I'm not saying they didn't no anything new or didn't tweak it. They went from ball bearing to their sso2 bearing and used liquid crystal polymer for a more stable rigid blade, added the vibration dampers. But the similarities in overall blade design, the delays and release times with scythes licence lapse, is in my opinion not a coincidence. Their previous fans were vastly different, having 2 distinct designs for if you wanted static pressure or airflow volume. Maybe, as I said earlier, they went through all the design process only to come up with a GT, then delayed for fear of getting sued.
Even if its not directly designed, it just shows that the GT reached the design peak first, and now everyone is catching it up! There's only so much you can do with material science and fluidin dynimics afterall, its something I battle in my own job! And those Corsair iCue stuff are just absurd money for the ones that are worth it, the QX's! The SP's and AR's just aren't worth it at all. I miss the ML series, but Corsair quietly DC'd those just before the iCues got released... And we all know the temperature sensor in the fan is pure gimmick! It just inflates the cost massively!
I dunno, I just built a loop for my brother and realised halfway through I didn't have any temp sensor fittings, so ended up sticking an air temp sensor in above the exhaust rad and works quite well. I'd put an intake and exhaust sensors in the other rig I just finished and the exhaust temp was within 1c of the loop temp. I do think fans are getting a bit mental though, the iCUE link and new Lian li LCD fans getting up to £40-45, but at least have added features. Top end is £30 each just for simple straight forward non led fan! Nb eloops are probably my personal favourite fan. They actually understand dampening and the solid frame is completely isolated from anything it connects to, they're really fricking quiet and £10 a pop. I wouldn't spend more personally. There's a dirty truth that no one will admit to because it kills not one industry sectors but 2. Most fans are perfectly adequate. In most use cases, a half decent fan is just fine. At the rpm/noise range they'll be used at, whether air or watercooled, they're much of a muchness. The Corsair af120 elites pictured in the sons of GT line-up, every bit as good as an A12x25, if not better because they have proper vibration dampening (why in god's name to noctua have a hole round the screw head is baffling) and £10 less, the thermalright ones another £10 cheaper, probably within unnoticeable performance boundaries, but not as good dampening. Much like on golf driver "technology" that promised an extra 10yards year after year after year but in reality are bound by limitations enforced by the r&a and PGA, so now the key marketing word is "forgiveness". Fans are as good as they're going to get, the difference between an £8 Silverstone and £38 Corsair fan will not be found in its performance, only the looks.
^ Yes, it's been a case of diminishing returns for a long time. I remember back in the day we used £5-a-pop 120mm Yate Loons, which were also a staple in PSUs. Does anyone remember the standard of innovation we had about twenty years ago when Sharkoon came out with their "Golf Ball" fans? What's changed since then... fans now have built-in Christmas tree lights, and come complete with "static airflow scratch-your-pressure-balls" optimisation. But I have to agree with MLyons that Noctua have truly innovated with the A12x25, even if the basic impeller design does rest on the shoulders of the Gentle Typhoon. The only caveat is that it's actually not such a great performer when pitted against other fans at the same speed. Both the NF-F12 and the S12B outperform it on a heatsink, and as @David said it's all about getting the best performance you possibly can at a given noise level, which is where the A12x25 excels.
I would add a massive ISH to this, as fans sound profiles radically differ! They make be the same loudness, but some will feel louder as the sound profile is more intrusive! And thats the major difference between bargain basement good fans and mid range good fans, the mid range ones will be consistent while the cheap ones will vary fan to fan. Bearing wear and dustproofing are two major factors too, we use the noctua industrials exclusively at work as offshore is a sandy place! And a system which has temperature sensors to be added it fine. Adding temperature sensors to everything so you can charge £5-£10 more isn't fine! Its just so gimmicky and I thought Corsair was above such things! I use their ML fans and love them! Another thing thats a major issue is fan profiles. Why are motherboard fan drivers still trash and the default profile so terrible??? Why is configuring new ones such a pain! And there's no option to tie it into GPU temperatures, which is crazy as we're not in a world where GPU's use massively more power than CPU's! I could understand it maybe if it was different brands, but I have both from the same brand, they're both picked up fine in the MSI app, but GPU fans are one section (or lack of for me ) and motherboard and CPU cooler fans in another! Seeing as motherboards are basically all the same now if one put major effort into this it'd be a market leader!
Bc they have to assume everyone has weedy fans that need to run at 100% duty cycle to muster an asthmatic ant's worth of airflow?
You might be able to help me track down a fan I want to use in a build, or at least suggest a similar one. It was plain black, had 9-blade GT-esque impeller design, but the fins where all connected by a ring that was about 10-15mm from the blade tip. Saw them once and thought they looked really cool, menacing even. 12v and pwm ideally so can be ran from a standard atx power supply and fan controller.
Used to have a dozen of them in a mahoosive twin loop rig, until I swapped them all for GT AP15s. £140 for fans. Eeek. Be luck to get half that many top end fans for that now. Eeee, when ah were a lad...
I got two boxes of 3 Thermalright fans for 17 euros a box, they even have 5v RGB and both the fans and rgb can be chained. They're even at a discount right now, 15 euros a box, that's 5 euros a fan. Honestly unbeatable value.
Amazing fans, as shown in @LennyRhys videos where (for desktop pc fans at least) they're second only to the T30. Madness!
Back in the day when double figures in £ meant you were buying a premium fan lol Hmm at first it just sounds like the high speed Gentle Typhoons, but those had 7-blade impellers. I'm pretty sure I've seen the fan you're talking about too but I can't remember where... I've dug around a bit and come up with nothing, sorry dude!
Ah no worries, thanks anyway. They might have had 7 blades, but they seemed of the slimmer variety. Could have sworn I bookmarked them, but can't find the bookmark.
Would it be these you are on about? Nidec D1225C? http://www.nidec-advancedmotor.com/en/digital/pdf/D1225C_hi.pdf
Nidec d1225c That picture looks like the one, d1225c just returns stock GTs or pdfs that my phone won't open because it's a ****. There a full product code? EDIT: NVM, phone decides an hour later to download all 15 attempts and thank you very much!
I can see the below from that linked PDF, I too found that with that product no. i'd get stock ones too D1225C12B7AZ-00 D1225C12B9AZ-00 D1225C12BBAZ-00 D1225C12BBZP-00 D1225C24B7AZ-00 D1225C24B9AZ-00 D1225C24BBAZ-00 D1225C24BBZP-00 hope those give you some answers EDIT: it seems they combined the D1225C for both low and high speed applications, the low speed ones are the standard GT's and the high speed ones have the conjoined blades
Pwm 12v version of the one I'm after is D1225C12B7ZP. Tricky to find in the UK, there's some in the US, my brother might be able to get some through work maybe. One for the list though. Thanks again @Auxilliary
