Rad+Fan Question

[Mag10]

So, I noticed that HWlabs released new "Nemesis" radiators and seemingly are much better at the 30mm level and most competitors at 60mm level.(info is scarce) So of course I am curious about the thoughts on these new rads, and seeing fan suggestions in general.

First my setup will follow:
1)280x30mm(top push)
2)280x60-80mm(front push/pull)

The 2 radiators I'm looking into are currently Alphacool and HWlabs. From what I can tell If i Use the HWL 280mm - GTX/GTS = 16 FPI. Where the Alphacool are around 8 FPI. I was considering the NF-A14 industrialPPC-2000 PWM but am unsure of the best fans to suit my selections of radiators. Im not worried about flashy LEDs or anything like that, I can always add those separately. I know more FPI=more static pressure... but what defines high FPI? Would anyone kindly assist me?

 

[Supertrucker]

Fpi just means fins per inch. Most people here would say 8-12 fpi is low, 20ish is medium, and 30+ is high. Generally speaking, low fpi radiators will do better with sub 1000rpm fans, medium fpi radiators will do well in the 1000-2000rpm range, and high fpi radiators just like 'll the air you can get through them and to hell with the noise level.

As an example, swiftech has a qp and an xp series of radiator. The qp is 12fpi, and the xp is 20fpi. Using the same gentle typhoon fans the qp radiator does better up to about 800-1000 rpm, they are about tied from 1000-1200, and the xp starts pulling away at 1200+rpm.

Radiator thickness tends to play a part in how broad the range of performance is as well. The swiftech qp radiators compare well to the xspc rx series at low rpm and the xp series does well against it in the 1400-1850 bracket, but the thin swiftech rads fall short when you take them out of their ideal fan range.

 

[Mag10]

Ok I couldn't remember the FPI chart from long ago, and what fan speed matched well. So the 13-25 or so range would be where im looking towards with the HWL and the low for Alphacool. Either way im looking to typically run fans at lower settings for noise reasons. Im still not 100% sold on whether im going to cool a single large(290x-like) or multiple GPU+CPU for the loop.

Also as for static pressure and FPI, whats the rule of thumb?

 

[Supertrucker]

There is no real hard and fast rule for static pressure. Mostly it's just more =better. This and the race for the highest cfm at the lowest noise level has given most fan manufacturers incentive to be very creative when getting numbers. In other words, they lie, and fan specs can't be trusted.

But at the end of the day, most fans really aren't that far apart from each other if you are using a low or medium fpi radiator. I probably wouldn't notice the temp change if my gentle typhoons were swapped out for yate loons at the same speed, or the minor noise change. At least until the fans died. I've never had a yate last much over a year running horizontally(sleeve bearings hate it) these gentle typhoons are supposed to be good for 5+ years.


Edit: to be clear, when I said most fans were pretty close in performance, I was referring to 120mm fans when running at the same speed. A gentle typhoon at 1450rpm for example, would compare pretty well with a yate loon at 1600ish rpm. there are of course fans that are just terrible, you see a lot of them in the 140mm category. They do good open air but fall flat on their face when put on a radiator or dense heatsink. So always find multiple independant reviews if you are looking at some of those 15-25$ fans.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Mag, check out this site. Great information.

As for the HWLs newly released "Nemesis" line, I couldn't say much but know they are 16 FPI rads. They have a nice coating to them and are a tad, maybe a few inches wider than the SR series I believe. They basically took all of their previous radiator line and utilized their best features/abilities into one radiator. I am really curious to see how they perform.

I am a fan of their SR line. I have a 240/360/480 in my rig atm with the fans down to around 1k. I can't complain.

The Alpha rads are great as well. Really like the difference in thickness they offer.

 

[Mag10]

Mag, check out this site. Great information.

As for the HWLs newly released "Nemesis" line, I couldn't say much but know they are 16 FPI rads. They have a nice coating to them and are a tad, maybe a few inches wider than the SR series I believe. They basically took all of their previous radiator line and utilized their best features/abilities into one radiator. I am really curious to see how they perform.

I am a fan of their SR line. I have a 240/360/480 in my rig atm with the fans down to around 1k. I can't complain.

The Alpha rads are great as well. Really like the difference in thickness they offer.

Thanks for the link, I have seen his site several times.. my problem is the transition from 120mm to 140mm is a bit of a pain as only few are moving that way currently(that I am aware). If I was doing a 120mm setup this question wouldn't be as arduous as there is plenty of information available.

As for the SR line I have always been a fan of their products, I assisted a friend in setting one of the 120mm ones in his computer. However it was a very basic setup. the nemesis line are extremely new and seems to have been a hard launch and many people have not had a chance to review them(I did see a very short one on youtube for what its worth). What I would love to see is a review of new vs old HWL rads. Plus the new coating just looks better IMO.

 

[RnRollie]

whether or not the nemesis line can be considered any worth will depend if we can get Martin or Skinnee or Stren to "have a look" at them.

They'll probably be good, but they have to outclass the nexxxuses to change the playing field and the only way to do that is to offer higher quality, better flow, more functionality at the same or lower price tag... a bit of a steep order

 

[Mag10]

whether or not the nemesis line can be considered any worth will depend if we can get Martin or Skinnee or Stren to "have a look" at them.

They'll probably be good, but they have to outclass the nexxxuses to change the playing field and the only way to do that is to offer higher quality, better flow, more functionality at the same or lower price tag... a bit of a steep order

Correct me if I'm wrong but didnt martin "retire"?

 

[RnRollie]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didnt martin "retire"?

yeah, a few times already

but it seems he can't completely let go and still "tinkers"*

Maybe we or HWL can tickle his interest with a 30 year old malt incentive


(*) Dont mean disrespect with "tinkers" , its meant in an affectionate way, a bit like "my monsters of children". A lot of us would be absolutely nowhere if weren't for the tremendous work Martin has done.

 

[Mag10]

haha yeah you are definitely right, we would probably still the in the "stone age" of watercooling if not for Martin. I think all of us here to venture into things as such are a bit of the tinkerers type. I would love to see more reviews towards 140mm versions of well everything as it seems the case industry has already embraced that next change, better than the 80->120mm transition at least.

 

[RnRollie]

yeah, but i suspect the case builders to have done that for all the wrong reasons, a bit like: "Chevy Impala now equipped with mounting points for seatbelts & jato rockets and space under the hood to place nuclear powercell"

Ignoring the fact that nuclear powercells are only used in satelites far, far away from (human) life and seatbelts won't do you any good if you plow into the side of a mountain at 200 MPH, not to mention that highway patrol frowns a bit upon the jato-rockets equipped car idea.

The consumer market for bigger-as-120mm-fans is rather small compared to the industrial segment, and as long as there is no demand from industry there won't be any serious develoment in that direction.

 

[Mag10]

Well the trend seemed to have started around 6 years ago I would guesstimate. It is possible that one did it then others followed for the wrong reasons. I myself actually prefer 140mm Fans as generally speaking more airflow and less noise compared to 120mm variants. Ironically my case changed my mind on fan sizes as I was set to use 120s at the time.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

AFAIK, the 120mm is still the industry standard. I think tests have been done and because of the 140mm bigger size, yes it moves more air than the 120mm at lower speeds but it will lack the pressure. You really need to speed it up imho to get the pressure you'd get from the 120mm counterpart and might get noisier than the 120mm. That is my theory behind the slow movement for it and possibly cost more juice to spin a bigger fan which MB headers have limits too as well as fan controllers but you have many options of higher limits when it comes to controllers.

 

[Mag10]

AFAIK, the 120mm is still the industry standard. I think tests have been done and because of the 140mm bigger size, yes it moves more air than the 120mm at lower speeds but it will lack the pressure. You really need to speed it up imho to get the pressure you'd get from the 120mm counterpart and might get noisier than the 120mm. That is my theory behind the slow movement for it and possibly cost more juice to spin a bigger fan which MB headers have limits too as well as fan controllers but you have many options of higher limits when it comes to controllers.

That is also what I have heard regarding static pressure, however it seems the NF-A14 industrialPPC fans are better than all others currently with 4,18@2000RPM and 10,52@3000RPM. That surpasses all others I have looked at thus far(IIRC about 1.9 is the most the majority produce). Linky This unfortunately does not show static pressure, however even if its 80% of manufacturer spec then ill be happy. As for Fan control/headers I intend to use at least 6 140mm in my build and intend to utilize some form of either PWM or voltage regulation.

 

[Mag10]

I did just come across this review on Xtreme Systems forum I don't completely understand how they came up with the results for the airflow numbers however.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I did just come across this review on Xtreme Systems forum I don't completely understand how they came up with the results for the airflow numbers however.

I skimmed through it and noticed they don't even show the instruments used for the testing. If it ain't people like martin and the like, I am taking that information with a grain of salt. It looks like a "Fan Review" with all the documentation, charts and data given from the company. I could be wrong but it doesn't look that credible to me by the looks of it.

 

[Mag10]

I skimmed through it and noticed they don't even show the instruments used for the testing. If it ain't people like martin and the like, I am taking that information with a grain of salt. It looks like a "Fan Review" with all the documentation, charts and data given from the company. I could be wrong but it doesn't look that credible to me by the looks of it.

That's what I was thinking also, I wish I had the equipment to do it I would throw a review together lol

 

[Techjesse]

Jack, It looks like you missed this: Fan performance is difficult to judge when it comes to industrial applications so i decided to use them in a few overclocking adventures to see how they worked.My test of choice was to keep a X79 PWM heatsink cool while i ran a several 3DMark runs at 5.3Ghz.Under normal conditions the heatsink would be too hot to touch and i am happy to report that the fan was up to the task of keeping things cool.
He ran some test himself

 

[Mag10]

Its still begs the question of how he came up with the airflow numbers though. Ill take a guess and say he used a smartphone app for the dBA.

 

[Techjesse]

I'll ask him