OK, so I finally got me some Gentle Typhoon AP-15s at a very good price, courtesy of Big Elf. In this semi-subjective performance analysis I'll be comparing the following four fans, which from left to right are: CoolerMaster A12025-12CB-3BN-F1 - approx 1100 rpm reported by tach Gentle Typhoon D12125C12B5AP-15 - approx 1800 rpm reported by tach Delta AFB1212M - 2300rpm; speed adjusted to conform Delta AFC1212DE (38mm) - 1000-4000rpm; speed adjusted to conform The main comparison is between the "real" fans; I threw in the CoolerMaster purely as a point of reference for the generic, run-of-the-mill "silent" 120mm fan. All fans were tested in push/pull except for the 38mm Delta. As a point of interest, GTs are not made by Scythe; Scythe is merely the vendor who boxes and sells them in the enthusiast cooling market; the fans themselves are made by Nidec Corporation, a global leader in motion and drive technology. "Servo" is the Nidec branding of the series of axial fans to which the GT belongs. Testing I tested all fans in push/pull configuration on my TRUE (Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme). Room temperature was 20°C for all testing, and all system settings remained unchanged throughout the test period (see CPUZ and Asus Probe info in screens). The software used to stress the CPU was linpack using the LinX GUI on Windows 7 SP1, meaning that the AVX instruction set will have been utilised, stressing the CPU like a proper banshee. The test was run with each fan configuration for approximately 10 minutes and the peak CPU temperature was taken. You may or may not notice that two of the sensors on my CPU are not properly calibrated and often give a reading below ambient, which is why I abandoned the idea of doing an average temperature across all cores. Fan Speed Since the reference for comparison is the Gentle Typhoon, I slowed the Deltas to 1800-1850rpm for an apples-to-apples comparison. Furthermore, I re-tested each fan configuration at 1450rpm to see how the Deltas might stack up against the Gentle Typhoon AP-14, and as one final test I ran one of the AP-15s by itself. Results (All speeds are approximate values with a tolerance of 50rpm) Gentle Typhoon AP-15 Push/Pull @ 1800rpm: 62°C Gentle Typhoon AP-15 Push/Pull @ 1450rpm: 63°C Gentle Typhoon AP-15 Push @ full speed: 64°C Delta AFB1212M Push/Pull @ 1800rpm: 63°C Delta AFB1212M Push/Pull @ 1450rpm: 65°C Delta AFC1212DE (38mm) Push @ 1800rpm: 62°C Delta AFC1212DE (38mm) Push @ 1450rpm: 63°C CoolerMaster Push/Pull @ 1100rpm: 67°C Concluding Notes This is the subjective part of my findings which deals with the acoustic properties of each fan. Everybody has a different opinion on what is "quiet" and what is "loud," so where possible I've tried to use absolutes such as silent (eg, you cannot hear it) or audible (eg, you can hear it). Gentle Typhoon AP-15 - This is the clear winner in terms of acoustic performance, but not at full speed (read on). Before I go any further, let me assure you all that this fan is not silent. It is very, very quiet in open air considering its speed and the volume of air it can move at that speed, and whilst it remains impressively quiet when installed on a heatsink it is definitely audible and might irritate some people. Regarding squealing and whining noises, I didn't get any of that from either of the AP-15s I used in this test: the AP-15 sounded healthy and very, very bearable. Take it down to 1450rpm, however, and it becomes the most sublime fan I've ever encountered or used in my life. I strained, I concentrated, I nearly wet myself, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hear it. The Gentle Typhoon at 1450rpm (read: the AP-14) was, to my ears, as good as silent. Delta AFB1212M - One word: mediocre. Like any other fan it's not so bad in open air, but as soon as you introduce it to a heatsink it's quite loud at 1800rpm, and it has a very distinct (and annoying) hum at both 1800rpm and 1450rpm. Despite having good airflow and extremely high build quality--such as you would expect from any dual ball-bearing server fan--the noise profile of this fan makes it something I'd avoid unless my case was well sound-proofed or I wanted the raw performance it delivers at its nominal 2300rpm. Delta AFC1212DE - This fan is the dog's danglies. It's definitely louder than the Gentle Typhoon AP-15 at 1800rpm, but amazingly it matches the cooling capacity of two Gentle Typhoons in push/pull and beats the single Gentle Typhoon by 2 degrees, which is no mean feat. It has a hum similar to that of its little brother, the AFB1212M, however for some reason the hum is less irritating and not as noticeable. Slowed to 1450rpm, I must say the AFC1212DE was impressively similar to the Gentle Typhoon AP-15 acoustically. It still hummed very slightly and there was more air noise, but again it was significantly better than its thinner siblings in push/pull. Considering this fan is a 4-wire PWM fan with an rpm range of 1000-4000, you might be tempted to get it purely because it is so versatile: silence when turned down, and raw power when turned up. CoolerMaster - They are very quiet (once again... not silent), but the performance suffered significantly, much as it would with any other low RPM fan on a heatsink or radiator. The bottom line here is simple: performance comes at the cost of noise. If you want the best of both worlds, then I'd have to recommend the Gentle Typhoon AP-14 as the best push/pull setup for heatsinks and rads, and the Delta AFC1212DE as the champion of single fans.
Agreed, wonderful job, will be very helpful for lots of people! Now, what I'd recommend doing next is a test with general, non- extreme case fans: So, Silverstone AP's, Enermax's TB series, variations of the GT and so on.
Does the Delta AFC1212DE require any modification of its power cable to make it compatible with standard 4 or 3 pin fan headers? Great article lots of love for your dusty Delta AFC1212DE again!
Gentle typhoon has the best fan blade design. What lets it down is the massive motor which eats up blade space and creates a large dead spot. I wouldn't buy it for that reason. Arctic F12 is the way to go. Small PWM motor, optimal blade design, ability to chain up to 5 fans in series without having to buy fan adaptor cables. 74 CFM. 6 year warranty. http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=167301&source=froogle All of the fans in your test look like vintage designs to be honest. Even the old fans I bought 6 years ago had smaller motors.
Feathers makes a very good point actually, the smaller motor would allow more air to be pushed through- potentially at a lower fan speed because of the extra blade space. Now, if only Arctic made fans with the small motor of the F12 and the blade design of the GT's.
Great read Lenny very impressive! (I can believe that I'm actually complimenting you I think I got out the wrong side of the bed..)
Im in two minds, the Aps look good and work well but at £10 each and because i want six of them Im put off lol maybe picking up some Deltas going to ask at a local computer place of they sell them. If not ebay it is. Or maybe buy a few Aps now and some more later.
Want to see if there is any difference between a slowed down AP15 to a real AP14? As I have 4 of them here and could loan you two for a couple of days... Could even loan you your AFC1212DE so you can have 76mm of push pull goodness for testing Although if you do this I think a pic would be needed for the lols...
You seem to be missing a vital point. Even though the Delta AFC1212DE has a large motor it also has an extra 13mm depth. So by proportion it does more work than a single standard 25mm fan anyway! Delta fans are the business, I have one cooling my 680i Motherboard Northbridge and as a result it is cool to the touch which really is saying something where a 680i is concerned! One thing I would add to the article LennyRhys wrote is to be aware of the many variations. Even if you find a Delta AFC1212DE on ebay it might not be the one you're looking for. It could be a 3-pin, 4-pin or even have entirely different exotic pin outs!
It still makes no sense over the Arctic F12. The Delta thing is good at cooling because of the fan blade design. A fan with the same blade design but motor half the size makes more sense so long as the motor is good quality and a 6 year warranty is good enough for me. I've done noise testing with a meter and even with 5 of the arctics in my cosmos case the noise level at full speed is pretty low.
Thanks for the positive feedback chaps. I don’t see why a larger motor hub should be a reason not to by a particular fan - of the fans that I tested, those with the largest hubs are the clear winners, so the large hub certainly isn't holding them back in the performance department... or, in the case of the AP-15, in the acoustic department either. As for the Arctic F12, it’s just another 120mm case fan which is accompanied by the ubiquitous inflated spec sheet which claims that it can move a silly amount of air and remain silent… blah, blah, blah. On the contrary, the Delta AFB1212M undergoes stringent testing and it’s measured to produce 73.84 CFM (at 2200rpm and 38dB, no less), so to put it bluntly there’s no way in hell the Arctic F12 at 1350rpm moves anywhere near that amount of air. As for the fans looking vintage, all server fans look like this – they are sold based on raw performance, not on what colour they are or how well they glow in the dark. See above – more blade space doesn’t necessarily mean that the fan will automatically have superior performance; it’s a lot more complicated than that. Honestly, this was one of my gripes too – I’d sooner buy second hand Deltas than new Gentle Typhoons (which is why I have more than ten Deltas and only two GTs ). It depends what server it is salvaged from. I got mine from Dell and HP servers and one of them already had a standard 4-pin PWM header fitted. Thanks for the offer man but I’m pretty sure there’d be next to no difference! And as for the giant Deltas in push/pull, I have done it before and it doesn’t make as much difference as it does with the thinner fans. Simpy put, no it doesn't - like I said above, the best performing fans from my testing were the fans with the biggest hubs. The thinner Delta has a considerably smaller hub that its big brother (47mm vs 59mm) and it has the same blade design (both fans are from the "AF" series, which means they have the same impeller shape), but the cooling and acoustic performance just doesn't compare... the thicker fan is much better and quieter. If you'd like to send me an F12 to compare with the fans here I'd be happy to do that.
Ok buying a few Delta fans tonight me thinks, going to buy four, two intake two outakes. Will post photos of the install and fanspeed etc currently have my case fans on auto and they debt make that much noise tbh
Just make sure that the Deltas you buy don't have high current draw, because some of them really do! The AFC1212DE is actually quite conservative at 1.6 amps compared to other Deltas which can pull over 4 apms If I use a fan with high current draw I plug it directly into the PSU or into one of my custom fan controllers, both of which are designed to handle high amperage.
Fantastic work. Great to see stuff like this being done on the forums. I'm curious, have you used Noctua S12's, and if so, how do the AP-15's compare?
These Delta fans are not really for beginners MrDomRocks. I bought one to cool my 680i Northbridge but had to adapt the fans pin header to make it compatible with a regular 3-pin motherboard header. If memory serves for my Delta I had to swap the RED and BLACK cables for it to work!
Nice work, Lenny. I have three AP-14s on my BIS GT360 rad, but I'm planning to add another three for push/pull, so I'll report back; but I was surprised at only a 2 degree drop at load. I'm guessing fin density has a bearing on the results, as my low FPI RS240 rad shows very little benefit from push/pull, disappointingly; but probably in line with your findings. I'm betting the high fin count on my 360 will offer greater returns.
Cheers As for the Noctua S12, I've never owned one but would assume that because it's only 1200rpm it simply won't be a patch on the AP-15 in terms of cooling performance. It may very well be quieter, but given how quiet the AP-15 is at 1450rpm I don't see any real benefit in that. This is true, however there are certain industry standards where this type of equipment is concerned: black is ALWAYS ground. In my experience, supply voltage is either red or yellow, but anything beyond that is guesswork or experimentation. Cheers Funny you should mention fin density - this is why the original TRUE is such a good air cooler for this kind of testing: it has arguably the most densely packed fins of any air cooler which make it the perfect candidate for testing fans for airflow and static pressure. This is why fans like Deltas and Gentle Typhoons excel - they are properly designed server fans which are built entirely around performance, unlike generic case fans which are built for two things primarily: quiet operation and aesthetics. Speaking of performance, I have San Aces which have the best static pressure of any of my fans (and then some) and if I have time tomorrow I may throw them on to see if they can better the performance of the Delta and AP-15s in push/pull.
The Noctua PF12 and S12 are actually pretty good on a rad with similar cfm to a GT1450 (within 10%). However despite Noctua's (misleading) dBA claims they're louder than the GT1450. It's not an unpleasant sound though, just more wind noise.
