Cooling Man on the Street Review:- Scythe Gentle Typhoon range, 1450rpm-5400rpm

G-Dubs "Man on the Street" Review:- Scythe Gentle Typhoon range, 1450rpm-5400rpm





Hello and welcome to another G-Dubs "Man on the Street" review. Today I'm going to deviating from my usual style in order to review the range of Gentle Typhoon fans from 1450rpm up to the rather scary 5400rpm fan. I say rather scary, to be honest that really doesn't go quite far enough to find out more please read on and make sure you have a look at the videos.


So this is a "Man in the Street" reviews. What does that mean exactly? It means I won't be using expensive airflow meters, sound recording devices or dB(A) meters or any other expensive kit for that matter. The omission of this type of equipment is deliberate and done for two reasons. Firstly, I think perhaps I can find other ways of demonstrating the variance between the models on test. Secondly and more importantly I don't actually have any expensive test equipment!

What I will however be doing is performing comparative demonstrations of their airflow and the noise generated to provide a very visual idea of the variance across the range.

Aesthetics
We're all probably very familiar with the Scythe Gentle Typhoon, so I'm not going to be wasting a lot of time describing the aesthetics of these fans as they're all pretty much identical, and let's be frank Gok Wan would have his work cut out making these look good naked.



Having said that, the all black finish of the range from 3000rpm upwards does look a bit better than the recycled wheelie bin looks of the rest of the range. They also sport a circumferential moulding connecting all the fan blades together. This is presumably to provide increased rigidity necessitated by the forces of the increased RPMs in the "Black" end of the range.






So this review isn't about the looks, it is about performance, about hopefully finding the sweet spot in the range where the battle between airflow and noise is won. To that end I've spent most of the day filming the fans and timing their ability to fill a consistent volume of air.


Overview of Gentle Typhoon Range, their prices and where you can get them.

GT 1450rpm @12.95 (inc VAT @20%)
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...e-Fan-1450-RPM--D1225C12B4AP-14-pid-7556.html

GT 1850rpm @12.94 (inc VAT @20%)
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...-Fan-1850-RPM--D1225C12B5AP-15-pid-10974.html

GT 3000rpm @19.49 (inc VAT @20%)
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...-Fan-3000-RPM--D1225C12B7AP-29-pid-13078.html

GT 4250rpm @19.49 (inc VAT @20%)
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...-Fan-4250-RPM--D1225C12B7AP-30-pid-13080.html

GT 5400rpm @19.49 (inc VAT @20%)
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop...-Fan-5400-RPM--D1225C12B7AP-31-pid-13082.html

or view the rest of the range here.
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/search.php?substring=scythe+gentle+typhoon

Test Apparatus.
The test was conducted by using a specially constructed (and patented) "Man on the Street" Airflow comparison-o-meter. Yes it may look like a bin bag taped to an empty cardboard box, but believe me it's so much more technical than that. (Think about it, how do you get the fans to stay in place? Yeah see, it's not just masking tape and bin bags is it!!!)
On a serious note, basic though it is it's actually a very good way of both measuring and visually demonstrating a fans ability to displace a volume of air.

Test method
Fans were run three times with the time taken to fill the apparatus (OK bin liner) recorded. the average of these times was then calculated.

Test results
basic though the test was it actually yielded some pretty consistent results and was able to demonstrate a correlation across the range, and a correlation with Scythe's own figures.

If you've read any of my previous reviews you'll know I'm not a big fan of tables and graphs unless they serve a real purpose and are kept simple. I've chosen to tabulate the results of my own tests and compare them with the figures produced by Scythe themselves, bearing in mind there methodology was perhaps a little more scientific than mine.

I've also linked to a few videos of the tests being carried out, which I hope should better demonstrate the differences between the range both in terms of airflow and noise.

The Table below shows the decrease in time taken to fill the volume of air as the fan speed increases. Unsurprisingly the 3000rpm fan rated at 83 CFM takes just under half the time of the 1450rpm fan rated at 45.9CFM, which would suggest that basic though the test is, it does appear to correlate with Scythes' own figures.

Model vs. Average time to fill volume of air





Rated CFM Vs Noise dB(A) Manufacturers data





Raw data




Below is a TouTube Video showing the tests being conducted
You'll see that at the end of the last test 5400rpm, the force of the air generated actually breaks the test rig. (test rig? Can I really call it that?). Well worth watching as it shows in real terms the change in performance across the range. For consistency I've taken the second test out of the three for the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFJlCceO9jY&feature=youtube_gdata



I've conducted a separate test comparing the noise generated by the five fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC8TEYDNjQ4&feature=youtube_gdata



Conclusion
The aim of this review was to try to find the sweet spot in the GT range, where the performance is not overcome by the noise. have we found it? Well we can start by saying where it isn't. Anything above and including the 3000rpm is more than a bit loud for everyday use, in the filming the tests I actually had to raise my voice significantly for the 300 and upwards. Ok stick them on a fan controller and slow them down for light web surfing and networking etc then crank them up to full for when you're gaming and if your gunshots are loud enough they'll drown out the sound of the fans. The 5400 however is something quite different. Quite simply it's terrifying. There's the very real feeling that if you touched it you'd lose a finger a something chunkier. I'm not joking, it's not just going to make the end of your finger tingle, it's going to make you a few grams lighter in a fraction of a second. That's not to say it's not a very capable fan, it is. Heck it even broke my test rig it moved that much air.
So that leaves us with the 1450 and the 1850. Both of these are good fans, very good fans in fact. The 1450 is very capable, shifts a reasonable amount of air and is practically silent. By comparison the 1850 shifts a fair bit more air, and does so without being noticeably more intrusive on the noise front. In fact you get the feeling with the 1850 that you could bear it being a bit louder and still not be bothered by it.

So where's the Sweet spot?

Well for me it's the 1850, but to expand on my thoughts above, I think there's a hole in the GT range that could very possibly represent the true sweet spot. I think a fan around the 2400rpm mark would, by my reckoning, come in at around 70CFM and in the region of 32 dB(A). Quite a bit more airflow for not a lot more noise.

What do you say Scythe?
Gap in the Market?
Going to fill it?


edit: youtube link not working. tried [video] and also the youtube function on the forum bar but neither giving joy. works on other sites though. any advice appreciated.

 

I love my GT's, and it's easy to jazz them up (photo below) I was thinking the same thing, 2500RPM would be perfect.

Did any of your give of weird noises, as I alway reccomend these, but people have been saying the 1850's create some kind of weird noise, my ones are silent, just the soft woosh of lots of air







I love my GT's And if people bought some of my old bits I'd buy 3 more...

 

For the videos, you only need the bit after the '='

 

copy a link from www.youtube.com.... into the space. so we can move onto the site and watch it.

very interesting read superb all round review. got more info from it then the usual xx cfm v yy cfm

 

There I also a 1150rpm version from scan

 

I bought 2x 1850's at the same time.

1x of them whines, the other doesnt. The noise is proper annoying!

 

Link to youtube now included.

Anyone please tell me how i should present the link to enable embeding?

 

i would love to get them 5400rpm just to check the temps on a 360/480 rad. would deffo keep them on a fan controller.

actually i have a kaze 2000rpm and it certainly makes itself present, just imagine 6 of those 5400rpm at full blast........ headset a dead cert

 

That 5400 is a monster. Very tempted to pick one up and see how it compares to the old 80mm Delta EHE I got for giggles a few years back. Would be interesting to see how it handles being slowed down as well.

 

I had the 3000 rpm one and it was nothing special. Any fan, no matter how advanced the design, will make a lot of noise if it moves a lot of air. I found the sweet spot to be at roughly 2100rpm, beyond which the noise would become obtrusive. It did respond very well to voltage adjustment though (no extraneous motor noise when slowed down).

I have Deltas now (at about 1000rpm) and they perform better on my TRUE than the GT did.