News Testing Phanteks’ T30-120: Dethroning Noctua’s Finest

[Admin]

Phanteks’ T30-120 fan stunningly upsets Noctua NF-A12x25 in our testing. But it takes a bit of extra thickness to get there.

Testing Phanteks’ T30-120: Dethroning Noctua’s Finest : Read more

 

[Phaaze88]

, I may have to change my avatar...[JK]
Give me a 140mm version, then I'll bite. I'm done with 120mm fans.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

You can't claim it beats the 25mm Noctua when it's 30mm. C'mon - test apples to apples, or don't claim it "beats" the Noctua as if it were an evenly-matched competition. Give it props on its own merits! If Noctua comes out with their own 30mm fan, then give it a proper head-to-head face-off.

 

[vmem]

so in reality, they created a new 120mm form factor. the added 5mm is non-trivial, especially since a lot of people use rad fans in push-pull, which would add 10mm total. Though I agree that there are many applications where the extra height doesn't matter... Now I'm just waiting for someone to make a monster 50mm version

 

[hotaru251]

yeah as above posts have stated not really "fair" to compare a 25 vs a 30.

thats basically saying a normal rad beats a slim rad...well ya as they are using more material/space.

an 5mm is a hearty chunk of 25mm. 20% difference.

 

[honuswscruggs]

yeah as above posts have stated not really "fair" to compare a 25 vs a 30.

Of course it's 'fair.' Provided one's use-case isn't sensitive to the difference in thickness, then saying that difference makes them incomparable is like saying you can't compare them cause they're not the same color.

No one has claimed that "this fan beats that fan, therefore Phanteks's engineers did a better job than Noctua's"—If they were, then the difference in thickness would be a key point of argument—They only claim made is more modest but also more relevant for most users: if you want to move air around and 30mm fits just as well as 25mm, then Phanteks's fan beats Noctua's. The tests demonstrate that to be the case.

 

[BillyBuerger]

If thinkness doesn't matter, you could always go for a 120x38mm fan. I was actually looking at some of those recently since my case was made to work with three of those (Sun Ultra 45). Thinking back to the old Panaflo's and such. But the only ones available I could find are super high speed monsters that likely would sound harsh at the 500rpm I would be running them. So I used my Scythe Slipstreams which work just fine as well. Thought about some Noctua's but those add up fast and would likely give similar results to what I have on hand.

 

[closs.sebastien]

Such one is beating noctua too: https://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/843/aeroracer_012.jpg

 

[Unolocogringo]

I still have a couple panaflo 35x120mm fans that would probably put both of these to shame.
Full metal frame and blades. Believe it was 180cfm@3000 rpm @12v. I have them wired for 7v on a molex connector. Almost silent but still moves a lot of air.

 

[cryoburner]

It's perfectly fair to compare this fan against others using a more standard thickness, since for the vast majority of use-cases, that shouldn't be an issue. Most case fans have plenty of space around them to accommodate a little extra thickness. It's just something to keep in mind for compatibility, and in some less common scenarios, one might need to go with a different fan instead. This is no different from comparing two different CPU coolers that are not the exact same dimensions, and in the case of CPU coolers, the differences will often be a lot more than just 5mm of additional thickness.

The only thing is, they should probably be a little clearer about the fan being a bit thicker than usual. In the product description of the part on Amazon, shipped and sold by Phanteks USA, there appears to be no mention about the fan being 30mm thick. That's something they should note, seeing as it does break with the standard a little.

 

[OMGPWNTIME]

It's not really a secret that a fan with more depth will greatly increase CFM + Static Pressure; there's a reason that most server racks will commonly utilize 38mm depth fans. Although the reason is that server components generally employ 'passive' heatsinks only and use the very high SP/CFM rows and rows of fans to pull the air through the whole rack.

 

[aaronb1138]

If we're going to talk about CFM vs dBA, can we also get spectrum analysis graphs at 3-5 RPM points (low-medium-max RPMs)? I ask because I did my own 120mm fan showdown in my case by buying 2-3 each of few different models on Amazon with no quibble return policies and skipped Be Quiet brand because their noise "reducing" ribbed design was thoroughly investigated by a sound technician to produce a ton of annoying 5 kHz harmonics. Frequency peaks and distribution matter. Could also have audio clips properly normalized, well anti-normalized, to be at the same recording gain., but reader playback equipment EQ could make that objectively unfair.

In my own case and CPU tower cooler showdown, I tested a couple Noctua "Industrial" models, and at all medium (similar 1600-1700 RPMs to the same blade model running normal) to higher RPMs (2400-3000) they produced too much noise in the higher octaves. My choice for fan on my Mugen 5 rev B ended up being the Nidec Gentle Typhoon* (closest to the Noctua A12 here). It kept cooler CPU temps at every perceptual volume level compared to Scythe's own Kaze Flex and beat the pants off the Noctua based on how harsh the Noctua sounded at similar temps + loads (Scythe also sold the Nidec Gentle Typhoon under their name for a time).

The materials science faffing over "liquid crystal polymer" is a bit overdone in the market. It's a newer nylon variant, and PA-6 GF10-30 or GB10-30 (nylon with glass fiber / ball at 10-30%) would be just as or more dimensionally stable, at the cost of wearing out injection molds faster (and GF would have visible shiny fiber strands on curves, hence Glock handguns are approximately PA-6 GB~20). The Nidec I have feels like ABS blades and nylon frame and has reasonably tight tolerances. Noctua is too much marketing, and stiffer plastics to get tight tolerances have more to do with installer error frequency deforming the frame with bad screw torque / alignment, thus a stiffer frame and blades are safer.

*If you get Nidec Gentle Typhoons and similar on Amazon, order more than you need from no-quibble return sellers. The primary reseller on Amazon gets them in bulk and repackages them in bubble mailers, no boxes. Of 2 ordered, 1 was damaged in shipping -- it would spin but strike the housing because the shaft was visibly bent. Not a manufacturing defect, was definitely the packaging + shipping through Amazon's supply chain of horrors.

 

[TechLurker]

Though I agree that there are many applications where the extra height doesn't matter... Now I'm just waiting for someone to make a monster 50mm version

They were made once, long ago. The Feser Triebwerk 120mm fans were 120mm Square x 55mm thick, and were used to rival the early GTs used in early PC water-cooling builds. In server computing, Delta and San Ace have made 120mm Square x 76mm thick fans; basically 2 38mm fans combined into one unit that use a counter-rotating setup to really straighten the flow and push the air back further than a 120mm Square x 38mm thick fan with fixed counter-flow vanes can.

Back to the topic, these T30s are what the EK Meltemi fans should have been; making the EK Meltemi even more of a joke considering they couldn't beat the A12x25 despite being 38mm thick.

As for me personally, I have a trio of said 120mm x 76mm Deltas used in an always-on PC, just running on the lowest possible PWM setting (pretty quiet while still moving massive amounts of air through a HEPA filter).

 

[DougMcC]

, I may have to change my avatar...[JK]
Give me a 140mm version, then I'll bite. I'm done with 120mm fans.

This was my thought too ... who is still building around 120mm fans?