Demonstration and test of 35 fans
Details of our test participants
We have reached the last pages, which, as before, are the surface of the summary. Writing the final evaluation is easy on the one hand and difficult on the other. It’s hard because despite the many criticisms described, we have to say we haven’t seen a really bad fan. Reading the article, it may have seemed yes, but we have to say that the differences were not terribly big, we had to differentiate between the good and the better. We tried to highlight the good qualities, to emphasize the bad ones, to see noticeable differences.
For this reason, we would like to cover the bad things less in the evaluation, we would rather mention the good ones, and we would share our impressions formed during the writing of the article with our readers.
Let's start with the bearings! All three main bearing types were among the actors, and in general, in each case, we got what we expected. Of the ball-bearing solutions, the Scythe Gentle Typhoon performed outstandingly well, although this type did not excel in air transport, but it enchanted us in terms of noise. It also shows that the ball bearing can be quiet, technology allows.
In fluid bearings, the dominant is clearly the Scythe S-Flex. Noctua isn’t bad either compared to the other participants in the test, but the fluid bearing should still be a different category.
Englide provided the most in plain bearings. It was almost on par with the S-Flex valve, which, let’s face it, is a big word. The Scythe plain bearing was also extremely quiet, which is also the recommended category in terms of noise. With regard to the noise measurements, we have to point out again that our method, although not perfect, gave a sufficiently nuanced picture of the aerators. As described in the analysis of the test, some fans bleed due to vibration, but this problem can be easily helped with some silicone buckles. It also turned out that the fluid bearing built into the fans could only really enchant us at low revs. At high speeds, this isn't quiet either, as exemplified by the 1600-centimeter 12-centimeter piece of the S-Flex, where the measured noise was not only due to wind noise.
In terms of noise, we had a similar experience with ball-bearing pieces, but that’s not surprising. The most balanced performance was provided by plain bearings.
The measurement of airlift caused surprises. As has been clear so far, a higher turn results in more air delivery, coupled with more noise, of course. What made the test interesting was the difference between the factory and measured values for Noctua fans. We do not believe that our test gave a hairpin result. We believe that a factory test bench will give more accurate results, but we also believe that it cannot be a coincidence to find the same discrepancy for each competitor in a manufacturer, plus in the wrong direction. We thought through everything. We tried to explain it, but it didn't work. We couldn't get the result to anything. At first we thought that there would be overpressure in the measuring tube and it would release all the air due to the strange vane profile of the 12-centimeter valves, which made the result inaccurate, but then it turned out that there was a measurement anomaly in the traditional profile as well.
This was also the case with Scythe’s two 12-centimeter fans. Fortunately, for the other types, we obtained a result that more or less approximated the factory data. Finally, there is nothing left but to announce the result of the competition!
