Introduction

I have been looking forward to this day for a while now. EK Water Blocks, or simply EKWB henceforth in this article, had teased a bigger, badder version of their EK-Vardar 120 mm fans to me for a while now, and I originally thought it was the Vardar-X3M we first saw at Computex last year. That was not the case as it turns out, with the X3M still in development. What came up instead was a 38 mm thick unit of a fan that ended up with a whole new name, too. Enter the EK-Meltemi, and thanks again to EKWB for sending along review samples.


Naming schemes for products from companies have always been a small fascination of mine, if only because it reveals more about the country and culture said company is based in. The EK-Vardar fans, for instance, were named for a wind from the Macedonian region, as mentioned before, and the Meltemi follows that trend. In their own words, the fan "carries the name of a type of strong, dry northern winds of the Aegean Sea. The name Meltemi is derived from "mal tempo", meaning "bad weather" in Italian, while we can say that the EK-Meltemi is "bad news" for high temperatures". Corny? Sure, but in all the right ways in my book. Let's see if that name is validated. As always, we begin the review with a look at the specifications below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

Unlike the EK-Vardar ER (Extended Range) fans, which were offered in black or white color options, the Meltemi ER only comes in black. EKWB recognizes, and rightly so, that this is not going to be a fan for many given the 38 mm thickness, and a single SKU makes sense for retailers to stock. Packaging is very similar to their EK-Vardar EVO fan lineup, with orange instead of the green accents they had. We see the company and product name on the front, along with a large printed render of the fan inside. On the back are the fan's specifications along with more marketing features, and there are three seals on the sides to help keep the contents inside in place.


Opening the boxes, we see that the fan comes in a two-piece plastic blister inlay, which is fairly thick and helps protect it further on top of the shipping packaging. The accessories, of which there are not many really, come in a plastic zip-lock pouch placed in an indentation that also houses the fan cable. EKWB includes a set of four self-tapping metal screws, if you were to use these as case fans for some reason, and a set of 43 mm long UNC 6-32 threaded metal screws to use with radiators that normally only provide screws for 25 mm thick fans. The company no doubt wants you to use these fans with their own radiators, which use UNC 6-32 threaded screws, so if you use other radiators, such as from Alphacool (M3) or Hardware Labs (M4), you may have to source your own screws separately off eBay or a hardware store. So keep that in mind given the EK-Meltemi is not a typically configured fan.