Had a few run ins with pascal. His response is true to form. I thought ai roman's accent was pretty good. Could have gone to Eaton
https://www.igorslab.de/alphacool-a...-aufarbeitung-und-persoenliche-stellungnahme/ So seems like this is all down to some very dubious dealings between pascal and alphacool, using the Igor's lab brand to bolster marketing claims that should have obviously been spotted as wrong, same goes for the new alphacool block testing, then pascal lands a job with alphacool. Funny that
The very thing Roman said he didn't believe was happening, because: Igor wouldn't allow it for fear of damaging his brand Alphacool's image would be forever tainted Kinda really really wanna see Roman's follow up on this.
Igor ate a family sized humble pie in this latest piece, admitting he could and should have stepped in at several places and cut this off before it became a thing. From the bits in-between the lines, something like serious health issues or some other personal drama was being dealt with, so he's let go of the leash for a bit trusting the people he employed to work on his behalf. In fairness he's taken a lot of the blame for the backlash aimed at "Igor's lab", but has said whatever alphacool and pascal want to do in clearing the air is up to them. I'd seen all the bamf around the fans and had wanted to use some, until I saw they were £30 a pop, then ouch noooooo. Especially as I've just built a watercooled rig for someone with a 5800x and 3090 using some thermalright RGB fans that were £15 for 3, and I could keep them between 1000-1200rpm to keep the loop temps in check, which was really quiet. Pwm and RGB both have daisy chains on, what more do you need?
You need metal, of course. Even if it's only a thin layer covering the frame, you still need it, and it will boost cooling performance by 56.79%. On a serious note, I've been following this drama and I'm buzzing at the thought of this fan actually coming to market (assuming it actually does) and being distinctly average, especially with that ridiculous price tag. It reminds me of when EK launched their Vardar fans, which were supposed to compete with the Gentle Typhoons but were actually quite the disappointment... but this is oh so much worse (and therefore better) because of the controversy.
At this point almost everyone is just making a GT clone. Noctua Corsair Silverstone Be quiet Akasa Thermaltake Adata (actually officially licensed and made by Nidec) MSI Thermalright Jonsbo Lian Li Coolermaster Alphacool I'm likely missing some, but there's a lot.
They might be made by the OEM of the Vardar, but they're a gt clone. Gt Toughfan Vardar original Vardar Evo Vardar xm3 Loop fan fpt Vardar originally took inspiration from the gt, but have always use the alternative 7-blade pattern that's also quite popular, but less so than the nine blade GT pattern.
I suspect high blade count plus cupped and forward swept blades are an aerodynamic staple for high static pressure.
I imagine it's really annoying for designers. So much work, fluid dynamic simulation, materials analysis, prototyping, testing and you finally reach the pinnacle of 120mm fan design. And you've basically ended up with a GT.
Just how far ahead of it's time was the GT range, though? Amazing. I had twelve of them in my old LiLi V1200+
I've got an original somewhere as a keepsake. I was going to buy a bunch of random GT clones for the tech wall, would have been a fun video where I take the piss out of people saying the thermaltake toughfan is a noctua clone, pulling out all these different variants from under the desk, before playing the GT joker card. I sometimes think about going back and doing some more videos, till I remember what a time hole they are and think better of it. There's probably people far more efficient at editing for whole that wouldn't be a problem, but used to take me so long, especially after I started animating Dremel.
You'd think so with all the marketing spiel that's been going around for who knows how long, but it's not so. The GT's aggressively swept and curved blades were designed primarily to reduce extraneous noise - down to the fine detail of the little notches at the back of each blade. I've got a video currently in the works which shows the Noctua S12B beating both the A12x25 and the Gentle Typhoon at the static pressure game. Problem is, it's loud and annoying when doing so.
Wait, what did I miss? Some juicy drama? Someone got a TLDR for me? And those GT's were so great, and only like £10 a pop when they first came out. I have a dozen kicking about that I was to take apart, clean, recommission and add LED's to at some point, as I used to rn the 1850RPM ones at full speed 24/7 as they were so silent it didn't matter! And every other fan since has been a letdown or crazy expensive! If Lian Li licenced the true GT design and then added their great frame connections and some RGB could be added without affecting acustics or performance, for about £20 it'd litterally be the best fan! Which means it'll never happen! Does anyone know why GT's ot discontinued?
So the common goal is that performance at a lower noise? Wasn't that a stated reason for the blade material noctuca use - I forget it's name - but, essentially, it offered minimal deformation at higher RPMs so you could engineer a smaller gap between the blades and the frame; thereby reducing slippage and turbulence at the blade edge - which kept the noise down.
Sterox IIRC. Now I'm a corsair employee have skin in the game here but people saying everything is just a GT clone is bollocks. Noctua have genuine innovation behind their products. There's a reason no one has managed to produce something that performs better in every category without going to 30mm to compete against 25mm. Corsair on the other hand are more on the visuals side. We have some of the best looking fans on the market and imo the new link stuff including the temp sensor is some really cool stuff. If you actually speak to the people over in the noctua engineering department you'd understand it's not just a clone. They're a genuinely cool company.
Drama is thus: pascal whateverhisnameis did some testing for prototype alphacool fans, it showed they were miles ahead of a12x25 in terms of noise and airflow, article was published on Igor's lab under Igor's name, because he did the bulk of the write up. Alphacool asked to use those graphs in their marketing material, which Igor agreed to. Lots of people pre order the fans based on these claims. Once other reviewers get their samples, they find drastically different results, including der8auer. **** kicks off, pascal goes mental refuting other people's testing as irrelevant. Turns out after he's given those fans and the new alphacool blocks glowing reviews with seemingly ground breaking results, he's landed himself a job at alphacool. Igor is not a happy bunny, having been duped into publishing data that should really have been suspect in the first place. Acknowledges he should have done better himself and put a stop to it sooner, but leaves it up to pascal and alphacool to explain their actions. GT's disappeared after scythe couldn't afford to licence them from Nidec anymore. Shortly noctua released the A12x25, which had been long discussed but delayed several times. The timing, in my opinion, not a coincidence.
