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Sunday, June 17, 2012

Gentle Typhoon D1225C12B7AP-29 (with the KÜHLER 620) – there is nothing Gentle about that airflow NOR noise

sy-1050-2Ever since I bought the fan controller, I had been considering buying the Gentle Typhoon AP29 fan for the Antec KÜHLER 620 radiator. The fan I was using, the Scythe Kama Flow 2 1900RPM model, was reasonably quieter and slightly underperforming compared to the stock Antec fan. But I wanted to see if I could improve the KÜHLER 620’s performance by adding a high speed fan. Tests performed at SilentPCReview was showing that the KÜHLER 620 was only 1C warmer than the 920 if same fans were used. KÜHLER 920 has two fans and  those fans ran at a very high RPM (hence intolerable noise at full blast). So my idea was to buy fans that were on par or better than the stock 920 fans.

I started with one AP29 fan. The noise rating meant that the AP29 was only 3dB louder than the Kama Flow 2. That means, a single AP29 should be as loud as two Kama Flow 2’s. (+3dB means doubling noise, in case you were wondering)

The fan arrived a day later than it normally does and before installing the fan, I recorded some temps with the Kama Flow 2 fan. Then I went around installing the AP29. There was a set back right at the beginning. The AP29 came with the molex power connector, now the 3-pin fan connector that I hoped. (Shame on me for not reading the spec!) The RPM sensing cable was attached separately. (the yellow wire in a typical red, black, yellow fan cable.)

I didn’t have an option, but to cut the cable and attach a 3-pin part from another fan. So I had to cut the cable from the brand new fan and used tape to connect the 3-pin cable part from another fan. It went without an issue. It was not a big deal anyways. Even though the fan ran at 3000RPM when powered up via the molex cable, it dropped to 2880~2910RPM when powered through the fan controller using the 3-pin connector. No big deal, but the results below are taken when the fan was running at 3000RPM.

The temperatures taken were when LinX was running for about 8 min using 12288MB RAM. Temperatures were measured using RealTemp 3.70.

Temp points

Kama Flow 2 (with case fans low)

Kama Flow 2 (with case fans max)

AP29 at 3000RPM case fans low

AP29 at 1750RPM with case fans low

Core 0

78C

79C

71C

81C

Core 1

84C

85C

77C

87C

Core 2

86C

87C

79C

89C

Core 3

85C

86C

79C

88C

Average

83.25C

84.25

76.5C

86.25

Three things to notice.

1. The CPU temperatures were independent of the speed of the case fans. Thus, I would be running the case fans at “silent” or “near silent”. Last minute edit: However, the GPU temps seem to shoot 5C higher with the fans running at low. So maybe I should experiment with the fan speeds.

2. The AP29 performed worse than the Kama Flow 2 at the same RPM. The max RPM of the Kama Flow 2 is 1900RPM, but with the fan controller it ran at around 1750RPM. So the Kama Flow 2 isn’t a bad fan at all. However, the AP29 was considerably quieter than the Kama Flow 2 at same RPM.

3. The fan noise is strong after 2000RPM, but not irritating as the Cooler Master Blademaster fans I had a while back. They are reasonably quiet at 1500RPM, but noticeable over all the other fans when they are running low. However, 1100-ish RPM range makes it drown in the ambient noise. (I tried to capture the noise from the microphone, but it didn’t come out right. So I skipped it.)

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