SPCR

Big thanks to SCPR, to Lawrance n Mike specially for your new roundup, really appreciate the time you guys use to bring us your expert testing.

Im really dispointed on the eloops, really was hopping they were great, having such a wonderful experience withe M12-S1 and PK-1, i was looking foward to the B12... but from your review i will just skip them.

I would really like if you guys could test some of the new Noctuas 120mm n 140mm.

Thanks again for your effort into bringing all this new testing to us,

Take care,

Maybe it's just me, but none of the MP3 links on the final page are working. They all lead to a "Page Not Found" error.

Thanks for the review!

GTs are still on top

@Abula: No need for Noctua, Silentpc only reviews good fans

Thanks !!!
Great review as usual !

[EDIT] : I wonder how the dust accumulates on the Noiseblocker blades...

ajkalan wrote:Maybe it's just me, but none of the MP3 links on the final page are working. They all lead to a "Page Not Found" error.

The sound files turned out to have been misplaced; they are working now.

Koldun wrote:@Abula: No need for Noctua, Silentpc only reviews good fans

Personally i dont think they are bad, just overpriced. But now specially since Scythe discontinued the PWM KamaFlex2, and its getting harder to get Scythe Slipstream PWM in the US, i need more options, more in pwm that can be dropped down to very low rpms like the sycthe. I would love to see Scythe release a PWM Gentle Typhoon (300-1400rpm would be ideal, same as Slipstream) , and to be widely available in the US... but that seems far, so i might resort to noctuas for pwm fans until then. I would like to see SPCR include some in the roundups to see how they do.

MikeC wrote:

ajkalan wrote:Maybe it's just me, but none of the MP3 links on the final page are working. They all lead to a "Page Not Found" error.

The sound files turned out to have been misplaced; they are working now.

Corsair Air SP120 Quiet Edition and SilverStone Air Penetrator AP123 are still broken

Lovely to see another roundup. Includes most of the fans I was curious about, too! Noctuas would be good to see for comparison's sake, but they have a deserved reputation as it is.

I'm a little surprised the Corsair fans didn't fare better after the hype, but then again that is just hype being hype. Overall the results felt a bit bland - as you say, the nicest-sounding ones did not have the best cooling performance. Then again, the absolute best may not be needed with today's TDPs well under 100 W and the heatsinks as efficient as ever (though past reviews indicate you can indeed have the best of both worlds).

Really appreciate the fan roundups. I realize they're a lot of work, but this is generally the most important part of building a quiet computer.

thanks for another review.

It has been some years, I still make my own.
I may share with spcr what I have done. I still need hefty. old Prescott 3400.
right now I have a bearing in front right behind the blade with a rubber spacer, some drilling on the backside to get a clip in...and the old stainless grille that was around as long as I can remember. The fan did not come with a bearing...old sliding shaft badly spaced.

I have learned , all those fans tested, they are all good. noise can be operated on. Reverse cooling also grabs frequency, and that may even quiet some of them.

my own is a smooth turbine...many many many hours.

we were tempted to cut away the flow straightener but decided to wait for SilverStone to offer a version without it.

Sweet merciful jebus, cut away that straightener! We could have a gem on our hands with some modification!

Also, 120mm is helpful and even necessary for some people, but so many others have moved on to 140mm+ fans.

Maybe this has been asked before, but I'd be really interested to see the same review done with a 120mm radiator. I'm sure the sound profiles of the fans would change, as well as their cooling ability. In theory this is a very quantifiable, controlled test, but (for me at least) I feel radiators would be more appropriate, as a lot of people are using AIO coolers now, not to mention the custom water cooling crowd.

Excellent review none-the-less. I've been wondering how the Noiseblockers and AP-123s compared for quite some time. Honestly I was very disappointed in Silverstone's performance here (hence my thoughts on the radiator). Great work, hugely appreciated.

Regarding radiators, I quote the latest such review on SPCR:

Despite this improvement over other watercoolers, the 240M fails to change our general opinion of such devices. Liquid coolers may be well-suited for performance enthusiasts who push their components to their limits and thus have to pair them with high airflow, high noise coolers, but if you're looking for quiet cooling, traditional heatsinks remain superior.

Since silence is the word, I think an efficient, widely-spaced heatsink is where it's at. Impedance testing is of interest, but the main application here is surely in low-impedance scenarios to begin with.

The be quiet! B12 fans are interesting - I'm wondering if they would be quieter if the small indentation where the "blades" connect to the outer ring was instead smooth? Remember, the outer parts of the fan are moving the fastest.

It would also be interesting to "see" the pattern of air flow that these fans provide. In theory, the air would be more "concentrated" at the outer edge of the blades since the outer ring prevents the air from "slipping" off the tip of the blade.

The caveat is that the blades are swept forward just as they are on most fans, whereas the outer ring would allow the blades to be swept back. The difference is not small - swept forward blades move the air toward the hub, where the velocities are reduced (because of smaller diameter); but swept back blades move the air toward the tips where the velocities are greater. Without the outer ring, swept back would be futile, but with the outer ring, swept back would be much better air flow, all else being equal.

So, I applaud the be quiet! engineers for trying a new concept, and I hop they continue to develop it. I suggest they try swept back blades and the outer face of the ring be smooth.

The Silverstone fan also has a very interesting design - the varied blade pitch is doing what it was intended to - it extends the idea of reducing harmonic reinforcement of the sound made by each blade. The reason most fans have an odd number of blades is that an even number would make much stronger harmonic sounds. In sound, having an odd number is good, and having a prime number is better. Even numbers all have a strong second harmonic, and even order harmonics are harsh sounding. Odd number spread out the harmonic peaks, so they don't reinforce each other, and they sound smoother.

What Silverstone needs to do is to use just 5 curved struts - the friction of the huge number of elements in the grill is the obvious reason that it doesn't cool as well as it should! And they might not need to vary the three types of blades quite as much? If the steepest angle blades are too aggressive, they won't move much air, and this is another reason why the fan doesn't move as much air, in all likelihood.

So, if the three blade angles are (from gentle to aggressive) say, 30 degrees, 35 degrees, and 40 degrees - they should try 30, 33, and 35 degrees instead; or 31, 35, and 37 degrees.

Fantastic review!! Thanks for SPRC hard work

Silverstone AP123 did impress me with great confidence. I guess my fan collection will add one sooner or later. Corsair indeed let me down ........ That said, I may not need to pay attention to fans for water-cooling radiator to begin with.

Koldun wrote:Thanks for the review!

GTs are still on top

@Abula: No need for Noctua, Silentpc only reviews good fans

GTs are hard to obtain atleast in Canada no one really sells the lower speed models.

NeilBlanchard wrote:The be quiet! B12 fans are interesting... So, I applaud the be quiet! engineers for trying a new concept...

The B12 eLoops are Noiseblocker, not "bequiet!" (God I hate the level of typographic arrogance in that brand name).

The bequiet! fans were the Silent Wings. I would have also liked to see the Shadow Wings. I wish more retailers imported this brand, it looks good.

Funny – I have the B12-PS and they are mostly good, albeit with "danger frequencies" where they can develop a tone (a possible side effect of their even-bladed design). Also, they are known to develop a TERRIBLE drone when in "pull" mode, so clearly they are subject to finicky issues of airflow – it is conceivable that in different circumstances they wouldn't sound as they did.

I do find that my M12-PS sounds better than the B12-PS, but the B12 had several advantages I couldn't ignore for my purposes: rated for horizontal mounting, modular cables, open corners.

At low RPM, in my soundproofed case, under the desk... neither is audible anyway.

the 6cm "extension" with the Corsair fans are actually voltage step-down adapters.

The B12-PS that I have sounds a lot more in line with gabedamien's, mine's most pretty good except for a few frequencies where it resonates, you put a finger on it and the vibration is very pronounced, the worst case seems to be right around 1,100 RPM, though they seem to be scattered all over its RPM range. With my fan's variation due to changes in temperature this works out to the fan occasionally "chirping" for lack of a better term. Can the pwm version really be so different or was this just not noticed in the review?

gabedamien wrote:

NeilBlanchard wrote:The be quiet! B12 fans are interesting... So, I applaud the be quiet! engineers for trying a new concept...

The B12 eLoops are Noiseblocker, not "bequiet!" (God I hate the level of typographic arrogance in that brand name).

Of course, my mistake.

johnniecache7 wrote:
GTs are hard to obtain atleast in Canada no one really sells the lower speed models.

I concur. I've spent hours finding a GT-1450 for myself last year. Not to mention 800/1150RPM variant. Btw, GT-1850 seemed to be very popular here.

And a good fan roundup! Thanks for SPCR!!

Phos wrote:The B12-PS that I have sounds a lot more in line with gabedamien's, mine's most pretty good except for a few frequencies where it resonates, you put a finger on it and the vibration is very pronounced, the worst case seems to be right around 1,100 RPM, though they seem to be scattered all over its RPM range. With my fan's variation due to changes in temperature this works out to the fan occasionally "chirping" for lack of a better term. Can the pwm version really be so different or was this just not noticed in the review?

This is something I'm really curious about, nothing in the B12 P2 spectrograph of 1100 RPM looks anything like what I'm hearing, can these fans really be so different?