Fan upgrade, worth it?

JamesM · 18 Jun 2012 at 09:53

Currently have 3 Apache Blacks (push) on a EK XT 360.

Everyone goes on about how good the Scythe Typhoons are and OcUK have the 1850rpm on this week only for £13.99

Is it worth swapping them over or will it just be a waste of cash?

I may be upgrading to a thicker radiator in the future once I include my 670 in the loop.

andybird123 · 18 Jun 2012 at 11:32

there are no actual tests on the 'net anywhere of your apaches, but in terms of pure grunt, the GT's will push more air even if purely by virtue of being 1850rpm vs. 1300rpm on your current one

however, how much noisier they are whilst doing it...

going purely by RPM (which won't be 100% accurate as it's different fans entirely), but going from 1300RPM to 1800RPM would give you a water temp delta improvement of between 1 and 2 degrees @300watts or as much as 6 degrees at 550w

so depending on what rad you are thinking of changing to and what your water temp is with your current fans, that 1 to 6 degrees may or may not be worth it to you?

JamesM · 18 Jun 2012 at 17:00

Yes so i've made the plunge and bought 3 fans.

I plan on swapping my 360 for a 240 and a single 120 radiator.

Any suggestions which would be the best radiators for my with these new fans? I presume radiators with more fans per inch as i've got more airflow then before?

minty · 18 Jun 2012 at 18:09

depends on what speed you are going to be running your fans. generally lower fpi for lower rpm. the xspc rx range are great

JamesM · 19 Jun 2012 at 10:02

Out of interest why does lower FPI do better with lower rpm?

Surely the more air a fan moves the better overall?

andybird123 · 19 Jun 2012 at 11:11

it doesn't do better, it just becomes a matter of diminishing returns - a high FPI rad will show a clear improvement from 1000rpm to 1800rpm, where as a low FPI fan will show much less of an improvement, thus making the extra noise not worth the return on temps

if you want low RPM fans (e.g. low noise) then go with low FPI rads
if you want max performance (lowest temps) go with high FPI rads and high speed fans

Tattysnuc · 19 Jun 2012 at 11:59

JamesM said:
Out of interest why does lower FPI do better with lower rpm?

Surely the more air a fan moves the better overall?

Cooling is a function of the surface area being cooled, and the rate of exchange of heat.

GT's are great as they move a big volume of air, while being relatively quiet.
Rads with a high FPI have a greater surface area in contact with that cool, moving air, thus the heat exchanged is very good.

Some fans move a lot of air, but can't "push" it through the radiator due to the back pressure, thus the static pressure characteristic of the fans comes into play. GT's are very good at this. Another site had a review of fans which I can PM you the link if you are interested in it, and this found that the GT's were the top performing 120mm fan.

No comparison of rads was made however - I guess that is for a later date...