-page5.html

at the same noise level, the slipstream cools better because it puts out more air pressure than the spcr reference nexus fan.

the question is, on a low-impedance cooler, will you get those same results?

[RoGuE]

the question is, on a low-impedance cooler, will you get those same results?

You present a good point here danimal, but just to play devil's advocate...

First of all, taking your example, we're talking about a 2C difference. Second of all, we're talking about 12 dB...not to be crass, but that's f*ckin quiet. Now, the fact that SPCR reviewers can take two different fans, run tests, and come out with a temp difference of 2C while maintaining the same noise level...we'll that's just plain awesome (if you consider the room temp and relative humidity can easily change slightly on a minute by minute basis).

I guess my point is, one can piss and moan about static pressure and fin design and whatnot, but at the end of the day, these two completely different *quiet* fans, perform about the same. Sure you may argue that when stacking up all the heatsinks against each other a couple degrees makes a difference, but what do you expect? SPCR to strap more and more fans on to each review? To me, that not only seems like a waste of time, it's just not necessary.

Now if you could show me a 6-10C difference in temperature, I would be more receptive to your argument. However, a 2C difference in a homemade anechoic chamber in Mike's basement doesn't justify raising fan questions. From what I remember, the room doesn't have any sophisticated climate control..

Hopefully I didn't stray too far off the argument at hand with this post...just trying to help justify SPCR's use of their particular control fan.


*edited for grammar

[KayDat]

i understand your point, but the lack of controls i'm referring to happened with the spcr mugen2 review, where we see that the nexus fan couldn't put out enough air pressure to take full advantage of the high-impedance mugen2.

I think Mike said it well before already: Yes, the Fenrir might very well outperform the 212+ if using a fan that can push more air, but the point of these tests are to see how they perform in a quiet computing environment. As you have proven yourself, you can read reviews anywhere else on the Internet if you just wanted to see how they perform with a faster fan.

[DAve_M]

I'm not sure what to think of this review, because pretty much every other review of the Titan Fenrir has it performing much better than the Hyper 212.

There is a good reason for that. The Fenrir is a bigger heatsink with more surface area. With a high speed fan it's going to out perform the 212+. But with low airflow, the Fenrir has too much resistance for the air to get through. It basically blocks the airflow and that's why the 212+ does much better.

[danimal]

I guess my point is, one can piss and moan about static pressure and fin design and whatnot, but at the end of the day, these two completely different *quiet* fans, perform about the same. Sure you may argue that when stacking up all the heatsinks against each other a couple degrees makes a difference, but what do you expect? SPCR to strap more and more fans on to each review?

but that's exactly what they did in the mugen2 review... spcr added a second fan, and it was a really good idea, because they were able to increase the cooling capacity significantly, without adding noise.

i think that we can agree that a couple of degrees of difference on a stock clock frequency is a meaningless test, which is progress of sorts

I'm not sure what to think of this review, because pretty much every other review of the Titan Fenrir has it performing much better than the Hyper 212.

the difference is that nobody else tests cpu coolers at the stock cpu frequency only, because it doesn't help you make a purchasing decision.

[doveman]

Anyone know what the difference between RR-B10-212P-GP http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php ... ry_id=3567 and RR-B10-212P-G1 http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php ... ry_id=3567 is?

I can see the latter is described as the "fan bracket version", but it doesn't seem to say what that actually means.

[lodestar]

I can see the latter is described as the "fan bracket version", but it doesn't seem to say what that actually means.

The version reviewed by SPCR was the "fan bracket version" (RR-B10-212P-G1). As far as I know very few of these appeared in the retail channel, and the one most retailers carried was the later release with two pairs of conventional wire fan clips (RR-B10-212P-GP). The statement in the review that "...there is a second version, the RR-B10-212P-GP that uses wire clips to mount the fan, and it does not come with a second set of wire clips..." is incorrect on this point.

[doveman]

Oh I see, so one came with fan brackets and the other with fan clips, but both came with two sets.

Thanks for clearing that up for me

[Moo]

A new version of the Fenrir, called Fenrir EVO, was released last year, using a different fan.
Anyone know how much of an improvement it is?