No offense, here are some things that bother me about your understanding of fans.

[docnorth]

At least @VSG shouldn’t be offended, the tests here at TPU include various RPMs and noise levels.

 

[Macro Device]

Then there's something wrong with that PSU.

That's why it's sitting in the closet.

I still have around 400W of heat that has to go somewhere

Not a problem if the geometry is correct. See, even with cheap fans, you can achieve great results because where you put your fans and how you rotate them matters A LOT more than how good these fans are by themselves.

And there it is. I've bought ... six fans in my entire life,

I bought about 30... which is 10 fans for one PC user. Not that much of a difference.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

six fans in my entire life, all of them cheap but not that cheap

Those Deltas I use are like 25$ each.
I like that I can find data sheets on them too.

19.2w peak XD

https://partner-am.deltaww.com/Products/FanUploads/Specification/AFB1212SHE.pdf

 

[freeagent]

3700RPM lol

Mine are only 2500

 

[ShrimpBrime]

3700RPM lol

Mine are only 2500

Extremely dangerous too. It will take the tip of the finger off. I've blasted caps off motherboards with this thing bro. I'm not kidding, no bullshit. I don't touch it unless it's stopped fully.

 

[freeagent]

Extremely dangerous too. It will take the tip of the finger off. I've blasted caps off motherboards with this thing bro. I'm not kidding, no bullshit. I don't touch it unless it's stopped fully.

I have a little 92x35 4K ripper that is like that. Popped the controller on 3 or 4 different boards before I realised you cannot hot plug it

 

[ShrimpBrime]

I have a little 92x35 4K ripper that is like that. Popped the controller on 3 or 4 different boards before I realised you cannot hot plug it

Lol. Vantec Tornado. https://www.vantecusa.com/products_...d=24&pc_name=Case+fan&pt_id=6&pt_name=Cooling

Sparkey247 on our team, I saw with my own 2 eyeballs, his pointer finger nail completely ripped off. LOL> It comes with a guard for a reason. These are serious fans. Like 90db full power shit. The Db ratings are lies. That Delta link, if you read it, says like 59Db (AVERAGE) XD XD XD X3

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Extremely dangerous too. It will take the tip of the finger off. I've blasted caps off motherboards with this thing bro. I'm not kidding, no bullshit. I don't touch it unless it's stopped fully.

Back in the day when I was building PCs for others, Deltas were often used for the sillier builds.

The one requirement I had was that a grill ahd to be purchased alongside for the open side of the fan, I refused to put one in a PC without one.

I can only imagine the damage from one of those going at a full tilt 6000 RPM could do to somebody's finger.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Back in the day when I was building PCs for others, Deltas were often used for the sillier builds.

The one requirement I had was that a grill ahd to be purchased alongside for the open side of the fan, I refused to put one in a PC without one.

I can only imagine the damage from one of those going at a full tilt 6000 RPM could do to somebody's finger.

Even if they didn't damage their fingers on them they will definitely damage their ability to hear anything lol....

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Even if they didn't damage their fingers on them they will definitely damage their ability to hear anything lol....

True, but we were young and dumb, so none of us were THAT concerned. That and we wore headphones while working because we couldnt hear each other.

That build was truly nuts. 4x GTX 580 GPUs, on one of those giant E-ATX boards, with a Nehalem six core. all OCed, with a 2kW PSU, a 450w helper, and watercooled via twin 360mm radiators, each with three Delta fans, and an air intake tube connected to the bedroom window where it was 1 degree F outside.

Man those were fun times.

 

[mechtech]

Cheapest fan I have brought for PC use in the last 3 years was £24 (fractal), I have paid over £40 (noctua) for some fans, I guess we have different ideas of cheap, efficiency is important as I expect affects life expectancy of the fan, and of course noise.

I was speaking in relative terms, also that's pretty steep for a noctua fan, I think the most expensive one I have is about $36cad. I think the vent fan at the mine I used to work at was around $3mill CAD many many years ago (fan+5000hp motor+controller+housing+installation+engineering+drawings, cabling, etc. etc.)

So when I read the post and efficiency was mentioned, to me I interpreted that as the fluid moving efficiency of the fan blades themselves, because in industry when selecting fans that's what efficiency is, and with PC fans using up to 5W max?? there is not much point concerning oneself with that sort of power draw.

When talking efficiency about fans, pumps or basically anything that consumes power, by definition efficiency is power put in vs. power out. It typically has nothing to do with life expectancy......that has to do with material types and quality of them and the build quality (tolerances, end use, etc.) Noise there is several sources, the electric motor the pwm controller, the bearings and the fluid turbulence from the fan blades. Bearing friction can affect the total efficiency of the entire unit assembly due to additional power requirements for the electric motor, but does not affect the fan (blade) efficiency.

very basic in a nutshell reading below, hopefully that helps clarify a bit......sorry for rambling (mechanical engineer) we love our fans and pumps

Fans - Efficiency and Power Consumption

Power consumption and typical efficiencies of fans

www.engineeringtoolbox.com

https://content.greenheck.com/public/DAMProd/Original/10002/CS104-13_FEG.pdf

Fan Affinity Laws

The affinity laws can be used to calculate resulting volume capacity, head or power consumption when speed or wheel diameters are changed.

www.engineeringtoolbox.com

Selecting the Right Fan or Blower for Your Application

Sizing of fans and blowers is similar in process to that of pumps, where graphs are commonly used. The performance graph is usually a constant-speed plot with capacity on the X axis and a variety of performance factors on the Y axis. As part of the selection process, a graph of the system is...

www.engineersedge.com

edit ooops forgot about the BEP (best efficiency point) In industry that's where we typically size fans to run to minimise power consumption/get most air flow bang for your buck, same goes with pumps.

Fan Technology Overview – Airblower.net

www.airblower.net

 

[eidairaman1]

There is Noctua and then there is everyone else. Accept no substitutes!!!

Nideq

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Nideq

I was being sarcastic there are a lot of fantastic fans by different fan makers.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

True, but we were young and dumb, so none of us were THAT concerned. That and we wore headphones while working because we couldnt hear each other.

That build was truly nuts. 4x GTX 580 GPUs, on one of those giant E-ATX boards, with a Nehalem six core. all OCed, with a 2kW PSU, a 450w helper, and watercooled via twin 360mm radiators, each with three Delta fans, and an air intake tube connected to the bedroom window where it was 1 degree F outside.

Man those were fun times.

He said 4x GTX 580s!!!!!

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

View attachment 407572

He said 4x GTX 580s!!!!!

Oh yeah! It was nice being friends with the rich kid for once.

Quad SLI was a nutty pipe dream but one we tinkered with for way too long. We all had multi GPU rigs of one kind or another. My twin 550TIs, one had dual GTX 465s, and our computer teacher had twin HD 6770s.

 

[WarriorK9999]

Since 2021 I scaled back on performance. I notice limiting the CPUs to 65 watts does help so much on heat. I usually run two Scythe 2000 rpm fans that is about 1.1 watt each. I have the Ryzen 7 3800x capped at 35 watts because performance lost is only multi threaded and its not a big lost because its still faster than my Steam Deck and I use that as my daily driver. lol

These days I am going for higher performance per watt. I actually tested 9950x at 105 watts and still has insane performance at that settings and drastically lower the heat. PBO default is 170w.

 

[correctthemisbegotten]

True, but we were young and dumb, so none of us were THAT concerned. That and we wore headphones while working because we couldnt hear each other.

That build was truly nuts. 4x GTX 580 GPUs, on one of those giant E-ATX boards, with a Nehalem six core. all OCed, with a 2kW PSU, a 450w helper, and watercooled via twin 360mm radiators, each with three Delta fans, and an air intake tube connected to the bedroom window where it was 1 degree F outside.

Man those were fun times.

I always wanted to build a big reservoir of coolant and fill it with ice cubes from the fridge... I bought all kinds of tubes, fittings, and acrylic from Home Depot. Never did it though. Now I'm focused on making a silent computer rather than a faster one. I've been running a 980ti for more than 10 years now... so I think I gave up on going faster awhile ago. I thought the $500 I spent on it back then was literally retarded... now look. They're trying to make that $500 look like a smart buy apparently... LOL.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I always wanted to build a big reservoir of coolant and fill it with ice cubes from the fridge... I bought all kinds of tubes, fittings, and acrylic from Home Depot. Never did it though. Now I'm focused on making a silent computer rather than a faster one. I've been running a 980ti for more than 10 years now... so I think I gave up on going faster awhile ago. I thought the $500 I spent on it back then was literally retarded... now look. They're trying to make that $500 look like a smart buy apparently... LOL.

I'm going to assume you meant $650, because a 980ti at $500 was a smoking deal. Or you meant 980 instead of 980ti.

Both were good GPUs, but $500 in 2014 is over $680 today, which will nab you a nice RTX 5070 that is 2.5X faster then your 980ti, or 4x faster then a 980. $650 would be $890 today, that's 5070ti territory.

Inflation is a bitch.....

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

This thread made me think of fans.....more specifically the delta 7000rpm fan on my Global Win Fop38.....now that was a fan

 

[Dr. Dro]

View attachment 407572

He said 4x GTX 580s!!!!!

smh leviathan spenders, I only had 3 GTX 480s myself

I always wanted to build a big reservoir of coolant and fill it with ice cubes from the fridge... I bought all kinds of tubes, fittings, and acrylic from Home Depot. Never did it though. Now I'm focused on making a silent computer rather than a faster one. I've been running a 980ti for more than 10 years now... so I think I gave up on going faster awhile ago. I thought the $500 I spent on it back then was literally retarded... now look. They're trying to make that $500 look like a smart buy apparently... LOL.

It's a good thing you never did it, because you'd have replaced that 980 Ti a long time ago otherwise. It's guaranteed to condense and get wet if you do it that way. Most effective "ghetto" cooling? Get a turbo desk fan and point it full blast to your components

 

[oxrufiioxo]

smh leviathan spenders, I only had 3 GTX 480s myself

I did a build with 2 690s and 1 with 3 290X those were pretty fun and the 3 290X system used a crazy amount of power under full load.

 

[Waldorf]

@correctthemisbegotten
you are definitely mistaking best "efficiency" for best noise, as well as completely ignoring the fact ppl vary in what they find tolerable (noise/volume),
or that there is a big difference between noise depending on frequency.
if the most efficient fan does more than 25dba, i dont care if its free, and yes you can throttle them, but that means you loose more flow/pressure than using one thats quieter at full rpm.
same for freq:
i have tinnitus, and sensitive to anything around 4-6K Hz, and the quiet AC fan throttled (like using "dry" mode) is more annoying than my pc under full load,
just because the fans make noise at a much lower freqency.

@Macro Device
havent seen many times where buying cheap paid off, you want "value".
you dont have to spend +20 per fan, i paid between 7-15$ for the arctics (10 total), that make it possible to run it inaudible @2ft next to me on the desk for low loads,
and look more "uniform" (no mixNmatch crap), have 6y warranty (your cheap fans come with that?) and offer ~80% of what other much more expensive fans do.

i saved more from buying Arctics and have free replacements, than if i had to rebuy fans to replace no-name crap.

ignoring that it says a lot when ppl care about color of the case (and the like), but arent willing to pay a little to get improved fans.
looks like those ppl spending +70K on a 2 door sports car, but buy the cheapest tires they can find.

 

[lexluthermiester]

When people talk about fans, they always talk about the extremes. Which is quietest, which moves the most air, which has the highest pressure. etc. This is because people have misconceptions about fan designs that don't coincide with reality.

First and foremost you must understand that any given fan shape, size, thickness, will have a single speed at which it is most efficient.

It might be 892 RPM or it might be 2,446 RPM.

Efficiency means that a fan is producing the most airflow relative to its noise and power draw.

Now, the surprising thing about efficiency is that it means there are no fans that are better than others in a general sense.

Some fans are more efficient at lower RPM, some better at higher RPM, some better somewhere in between.

The physics of fans basically means that yes, they will almost always push more air the faster they are spun until the air behind the fan cavitates.

But, there will be a huge drop off in efficiency for most fans the faster they are spun.

The sad reality is that 99% of reviews that I see always look at the maximum performance and not the maximum efficiency.

Most home computer builders really want efficiency over performance because they value their hearing or being able to hear something other than the humongous whine of fans spinning at 5,000 RPM.

Since sound is additive it becomes louder when sound sources are added. However, it's not that simple to calculate. The basic rule is that if the sound is coherent the increase is an exact doubling (6db) and if it is incoherent it is 3db.

Since fans can as much as double their volume each time a fan is added to the mix anything above 40db is going to be an annoyingly loud since most cases have 3-5 fans in them.

The simple way of understanding this is to find out the advertised loudness of your fan, say, it's 35db. Now, you need to multiply the number of fans by 3 as your minimum SPL increase. So, if you plan on having 5 - 35db fans that means you will be adding at least 15db to the starting loudness of 35db which equals 50db in total. But, its likely that certain frequencies will often be coherent so some frequencies may increase as much as 30db.

Anyway, it would be great if online reviewers would focus less on the maximums and more on the efficiency since that wil actually be the problem that most of us would like to have solved.

Thaaaaanks...

Are you addressing someone in particular or are you just being unpleasant to make a point?

 

[Waldorf]

@lexluthermiester
havent had your coffee yet?
just k.

 

[azrael]

My understanding of fans: fans must blow.

Unless they suck...