High Pressure Fans - radiator

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davewolfs
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:51 am
Location: USA

High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by davewolfs » Sat Jan 23, 2016 12:52 pm

Hey folks,

Looking for some high pressure fans to run at low RPM on a 360 radiator. Should I go with NF-12 Noctua originals or some Gentle Tyohoons (500-1850RPM)? Ideally system will be silent. Will be cooling dual Xeons with the rad.

Appreciate any input.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by Abula » Sat Jan 23, 2016 2:30 pm

First establish how much cooling will the dual Xeons will need, if you feel a single 360 is enough go for it, but research if its enough for the loads you are planning.

Second decide on the thickness, thicker rads will have more dissipation area, another important thing when choosing rads is the FPI, lower FPI will perform better on lower rpms as its not as retrictive as higher FPI rads where static pressure matters much more. Also decide if you going with pull, push or pull-push setup.

Third, decide the way you wish to control the fans, in the past was more common to use an external fan controller and just use the knobs to set it up to whatever you prefer. Now a days fan control has develop a lot more, specially brands like Asus have very good software control (both PWM and voltage control), MSI and AsRock have very good Bios fan control (on PWM), brands like Supermico is hard to say, all their headers are PWM but they are picky with the fans, some work well others have issues, its best to research before you buy all the fans, but i feel this is the route you are going because of the dual xeons.

Fourth, get the appropriate fans for the way you want to control them and fit your cooling needs. Scythe Gentle Typhoon are very well regarded on the OC and watercooling community as bieng one of the best, but that will bind you to either an external fan controller or having multiple voltage control headers or to get some kind of fan control extra, i believe phantek has some hubs that use PWM signal and makes it voltage control into multiple fans (not sure how it works really but caught my attention some time ago). But if you want PWM fans, then the route is using PWM fan splitters like Swiftech 8W-PWM-SPL-ST 8 Way PWM Splitter-Sata, it grabs only the PWM signal, for power it uses the sata power so your motherboard header doesn't overload, but works pretty well for using the same fans as what it does is make all fans work the same.

Personally, im starting to plan a future build, and my plan is going with 140mm noctua PWM fans with 80mm low fpi rads (140mm), and a caselabs case, still unsure on the pump among other things.

baii
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Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:32 pm

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by baii » Sat Jan 23, 2016 5:41 pm

Motherboard header with splitter is fine for dc controlled gentle typhoon since they run with low amp, otherwise, they are selling pwm version, and both is around the same price. Personally I think they hum rather awfully when not decoupled/suspended, but that's just me.

Thicker rad have rather bad return, and even less if you are going to use fan at low rpm.

davewolfs
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:51 am
Location: USA

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by davewolfs » Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:43 pm

The radiator that I am looking at is the Hardware Labs 360mm SR2 it's quite thick around 60mm. Based on extreme rigs roundup it seems to perform best in a low RPM push setup. I could do 280 as well but that is less surface area. MB is SuperMicro which has all PWM headers. I've read about people having issues with their headers but I believe this is lack of understanding SMs IPMI software. If you don't set the min fan RPM speed with SM's software the system probably won't act how you want it too.

The Typhoons do appear to have PWM so I don't think a controller is necessary. That Swiftech device is definitely useful!

http://www.performance-pcs.com/darkside ... ifications

So are Typhoons preferred over the Noctuas? Why are you going with a 280 over a 360?

davewolfs
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:51 am
Location: USA

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by davewolfs » Sat Jan 23, 2016 8:05 pm

I'm wondering myself if I should use a 280! They say the general rule is 120 per component.

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by Abula » Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:01 pm

baii wrote:Thicker rad have rather bad return, and even less if you are going to use fan at low rpm.
Care to expand a little more? to what i have read and what people recommend usually are 45-80mm rads with FPI of 10 or less, but if there are downsides im really interested or how thin is what you recommend?
davewolfs wrote:The radiator that I am looking at is the Hardware Labs 360mm SR2 it's quite thick around 60mm. Based on extreme rigs roundup it seems to perform best in a low RPM push setup.
From what i have read, Hardware Labs SR2 and Alphacool NexXxoS Monsta are good choices for low rpms fans.
davewolfs wrote:MB is SuperMicro which has all PWM headers. I've read about people having issues with their headers but I believe this is lack of understanding SMs IPMI software. If you don't set the min fan RPM speed with SM's software the system probably won't act how you want it too.
I had issues with my server mobo, SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O and Scythe KamaFlex2 PWM, but works fine with Nocutas NF-S12A and NF-A14 PWM.
davewolfs wrote:The Typhoons do appear to have PWM so I don't think a controller is necessary.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/darkside ... ifications
Very interesting fan, never seen a this version of GTs, ill buy some to test =)
davewolfs wrote:So are Typhoons preferred over the Noctuas?
On OC forums Typhoons are better regarded than any noctuas for watercooling, so in Martinlabs.
davewolfs wrote:Why are you going with a 280 over a 360?
Well im not planning on going 280, im trying to go as far as i can or the case allows. The reason for me to consider 140 over 120, was that the amount of fans i might use will be too much to be used by what the motherboard has or allows for headers/fans (even with splitters), thus its much easier/safer to use the swiftech PWM splitter and a bunch of PWM fans, that said, until today i haven't found a 120mm fan PWM that i like, but now that you have linked this Black GT, i might consider 120mm again, ill try to get some samples to test how it works.
I'm wondering myself if I should use a 280! They say the general rule is 120 per component.
I think your initial idea is fine with 360 Black Ice SR2 + Scythe GT PWM, as long as the supermicro dont have issues with scythe fans.


quest_for_silence
Posts: 5275
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Location: ITALY

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Jan 24, 2016 1:44 pm

davewolfs wrote:Ideally system will be silent.

If it have to be silent, high pressure or ball bearing fan may not be the best bet.
Slim/medium thickness radiators with low fpi may work decently paired with SPCR recommended fans.

davewolfs
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:51 am
Location: USA

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by davewolfs » Sun Jan 24, 2016 4:20 pm

Quest, have you looked at the review from Extreme Rigs? The SR2 fits the bill.

quest_for_silence
Posts: 5275
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:12 am
Location: ITALY

Re: High Pressure Fans - radiator

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:16 am

davewolfs wrote:Quest, have you looked at the review from Extreme Rigs? The SR2 fits the bill.

I knew very well Extremerigs, but I don't know the bill you're talking about.

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