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120mm Radiator Fan Roundup Part 2: Fan Harderby Dustin Sklavos on 10/22/2012 12:01 AM EST
81 Comments
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landerf - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkLook at enermax 120mm fans on newegg. Plenty of batwing fans and some pwm options. I'd look too at the non-batwing TB fans. Their noise-performance ratio seems even better. I replaced my gentle typhoons with them because I've decided I can't take the ball bearing noise.
Speaking of still no GTs? Surprised you don't have them laying around. Seems like everybody has one by now. Reply
Udit - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkCould you add the Gentle Typhoon 1850rpm to the test please? Reply
Naviblue - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI second this, where is the REAL King of the hill at on the charts? At least let us make a comparison to these other fans... Everyone knows Gentle Typhoons are benchmark! Reply
Earthmonger - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkYou two are kidding, right? That wouldn't be fair at all. This article is intended for tourists, not enthusiasts. Including an enthusiast fan like the GTs in this.. test.. would be plain silly. If you want real testing, this isn't the place for it. Hell, this test doesn't even mention bearing types. Reply
DarkStryke - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkYeah, don't include one of the best performers when you can hawk a load of mediocre overpriced junk instead!
Good reasoning there bud. Reply
lbeyak - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI must third this. From my research the Gentle Typhoons are basically the best 120 mm fans on the market. They are the ones I bought for my personal build. Reply
Sea Shadow - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkAmateurs, the Gentle Typhoon is child's play. If you want to see a real enthusiast fan go look up Delta or Panaflo. 100-250CFM+ with pressures ranging from 10-30mm+. I use a set of 3 Delta AFB 1212VHE fans for my watercooling loop (which readily double the specs of the "best" gentle typhoon). At 5 volts they are livable and have no trouble forcing the air through the entirety of my case, heatercore and all! Ahh, makes me miss the old days of overclocking my opty 165....
Anyways, I enjoyed the review. It is nice to see what the rest of the market is doing. Reply
iamkyle - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkThis man speaks the truth.
Panasonic and Delta Electronics have been putting fans in computers since all before most of you were born.
If they're good enough for IBM XT's, YOU CAN BET they are good enough for a modern rig. Reply
Earthmonger - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhen I think of the "best balance between thermal performance and acoustics", neither Panasonic nor Delta come to mind. Those are fans with an exclusive focus on performance, and a blatant disregard for acoustics.
This test may lack a lot of relevant data, but at least the GTs are in proper context here. Reply
lyeoh - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhaaat? Sorry I can't hear you! Reply
Sea Shadow - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkWhile I concede Delta's are loud (they can scream like a banshee), Panaflow and Papst still beat the GT any day of the week in all regards. Reply
sicofante - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - linkI hope you can back that up with some sources. (And it's Panaflo, without the last 'w'). Reply
jed22281 - Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - linkAbsolutely wrong, all the community tests say otherwise, all the major cooling enthusiast forums can't be wrong, whilst you're right.
Noise to perf ratio GT is better than the Panaflow or Pabst, I cant recall even one of their models being near the top in fact. Reply
jed22281 - Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - linkThe only amateur here is you, nidec-servo (the OEM of the gentle typhoons, not Scythe) is most certainly not an OEM for children...
If you'd spent any time doing some "real" research, you'd see that the GT's have been without Qn the dominant rad fan for at least 3yr now, that's only started to wane in recent mths, & even that's still up for debate.
Read all the major threads, in all the major cooling enthusiast communities, where very detailed comparos have occurred, & you'll quickly find that it's constantly at the top, alongside a small handful of others. Reply
jed22281 - Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - linkCorrection, it's Nidec & Nidec-Servo, I can't recall the difference between the two groups OTTOMH, I've done business with them in the past for industrial applications. Reply
Synomenon - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkAside from the color, is the Enermax Magma the same fan as the Enermax Cluster (white with white LEDs)? Reply
Impulses - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThe Cluster is a PWM, Magma's fixed 1500.
You should test some Noiseblockers sometime, not the flashiest (pretty plain fin design) but they've consistently been some of the best performers on Xbit's fan roundups. Reply
Impulses - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkHmm, the Cluster I saw reviewed elsewhere was a PWM anyway, apparently not the one Newegg carries tho. Reply
pdjblum - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThough I was very pleased with my magma's for a time, four of the five I bought within the past year has had to be replaced.
Recently picked up some cougars. I had my eye on them for quite some time. When yet another of my magma's started to make a disturbing noise, I bought some of these. So far, they are fantastic in at least two ways: noise, air movement. So far i like them better than the noctua's I recently purchased. Reply
garadante - Tuesday, August 19, 2014 - linkThough this is a reply to an absolutely ancient (in tech forum terms) post, I just wanted to share my experience with my 3 Magmas. I've had 3 running nearly 24/7 at full speed for almost 2 years with zero issues. The fans are very quiet too, nearly inaudible inside my Corsair 750D. The only noise that bothers me is some rattling that I haven't yet found the cause for, that goes away when I tap the case hard enough. Reply
Iketh - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
still didn't include a fan with winglets and nanoflux bearings like the one above... this fan is a real gem... Reply
prophet001 - Monday, October 22, 2012 - link"Yes, undoubtedly I have omitted someone's favorite fan." Reply
Iketh - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkyea i guess when people say things like this that everyone should shutup and never give recommendations... brainiac
what are you? a sheep? Reply
landerf - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkNo it's not. I was crazy about gelid fans for a brief time but I was just being an idiot. Don't let the price fool you, they under perform and make too much noise. Look at any fan roundup with them in it and you'll see how mediocre they are. Move along and your wallet will thank you. Reply
Naoe Shigen - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkLet me start off by saying that I'm a long-time reader of Anandtech and that I absolutely love the site (even when some of Anand's articles go over my head =P). This will be my first comment ever.
I have to say that this is a really disappointing review for at least two reasons:
1) Why test with a Corsair H80? It's a horrid little all-in-one solution whose radiator -- regardless of the fan used -- can't even match the top-ten air coolers.
2) How do you take the time to test a bunch of fans in order to determine which is the best for use with a radiator and *not* test at least one or two Gentle Typhoon variants? Or even some of the GELID offerings? If the article was done in a week and based upon the stock at a local Fry's or Microcenter, then fine. But when the article was written in two parts and across several months? No.
In general I have noticed that this is where Anandtech tends to let me down with the quality of its articles. I can only assume that Anandtech lacks contributors who have a serious interest in specific enthusiast genres like water-cooling. I would love to see the level of expertise and attention to detail that I have come to take for granted with SSD/CPU/Mobo articles applied to water-cooling, overclocking, and case reviews. Especially now that things like water-cooling and overclocking are easier and more mainstream than ever. But hey, maybe I'm crazy and I'm the only one that feels this way. It wouldn't be the first time... =D Reply
Naoe Shigen - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkTo put this in perspective, this is the caliber of review I would expect from 3dgameman.com. And he's one of the least informed owners of a hardware review website that I can think of. Second only to motherboards.org, which makes me wonder why anyone would take computer component advice from someone that looks and sounds like an ex-wrestler.
But I digress... Reply
FaaR - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkYou're missing the point of the review by complaining about the performance of the H80; it's not the performance of the cooler that is being reviewed, it's how fans used on a radiator perform that is of the matter here.
That certain air coolers perform better than the H80 really doesn't factor into it, as these air coolers aren't radiators.
CPU temperatures, while (maybe) higher than other cooling solutions, are merely supplied as an indicator of fan performance.
Also, in defense of the Corsair H80, it's probably one of the more common all-in-one radiator coolers out there, so people owning one can use this review as an easy indicator of what fan will work well with it. By the way, I am not one of them. I have a Noctua aircooler in my rig. Reply
Gasaraki88 - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkReally? You people want him to test every single fan on Newegg or something? Are you going to buy all those fans for him? If vendors don't give some to him to test or he doesn't have them on hand he's not testing them. Are you paying him to sit there for 2 months taking 100s of fans off and on the cooler just so you're happy that your brand of fan was in the article? Reply
sicofante - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - linkNo, but not including the most commonly praised radiator fans (the Gently Typhoons) doesn't seem reasonable at all. Either the writer doesn't know about them (which would be bad) or the review is biased for some obscure reason (which would be worse).
(To the one complaining about the chosen radiator: the H80 fares typically in the range of the top air coolers and it offers a much more safe mounting than those. If you ever want to ship a computer, don't even think of those top air coolers, unless you want to risk breaking your motherboard. And never forget to ship the fans separately or face finding them bouncing around your case throughout the trip... Ever wondered why factory overclocked systems use Asetek all-in-one watercoolers? Now you know.) Reply
zalbar - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - linkThat's all right - I'm a little disappointed in you, too.
1. Fans are being tested, here, not CPU coolers. In this context, the radiator of the CPU cooler is merely acting as a heat source. In order to properly test the fan, it needs to get hot, and quickly. Testing a fan with an overperforming cooler would be like testing an HSF at idle temps - you're not going to see much difference between them.
2. "Yes, undoubtedly I have omitted someone's favorite fan."
3. Aside from point 2, the work is very high quality, and it was free for you to read. How about a little sugar? Reply
soloburrito - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkSo yeah, there are a lot of fans you guys will obviously miss out on, but if given the opportunity, I wouldn't mind burning $10 or $15 to send a fan for you all to test straight from a distributor.
That's the easy part. Whether you have enough time to put dozens more fans through their proper paces is another issue entirely.
Just a thought. Reply
Adamantine - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI would like to point out that you at least have an understanding of what specs are important for fan performance and that you spent quite a bit of time doing the review. The fans in the test, don't really have a problem with the results, although the review is not perfect. Hopefully, you're going with more of a database approach and just haven't gotten to the most highly regarded fans for radiators. Also, you should consider going with the higher speed fans since higher speed fans have more versatility when combined with fan controller. There are a couple models out there that make weird or annoying noises when combined with a fan controller, although sometimes the same model at a lower speed doesn't have the noise.
Some of the highly regarded fans (most are based on Sony's fluid bearing):
Gentle Typhoon 1850
Scythe S-Flex
Gelid NFB
Cougar PWM 1500
Cougar 1200 Reply
DanNeely - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI'd also like to see at least one Yate-Loon fan. They're a popular budget model and seeing how they stack up with higher end fans would be beneficial. Reply
Juddog - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkCo-signed for Yate-Loon; all the fans in my quiet case are yate-loons and I love them, especially when tweaked with a fan-bay adapter.
One other thing to note for future fan reviews is that some fans seem to perform ok with fan bay adapters whereas others have issues. Reply
Ananke - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI have Yate-Loon. Bought on clearance from Microcenter three years ago for $2 each. That thing is amazing. Absolutely inaudible and OK airflow. In comparison to the 120 mm Yate-Loon, the Antec fans in this review at lowest speed are noisy. All the Cooler Masters I owned sound like jet - absolutely intolerable and tossed immediately.
I agree, for low noise, people should just buy the SONY fluid bearings based solutions. Reply
sicofante - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - linkRadiator fans don't need to just move air, they need a high air pressure. The Yate-Loons are great case fans, but not that great radiator fans. (Including them would prove that, but the point of a review like this is comparing radiator-friendly fans. Not discard those which aren't.) Reply
Streetwind - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkPoor Dustin, prodding the bees' nest again :D I think you can produce another 20 roundups like this and still not leave everyone happy. I'm saying this because I know a German reviewer who's so far looked at 130 different fans, only 120mm models, and he still doesn't have nearly all often-requested models either!
Just shows what a big deal noise and thermals are to enthusiasts, who sadly often forget that the specific ranking among fans is influenced more than anything else by the specific testing method, and that different fans are designed for different jobs (for example, your beQuiet rep was right - the Silentwings series was never really meant to sit on a radiator).
That said, I still thank you for the review and hope you'll do a few more despite the crazy comments they tend to induce. Like, have you seen Noiseblocker's new bionic loop fan? That might be worth testing just for the sheer "what the heck is this even" factor :D
As an aside, some of the European brand fans seem to cost more than two times as much in the US, even after adjusting for currency conversion, if they can be found at all. I can only assume it's the same the other way around (for example, we don't get Rosewill fans at all over here). It's really a bit of a shame. Reply
DanNeely - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkGot a link to his reviews? Reply
Finally - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkTHIS is the German site you mentioned:
I personally prefer Enermax T.B. Silence.
It's extraordinarily quiet and I can plaster my whole PC with 3 of them for just 18€. Reply
DanNeely - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThanks. Am I overlooking it, or this reviewer only looking at noise levels and not cooling performance? Reply
Finally - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkHere is the latest Fan roundup (number sixteen!) of Summer 2012: http://www.orthy.de/2012/07/354/
I found the cooling performance to be irrelevant.
As long as you have 3 fans in your case (1 for the CPU, 1 at the front and 1 in the back), temperatures tend to stay in the green all the time.
Sure, I could crank them all up to max RPM, but the few extra degrees I would gain are not worth the increase in noise... Reply
DanNeely - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThe main reason for water cooling instead of using an air cooler is to push your CPU to near the redline. In that area a few degrees of additional cooling do matter. Reply
Finally - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkYou are preaching to the wrong crowd. I like my PC undervolted, cool and QUIET. Reply
TeXWiller - Monday, October 22, 2012 - link<quote>some of the European brand fans seem to cost more than two times as much in the US</quote>Those Noctua fans are expensive everywhere. Of course, add the VAT to the prices in Europe. Noctua promises really high MTBF numbers and long waranties compared to most other manufacturers. I personally have been using those lower end Papst fans for some time already. A fan with 80000 hour MTBF is apparently more durable than a hard drive with 800000 hour MTBF. ;) Reply
tty4 - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThe prices in Europe usually include taxes, the Noctua is ~18EUR online (in Germany), which is about 24USD, which already includes 20% sales tax. So the price in the US should be more like 20USD, while is seems to be 30USD, which is a rather large price difference. Reply
DanNeely - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkInstead of trying to match up noise/performance numbers from two bar graphs could you do a noise vs temperature scatterplot? Reply
maximumGPU - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI second that, It would be so much more useful! Reply
Dustin Sklavos - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThat...is a really good idea...and I'm ashamed of myself for not having thought of it. Not for this review (I'm seriously backlogged and we have a boatload of stuff coming in), but that's exactly what I've been looking for for my case reviews. Reply
DanNeely - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkAre the numbers available in textual form anywhere? I'd like to throw them into a spreadsheet to get the plot myself; but would prefer not to have to type them in manually. Reply
DanNeely - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkOk, I typed everything into Excel; and after the usual inordinate amount of fighting (to include a detour fighting with Google's spreadsheet too) managed to get a temperature vs noise plot. I'm not really happy about its legability, but with most of the points packed into a fairly narrow area of the graph it's really not practical to try and put labels next to each point.
If anyone wants to try and make a better chart, here's the raw data too:
http://orthogonaltonormal.com/midden/fans.xlsx Reply
Conficio - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkFirst thanks for the informative review!
I second that, Google chart tools - https://developers.google.com/chart/ - offers an easy way to present some good graphs. Reply
7amood - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkfinally, a simplified fan roundup review... THANK YOU! Reply
Maxal - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkHow about putting results in chart, with Temp and Noise on X/Y axis? Reply
arthur449 - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkThanks for the Die Hard 2: Die Harder reference. It brought a smile to my face. Reply
toyotabedzrock - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI have had horrible luck with fans. They all go bad in a year.
Even expensive ones. Reply
Finally - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkTry Enermax T.B. Silence.
Excellent price, very quiet and even IF they should fail after only 1 year, you have just "lost" 6€.
Here a link to put my recommendation in perspective: http://kdb.orthy.de/index.php?tablename=Luefter&am... Reply
Udit - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkIt's just a request ... please add scythe gt-1850 & glidestream 120 ... I have 4 gt-1850 on my h100 & really wanna change them Reply
scmikes - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkWe all realize that it is impossible to review all rad fans. I would like to add a vote for the 109R1212H1011 120mm X 38mm from Sans Ace. They have worked great in my setups.
Take care, and keep up the good work Reply
Runamok81 - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkDustin, you'll never make everyone happy, but I'm glad Anandtech is making the effort. Props to Dustin for listening to the comment-ers and revisiting this fan round up! Bravo Reply
Purpose - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkFour years ago I bought 12 Enermax Magma UC-MA12's.
Within a year of 24/7 use all but four were broken.
My #1 cautionary recommendation for Magma fans is DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, try to pop the blades off for cleaning. Of the 8 broken fans, half of them broke because when attempting to remove the blades, the entire motor assembly separated from the PCB, or the PCB came up with the fan blades.
They do provide good performance at good noise levels...
I'm wondering why the all-star radiator fan is being omitted. It's a really huge failure to not include the Gentle Typhoon AP-15 so that we can get an apples to apples performance comparison against your data.
You talk about finding the 'outlier' but the one fan that's actually KNOWN to be *THE* outlier isn't present in your testing...
Especially since I switched to GT's and know from experience that the difference between them and the magma is NIGHT AND DAY. Top that off with the fact that you can get them for ~15 a pop... That's only 2 bucks more for the *BEST* performing fan out there.
Swing and a miss. Reply
xxtypersxx - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkAdd me to the list of users baffled by the omission of GentleTyphoon fans from the testing. This is like excluding a Jeep Wrangler from an off roader comparison. Reply
scook9 - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkWhen I switched to water cooling, like any other good geek, I did an obsessive amount of research and reading online to find the best solution. Time and time again, I ended up with the same recommendation - the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 rpm (AP-15) model. I have about 10 of these in my house now and use them on everything (HTPC, server, desktop, laptop cooler). They are expensive fans but they will also last a LONG time while performing very well.
You may not need to do a 3rd roundup, just a 1 page one-off for this fan to satisfy the masses :D Reply
Slyne - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkDustin,
I can't be bothered to chek all the fans but, at least in the case of the Scyte Slipstream and Nexus RealSilent, those are case fans, not CPU fans. It's pointless to include them in this test.
And I second others in stating that if you're interested in sufficently powerful yet almost silent CPU fans, you may want to check the Gentle Typhoon and Noiseblocker. Reply
khanov - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I can't be bothered to chek all the fans but, at least in the case of the Scyte Slipstream and Nexus RealSilent, those are case fans, not CPU fans. It's pointless to include them in this test.
And I second others in stating that if you're interested in sufficently powerful yet almost silent CPU fans, you may want to check the Gentle Typhoon and Noiseblocker.
This exactly. After doing much research earlier this year I bought 2x gentle typhoon's and 2x Noiseblocker NB-Multiframe M12-P fans to add to my collection of Noctua's and other fans such as the excellent TR-TY140's.
After testing all of them the M12-P's stayed on my overclocked i7-3820 doing push/pull on a TRUE 120 heatsink. They are the business, quiet and powerful. Gentle typhoon's ran a close 2nd and are great fans also.
The fact that you don't include two of the best fans around for heatsink use seems odd to me. Looking forward to part 3 =) Reply
BlueReason - Monday, October 22, 2012 - link"Corsair's solutions"
Really? It's a fan. Reconsider your use of the word "solution" as a replacement for everything. Sometimes it makes sense, but often it's just a silly fad word that has gotten out of control. Reply
Streetwind - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkhen you are writing a longer text, it is considered good form to occasionally replace often-repeating words with substitutions to improve the reading flow. If every sentence had the word "fan" in it, you'd eventually get dizzy. It's like starting every sentence in a story with "Then", that's just a no-go. Reply
Hulk - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI think it would be helpful to isolate fan performance.
When reviewing cooling fans how about connecting each fan to be tested to a variable speed controller and set the speed of the fan to a predetermined cfm so that the fans can be evaluated on a level playing field. This way noise can be evaluated in an even playing field.
In the same manner speed can be increased/decreased to a predefined level and cfm and be measured.
Because in the end what we're really trying to determine is which fan moves the most air while being the most quiet while doing it.
Or, if you won't want to deal with cfm measurements, just load the test bed and increase/decrease the fan speed until the temperature is at a predetermined level. Then measure the noise. Reply
JonnyDough - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkNo mention that CoolerMaster's Turbine is based on the compressor section of a turbofan jet engine? Hmm. Reply
nianiania - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkYou're testing the cooling capacity of fans for a radiator, in an environment this type of solution WILL NEVER BE USED IN. Broken right from the start. If someone's investing 60-120$ in a water cooler, the chances they're building an HTPC without a graphics card in the system are slim to none.
This should have at least a 650 or 660 in the box to get a more real-world result. It's not often you let us down Anandtech, but this one is a pretty obvious failing on your part. Reply
gcor - Monday, October 22, 2012 - linkI would quite like to know how many amps each of the fans actually draw, as it has been my experience that the spec sheets frequently list a value that is not accurate. In future reviews/round ups, would it be possible to measure and list the actual amps drawn please? Reply
Samus - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkFans are entirely subjective outside of these thorough AT tests. Obviously most fans won't be reviewed here (every fan in every single one of my workstations is NOT reviewed but I am happy with all of them)
But one thing is for certain. Using a non-PWM fan is nonsense these days. Constant RPM fans spend most of their life needlessly consuming power, producing noise, and increasing dust. Reply
Impulses - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkPlenty of mobo's allow adjusting the voltage for non-PWM fans in order to adjust their speed... I think most boards only have one or two PWM headers and 2-4 voltage adjusted headers no? Not nearly as many people with fan controllers and rheobus as people with mobos equipped to do the fame thing already... It's more of a personal choice/individual setup kinda thing. Reply
Mr. Pedantic - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkNo GTs, no Panaflos, no Deltas. You're not really testing any of the fans that I would feel confident in buying as radiator fans, and because you haven't, I STILL don't feel comfortable buying any of the fans in this review. Reply
Strulf - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - linkCould you do a test with 120mm slim fans (12mm height instead of 25mm)? That'd be cool since I will need slim fans for my new ultra compact enclosure. Reply
Occasional Visitor - Friday, October 26, 2012 - linkThe Sickle Flow fan is not advertised primarily for radiator cooling. This is an excerpt from the official CM website about the features of that fan, verbatim:
"Silent operation as an excellent choice for case cooling"
It says "..excellent choice for case cooling", not for radiator cooling. Even the sample photos published over there show it is paired with an air cooler, which doesn't have the exact design as a typical liquid radiator.
Well, to be fair, maybe some sellers are 'raving how fantastic' its performance is when paired up with a radiator just to sell it, or maybe on the packaging it is written otherwise??
Anyhow, what i don't understand is, why all the negative/abrasive remarks were made about the sickle flow fan, and also cooler master for that matter, since the previous review and in this updated one. I believe a good technical review like this roundup should always remain free from unnecessary personal preferences with accompanying harsh words against certain brand/product which serves no purpose but just to stir up some needless dust. A good technical review should generally encourage positive reaction from the readers which will lead to a healthy further discussion on the subject.
Nevertheless, tq for technical analysis, data and effort...sure it did bring light to certain areas of my knowledge on pc cooling. Reply
coolhund - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - linkThe bearing is just genius. I have been running 4 of them for 4 years at least 16/7 now and they are still completely free of mechanical noise as on the first day. Additionally I have bought over 25 of them for other computers and they all still run perfectly.
Dozens of others have broke in that time frame, even the very expensive Noiseblockers.
When I get a fan with conventional bearing that cant be changed to an Enermax fan, I always have a bad feeling. Like in January this year I bought a new CPU cooler with integrated fan. It made a slight bearing noise from the start, nothing unusual for conventional fans, but I still felt bad about it. And guess what, after 3 months it started getting louder and louder and now its unbearable. I guess I will now buy an 80mm Enermax and just glue it in instead.
It really sucks that they dont make smaller ones than 80mm or thin versions. :(
For some reason I dont think Enermax even realizes what awesome fans they build, since the variety isnt that huge. Reply
coolhund - Sunday, October 28, 2012 - linkThe bearing is just genius. I have been running 4 of them for 4 years at least 16/7 now and they are still completely free of mechanical noise as on the first day. Additionally I have bought over 25 of them for other computers and they all still run perfectly.
Dozens of others have broke in that time frame, even the very expensive Noiseblockers.
When I get a fan with conventional bearing that cant be changed to an Enermax fan, I always have a bad feeling. Like in January this year I bought a new CPU cooler with integrated fan. It made a slight bearing noise from the start, nothing unusual for conventional fans, but I still felt bad about it. And guess what, after 3 months it started getting louder and louder and now its unbearable. I guess I will now buy an 80mm Enermax and just glue it in instead.
It really sucks that they dont make smaller ones than 80mm or thin versions. :(
For some reason I dont think Enermax even realizes what awesome fans they build, since the variety isnt that huge. Reply
Daggarhawk - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - linknote on idiom use. the phrase refers to unpolished diamonds. diamonds in a qualitative state called rough, not diamonds in a place called "the rough." Reply
nleksan - Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - linkWhile I am not going to straight out request that you test anything, I just wanted to point out two (well, three, errr... 2 and a half?) fans that I have found to be absolutely unbeatable for price:performance on radiators, or even as powerful case fans. Granted, they are "performance enthusiast" fans, not "quiet PC enthusiast" fans, but I have yet to find anything that even comes close...
First, for 120mm Radiators: the Koolance 120x25mm 2600rpm Fan. Rated for a, quite honestly conservative, 107.4cfm and 5.4mmH2O, this fan uses double-ball bearings for its motor and costs just $7 a piece.
If you have the room and would prefer even more static pressure/airflow, the exact same fan is available in the thicker 120x38mm form factor, with steeper blades as one would expect, producing 118.3cfm and 6.5mmH2O static pressure at the same 2600rpm (same motor, dual ball bearings). Also, same price!
Both of these fans have outperformed everything outside of the high-speed Delta/San-Ace fans that I've tried, using an Alphacool NeXXos UT60 240 with push-pull, and produced a 2.1C lower Delta-T than four equally-priced Scythe Ultra Kaze 3000rpm fans that use junky sleeve bearings and are not only significantly louder, they don't undervolt anywhere close to as well as the Koolance fans do. Running them at 50% via BitFenix Hydra Pro fan controller, with all four fans on one channel, they are inaudible and still outperform most fans cranked to full. Even when at their full 2600rpm they are NOT "loud", there is simply a "whoosh" of air that is noticeable but far from irritating.
For 140mm Radiators: the Bgears B-Blasters 140mm 1800rpm Fan. Rated at 103cfm and 3.5mmH2O, it is the single highest static pressure fan south of $60, well south in fact as it costs just $9-12 depending on the retailer. Like the Koolance twins, Bgears employed dual ball bearings: a smart move knowing that most radiators are mounted horizontally, and how big a role static pressure plays in liquid cooling fans. I have 6 of these in push-pull on an EX420 and I have yet to find anything that can come close to their performance, with the 2nd place fan not only being quite a bit louder, much worse at undervolting (well, the Bgears is in fact EXCELLENT anywhere from 50-100%, although it is almost completely silent at 80% and below!), and resulted in a Delta-T of a full 2C higher. Compared to 6 Gentle Typhoons, specifically the 1850rpm models (AP-15's), which were setup identically except for the use of the (ironically?) Bgears 120mm-to-140mm fan adapters. This is important to note because these are not exactly shallow adapters, and I have seen a significant "shroud effect" from many fans, either using 120's on a 140 rad or vice-versa.
Still, even at full speed, and with the benefits of their shrouds, the AP-15's were at a disadvantage to the Bgears by a consistent 2.2C.
A few runners-up for "best fans for the money for radiators", in my opinion:
- XSPC 120mm 2000rpm "Xinrullian" Fans $6-8/ea
- Akasa Viper 120/140 PWM Fans $11-16/ea
- Rosewill Hyperborea 120/140 Fans $7-9/ea *Note: These are in fact re-branded Akasa fans*
- Yate Loon D12SM/D12SH/D14SM 120/140 Fans $5-8/ea
- Scythe Ultra Kaze 120x38 2Krpm/3Krpm $9-13/ea *LOUD*
I tested using the following:
3930K @ 4.4Ghz with Swiftech Apogee HD White CPU Block
Rampage 4 Extreme with Active VRM Cooling
16GB G.Skill DDR3-2133cl9 @ 2400 9-11-10-30 with 2x RAM Coolers ("RAM fans")
EVGA GTX670FTW 2GB @ 1380core/7920mem w HeatKiller GTX680 "Hole Edition" Block+Backplate
Samsung 830 256GB SSD
XSPC EX420 Radiator
Alphacool NeXXos UT60 240 Radiator
2x Swiftech MCP35X PWM Pumps at 20%, 35%, 50%, and 100% (above 50% the speed doesn't change, but for completeness)
BitFenix Hydra Pro Fan Controller
3x Laboratory-Grade Thermometers calibrated to within 0.001C (1 for ambient, other two for air in/water out)
1/2"x3/4" Tubing with Bitspower Compression Fittings
My testing was performed with an Ambient of 18.2-18.9C, and the processor was run at 4.4Ghz with HT enabled, all C-states disabled, minimum state set to 100%, and the GPU overclocked to a healthy 1380core/7920mem (it does not throttle at those clocks, ever).
I ran Intel Burn-In Test for 60min and looped 3dMark11 at the same time on a second display, both are 1920x1080 (2560x1600/1440 seemed to represent far too few people to be proper for testing, and the higher resolution certainly can affect things).
The Delta-T's are an average of minutes 10-50 over 10 runs (5 per fan set) with 2 hours between tests to regain it's normal idle d-T of 1.658C for the loop (normal full-load with my ten fans plus 5x122cfm case fans feeding them is a d-T of 4.925-5.1975C). Reply
SpoonLarry - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - linki would like to see the Akasa fans put to the test, they claim some pretty nice numbers, and they aren't too expensive. The two that I'm looking at are the AK-FN073 and the AK-FN072.
http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/pro... Reply
WireNazi - Tuesday, April 09, 2013 - linkOh my eye's!!!! That is some terrible wire management. Reply


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Trust Us: June's Movies and Books
With the last name Hemingway (as in, you know, Ernest, or Mariel, if you like), the writer's great-granddaughter Dree—a model, actress, and, this season, collaborator on Parisian-chic brand Sandro—was practically born with globe-trotting savvy and a band of far-flung, adventure-loving allies. So when Hemingway's pro-skateboarder friend Corbin Harris invited her to Sydney for the annual Bowl-A-Rama 'boarding event, she spent two weeks lounging on bikini-bum paradise Bondi Beach. Inland, friends Melanie Kamsler and Tamila Purvis, the duo behind Indiana Jones–ish accessories line ManiaMania (fossils and crystals embellish their latest collection), showed her around the hipper-by-the-minute city. (Sydney Fashion Week draws international crowds, and David Chang just opened a branch of Momofuku there, his first outside the U.S.) But Hemingway, who was raised in Sun Valley, Idaho, didn't need tips on embracing Sydney's easygoing attitude. "There's a good vibe and a very strong sense of community," she says. "People are superfriendly and have a laid-back style that I love."
Clockwise from top left: The model at a 2011 NYC movie premiere, Dree Hemingway for Sandro silk scarf, $210, us.sandro-paris.com, Vans Bowl-A-Rama Bondi
Lie out uninterrupted (but heavily sunblocked) on North Bondi Rocks; scout koalas and kangaroos at the Symbio Wildlife Park. "It's so beautiful there, and I love animals—I thought I was an animal whisperer when I was a child!"
Bondi Beach
Austin Found

subset: commoncrawl


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Parents: Do Your Children Know They Cannot Be Replaced?
A few years ago, after the 7th death of a student by suicide at Manasquan High School, a local family began a program to help all children and young adults realize how important they are to us. Now they are offering special advice for parents on how to give your children the tools they need to make good choices, avoid peer pressure, and so much more.


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Altitude sickness can hit some hard in Vail
December 18, 2009
VAIL, Colorado – For some visitors to the Vail Valley the first sign that they are "not in Kansas any more, Toto" is a look at the majestic grandeur of the Colorado Rockies.
For an unfortunate few, it can be the onset of a devastating headache. So what is this insidious demon that can afflict even some of our most hardy travelers?
Dr. Charles Tuft, an altitude expert with Alpine Mobile Physicians and an active member of the Vail Valley Medical Center staff, says altitude Illness can effect up to one fourth of travelers to Vail but that its manifestations are not always dramatic.
Many know it only as a minor headache that comes each time they ascend and goes away with in a few hours with or without Tylenol or aspirin. For others, though, a significant headache that can last for days can be accompanied by loss of appetite, nausea and even vomiting. A disturbing inability to sleep can be an additional problem says Tuft, a doctor who makes house calls in the Vail Valley.
Fortunately, more severe forms of altitude illness are rare at this altitude, but still do occur once in while. One such illness is high altitude pulmonary edema. Signs of high altitude pulmonary edema are shortness of breath not caused by exertion, a cough and possibly gurgling when breathing. This is severe – even life threatening – and requires immediate medical attention.
Rarely, if ever seen at Vail's altitude, is the high altitude cerebral edema. Confusion and loss of balance are the hallmarks of this form of altitude illness. Like high altitude pulmonary edema, this should be considered extremely severe and requires medical treatment.
Recommended Stories For You
So, who are affected and what can be done? Tuft says many travelers believe physical training will prevent the problem. But Tuft has a story that he likes to tell to some of Alpine Mobile Physicians' younger patients who feel cheated when they have become ill.
Tuft says sickest patient he ever saw with altitude illness was the best athlete he has ever known. This patient was a world-class ultra marathoner who was a climber on the Everest expedition where Tuft was the doctor. Clearly, if getting in shape were preventative, this person should have been exempt.
The reality is that altitude illness is an equal-opportunity disease. Anyone from the very young to the old, and from the couch potato to the most athletic, can be affected.
Prevention is sometimes as simple as an overnight stay at an intermediate altitude such as Denver. There is no good data to establish that drinking a lot of water will prevent the disease, but altitude illness can cause nausea, which can prevent you from re-hydrating, and you don't want to start out behind. Dehydration is common in our climate and may by itself cause a headache.
Several drugs have been used for prevention. Some studies have shown that taking ginkgo biloba for five days before ascending to altitude can have benefits. Tuft says it may help, but studies are not conclusive.
Well established as a preventative, acetazolamide (Diamox) is often used and is about 75 percent effective. Started one day in advance, and continued through the next two days, it has the beneficial effects of a respiratory stimulant that can prevent a decrease in respirations during sleep, which is believed to be a cause of altitude illness.
Diamox is a diuretic, which can help combat water retention, particularly by the brain, which is another suspected cause of altitude illness. As a downside, in a dry climate, where dehydration is also a potential evil, that same water loss that diuretics create may become a problem. In addition, many people will have numb lips and fingers from Diamox. Tuft has had one patient who experienced the Diamox-induced hyperventilation as an acute anxiety attack.
Without side effects and very effective, prophylactic oxygen may be the best preventative. Many of Alpine Mobile Physicians' patients start oxygen the first moment they arrive in their rooms in Vail, and breathe it for the first night continuously. These previous altitude illness sufferers nearly always go on to have a wonderful time at altitude without symptoms.
Preventative drugs and overnight oxygen may perhaps be overkill for most travelers, because most will not be affected and many will have only mild symptoms. Travelers to altitude should have an awareness of altitude illness and seek treatment if symptoms are significant, but prevention is not usually recommended.
Prevention is key, however, for those who have had altitude illness in the past. For unknown reasons, those who have been previously afflicted, nearly always have it again.
Treatment of altitude illness usually involves oxygen. Within the first few minutes of oxygen therapy most patients feel dramatically better. But, they must remain on oxygen overnight to solidify the cure.
Short bursts of oxygen from a canister may also make you feel better, but unless you just happened to be just at the point that you were about to be over the illness, the improvement will likely not last, Tuft says.
Also interesting and available to Alpine Mobile Physicians patients are hyperbaric oxygen chambers. As Everest expedition physician, Tuft had the first functional version of this type of unit used to treat an ill patient at extreme altitude. Currently, these are suggested to be as effective as overnight oxygen, in a one-hour treatment.
If you need an immediate cure that is somewhat expensive and perhaps a bit disconcerting to crawl inside of, it can save you a night of sleeping with a quiet oxygen machine by your side. Tuft and his team of house call specialists from Alpine Mobile Physicians can be reached at 970-376-8376.
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August 12th is always one of my favorite days of the year. It's my daughter's birthday. And, it is night for the annual Perseid meteor shower. Every year, I prepare her meal of choice: (fresh-made pesto on pasta, caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, and sweet corn from a farm stand.) And, after the birthday cake (this year, a Triple Mousse Majesty – all chocolate -- from the Black Dog Bakery in Martha's Vineyard), we stay awake until the shower starts to pick up steam at about 1 a.m. Since it was her 18th this year, she invited some of her girlfriends to join her on the Vineyard, and we had a real party on a screened-in porch decorated with balloons and lanterns and a full spread on the tables. It was one of the last hurrahs before they all disappeared into their post-high school lives in college or gap years doing interesting things.
The girls headed to a nearby beach to view the celestial show, and my wife and I set up on the second floor veranda of our rental house, which has a huge sky panorama looking north and west. By the time all the festivities were over, and the kitchen cleaned up, it was 11 o'clock.
Let me just say in the all the years that I've been sky-watching, this August 12th was about the most perfect night I have ever experienced. The sky was dark except for the stars because of a new moon, and a cold front had moved through overnight Saturday which completely cleared the air. Even with the Northeast megalopolis sitting just to our West, the Milky Way was brilliant and the smallest orbiting satellite was visible sliding across the sky.
I haven't always had a cigar on shooting star night, but this year, I yearned for a great smoke. I rummaged through my travel humidor, knowing what I was looking for—A Don Carlos Lancero. I lit it up, and poured myself another glass of a 2005 red Burgundy, and laid my head back on the lounger to gaze at the stars. My wife sipped on her own glass of wine, laying back on the deck on a single Aerobed. Given the cool but blessedly light ocean breezes off of the Vineyard Sound, we were bundled up against the midnight chill. The wind was light enough that the aroma of my cigar lingered on the deck.
Within minutes, I knew it was going to be a special night. I began to see on average about three or four meteors every five minutes. They were not just tiny little streaks of light, but ones that you could even see out of the corner of your eye, and still have time to turn your head and see them finish in a blaze of yellow or orange sparks. In other words, for you sky watchers, real meteors, I stayed awake until 1 a.m.; my wife's steady breathing told me she had fallen asleep about half way through the show. I stopped counting, but I saw at least 50 to 60 good sized meteors, and I came within five seconds of seeing my all-time wish—two simultaneously.
As with most Don Carlos, I smoked the cigar down to knuckle-burning levels. The sweet, earthiness of that blend kept the cigar smoking beautifully right down to the last puff. It lasted well-past midnight, long after the wine in my glass on run out,.
It was a wonderful night. When my daughter got back from the beach, we had just gotten into bed, but she raced into our room and excitedly talked about what a great shooting star she'd seen, "the best one of my life." Her friends had fallen asleep. But not her.
Another birthday. Another cascade of shooting stars. Another memory. Another cigar.
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I love a good story. Better yet, I love a good storyteller — someone who can tell a story so well, so real that they make you believe you were there right in the middle of it all.
My grandmother was a great storyteller. Even at a very young age, I appreciated the way she would relay stories to me.
Crawling up into her lap early in the morning, after everyone else had gone to school or work, she'd wrap her fluffy bathrobe around me, and we'd chat. There was no TV interference, no radio blaring in the background. Computers hadn't yet been thought of, and the telephone seldom rang. It was just Grandma and me — and a strong cup of coffee that she sipped on intermittently.
Those early morning rendezvous were nearly 50 years ago, but I still remember them. I loved to hear about Grandma's life when she was a little girl, a teenager and before she married my grandfather ... And quite frankly, I have to believe she enjoyed reminiscing. Even though I was a little kid, I was all ears, and wow ... could she tell a story.
To this day, I have no idea whether Grandma's stories were true or not. I never questioned the authenticity of her words. To a little girl who worshiped her grandmother, I just assumed her words were gospel.
Grandma would recite stories of long ago. She added colorful details of days gone by and told me stories of family members I would never know. I learned of great-grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, and second and third cousins that started out only as names, but after countless stories, they became real relatives.
Grandma could tell a story so vividly that I could almost feel the wind on my face as she relayed stories of playing with her siblings. I could nearly smell the sweet and spicy cookies her mother (my great-grandmother) used to make at Christmas time, and I could hear Grandma's youthful squeals as she and her sister opened the few gifts that were under their long ago Christmas tree. I would find myself looking at my own arm as she told about a feisty kitten that had scratched her and drew a few drops of blood on her little girl arm.
Back then, my grandmother didn't believe in gearing her stories to the ears of a little child. In other words, not all the stories were filled with sunshine and lollipops. Instead, Grandma's coffee-tainted breath spit out stories of not just the good, but also the bad and the ugly. I know my eyes had to be the size of saucers as she told about some of the characters that had crossed her path throughout the years. Appropriate for a child? Perhaps not. But I was still enthralled with her stories, and I have to believe there was some kind of lesson to be learned along the way.
Grandma's stories were better than any TV program I could have watched. I could smell the gasoline the stranger siphoned out of her father's old automobile. I could see the gypsies who drove their wagon into her parents' yard, and I could see the fear in her mother's eyes as she shooed her children inside the house. I could feel my own heart break as she told of relatives who died long before I was ever born, and I tasted the salt in Grandma's tears as she relayed moments in her life that had caused those tears to fall.
As I look back, Grandma's storytelling moments are some of my most favorite, for she took me to a place in time I would have otherwise never known. Was she the greatest storyteller in the world? She was to me, and that's all that matters.
As 2014 begins, I hope you'll take some time to tell some stories to the younger members of your family. Turn off the TV, make them lay down their cell phones and tell some stories of the chapters of your life. I guarantee that someday, those stories will become a bestseller in their own minds.
BCR Editor Terri Simon can be reached at email@example.com.


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