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PC Fan of the Future?
baptiste writes "While we marvel at the latest CPU release or new motherboard chipset, we still put the same old fans in the neon lit cases and then complain that it is too loud. Well, maybe someone has finally come up with the next generation PC fan. Y.S. Tech has announced a new fan which is driven at the blade tips by a magnetic motor in the housing. Without the motor in the middle they claim a 30% airflow improvement meaning, potenitally, you could get the same airflow of today's fans at a lower RPM meaning less noise. They also claim the fan tips result in the bulk of fan noise. In this design they are sort of enclosed, reducing noise further. There is also a PDF datasheet available."
This is why dual-fan HSF setups primarily dominated, especially back when slot CPUs were still popular: you didn't have that static area of air. Sure, you had a hell of a lot more airflow from two fans, but one can argue that a lot of the kinetic energy is lost when air from the two fans collide.
Either way, this is a great improvement for CPU fans. Bravo, Y.S. Tech, it looks like you're taking the crown back from Delta (which is just more RPM, albeit much more noisy, for better performance).
A big part of this for me is being able to turn off the MP3's every so often and have enough silence to think! I'd rather have a 500mhz that can do all the development I can throw at it, than a 747 powered fan sitting on top of a Gigahertz!
Seems that some of these companies are catching on that it might be possible to have the best of both worlds. My hope is that consumers will follow along enough to bring the cost of production low enough that even I can afford them. :)
The more you know, the less you understand.
It seems like every once in a while someone comes up with a latest-greatest new heatsink design. I've seen weird platinum peacock feathers and those wavy metal strips from a while back. They all look kind of goofy, and when really put to the test, don't do too much better. Short of pipes nd pumps, big hunks of copper attached to really fast traditional fans are still the best thing going, and I don't think that's for lack of effort at finding new things.
Because this is an improvement on the *fan* and not the whole heatsink, I give it a little more credence, but I won't be that interested until I actually see some Tom's numbers on it.
And I really won't be interested in it until the pricetag falls below $100 for a fan. For that money you could water-cool, or just soundproof your case.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Having torn a many pcâ(TM)s apart, to the risk of slicing my hands upon the un de burred sheet metal. I have noticed 1 common elements that contribute to fan failure.
Too much heat on the oil seal
Looking at this compared to a ordinary fan, it looks as though the bearings and oil seals are evenly dispersed over the surface area of the heat sink, where most common fans have the bearings and oil seals right in the center in the middle of rising heat. Iâ(TM)m not a thermodynamics expert but I can tell you from experience that I have been able to bring many a dead CPU fans back from the dead simply by peeling the sticker off in the center and dropping a dab of oil in there.
Anyways thatâ(TM)s my 2cents
Another one of those "too cool to be
useful" cooling fans.
Center area has minimum effect on air
transportation. Outside region of blade
has most effect on air transportation.
Too sad that blade diamater is redudced
because "motor" sits outside.
Heat from chip goes into heat sink. Heat
sink has very good thermal conductivity
(Alumininum or copper, much better than
transition region heat sink -> air). So
think of heat sink as an ideally stirred
container. Weak additional middle air
flow doesn't improve cooling. Reduced
outside air flow _does_ reduce cooling
performance.
What makes an effective cooling device?
* High surface heat sink with good thermal conductivity.
* High volume, turbulent of air flow over whole surface.
* Fancy design does move your money but doesn't move heat.