Noctua Demonstrate Their Next-Generation A-Series Fans at Computex 2017

[PowerPC]

Why isn't anybody screaming or making videos about the blatant ripoff of Scythe fans?! I guess people only do that when they already hate the company, like they did with Thermaltake. These people are so objective...

 

[HTC]

Why isn't anybody screaming or making videos about the blatant ripoff of Scythe fans?! I guess people only do that when they already hate the company, like they did with Thermaltake. These people are so objective...

Care to elaborate?

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

How so???

The blade can be approximated by a cantilever beam fixed at the fan hub. There can be flapwise, chordise and torsional vibration (torsional is due to the excitation due to the propelling forces). In this problem the critical speeds will depend not only on the geometry of the blade, material properties (density + stiffness (torsional and transverse) and viscoelasticity (material damping) ) but also on the rotational speed of the blade because there will be a stiffening effect due to the centrifugal forces (depend on the density and rotational speed) acting upon the blade. If the rotational speed of the fan crosses or is close enough to one of the natural frequencies of this system (critical speed) or if the excitation due to air flow and even parasitic vibrations introduced by external elements are close to the critical speed (eg: other fan slightly of balance in any other point on the case) the vibrations on the fan can be significant.

This means that in one scenario the fan with the new material/geometry can be better than the old one, but in other scenarios the old one can be better (in terms of vibrations).

I hope that this was clear enough, if you have questions don't hesitate in posting them.

Best regards

 

[HTC]

The blade can be approximated by a cantilever beam fixed at the fan hub. There can be flapwise, chordise and torsional vibration (torsional is due to the excitation due to the propelling forces). In this problem the critical speeds will depend not only on the geometry of the blade, material properties (density + stiffness (torsional and transverse) and viscoelasticity (material damping) ) but also on the rotational speed of the blade because there will be a stiffening effect due to the centrifugal forces (depend on the density and rotational speed) acting upon the blade. If the rotational speed of the fan crosses or is close enough to one of the natural frequencies of this system (critical speed) or if the excitation due to air flow and even parasitic vibrations introduced by external elements are close to the critical speed (eg: other fan slightly of balance in any other point on the case) the vibrations on the fan can be significant.

This means that in one scenario the fan with the new material/geometry can be better than the old one, but in other scenarios the old one can be better (in terms of vibrations).

I hope that this was clear enough, if you have questions don't hesitate in posting them.

Best regards

I'm assuming they did extensive testing to come up with this material: seriously doubt any problems like the ones you describe surfaced @ the regular operating speeds. @ higher speeds, perhaps.

Unless this sort of thing can be caused by a non-related PC case component?

 

[_JP_]

Rigidity means something has to provide some dampening to what the fan will produce as vibration in the blade hub -> Axle -> Shaft -> Frame...if it's reflected against the fan, it cannot eliminate it, it will just add to the overall system...if i'm not mistaken here...

Unless this sort of thing can be cause by a non-related PC case component?

Like a bug or anything small enough to fly past the grills of the chassis

 

[HTC]

Rigidity means something has to provide some dampening to what the fan will produce as vibration in the blade hub -> Axle -> Shaft -> Frame...if it's reflected against the fan, it cannot eliminate it, it will just add to the overall system...if i'm not mistaken here...

Like a bug or anything small enough to fly past the grills of the chassis

I was thinking about some sort of interference from another PC component that could affect vibrations from the fan but i suppose a bug could as well, lol xD

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

I'm assuming they did extensive testing to come up with this material: seriously doubt any problems like the ones you describe surfaced @ the regular operating speeds. @ higher speeds, perhaps.

Unless this sort of thing can be cause by a non-related PC case component?

If a periodic external excitation has an harmonic that happens to be in tune with one of the natural frequencies of the fan it will excite it. It indeed can be excited by an external component. I commented on the intrinsic vibration of the blade (that seemed to be what the statement in the OP was about), but you a also have the natural frequency of the fan (with all its blades), in fact if you have 9 blades, you will have at least 9 natural modes, (at least one for each flapwise blade vibration), and then in can be combined with the intrinsic modes of the blades themselves...

It is not a matter of high or low speeds, that is relative to the geometry and material properties as said... it is a question of how close you are to those speeds eg: rotational speed / natural frequency. They surely have come up with a design (200 prototypes) that is better than the old one, but the statement that was made on the OP was not accurate... I may be being too picky about this x)

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Why isn't anybody screaming or making videos about the blatant ripoff of Scythe fans?! I guess people only do that when they already hate the company, like they did with Thermaltake. These people are so objective...

Theres been quite a few Gentle typhoon fan copies on the market for a while now... EK Vardar, Silverstone SST-FN123/FQ-121 & one or two others that i cant seem to think of right now.

 

[Fx]

This news can only mean one thing to me. It is time to buy new fans. The timing is impeccable though since I've begun to gather the components for a Ryzen build.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

@HTC @uuuaaaaaa

I would have expected the geometry of the blades to be somewhat more of a factor, but then again I would think optimisation of harmonics within a dynamic system like this comes down to more tradeoff tuning than anything else. So you operate the fan in a range of speeds where fewer of the harmonics become apparent/significant rather than trying to eliminate them altogether.

But as you mention, it is clear there is a lot of design effort going into the fans, and they seeem to know (more or less) what they are doing.

Why isn't anybody screaming or making videos about the blatant ripoff of Scythe fans?! I guess people only do that when they already hate the company, like they did with Thermaltake. These people are so objective...

Anyone who believed any of the "Scythe" ripoff fans made so far were any good has clearly knows nothing about fans. The GTs already had a remarkably tight blade tip clearance, none of the GT copy fans had similar clearance. The SSTs don't even use a larger bearing... I hope these noctuas live up to the job and do actually compete with or outperform the GTs, because it is really ridiculous that the companies selling fans have not made any progress in performance or noise since the GTs were originally released, yet people still believe in all the marketing crap that companies like Corsair, NZXT, TT, SST, etc throw out. Even from Noctua I have heard a fair share of what I'd call "objectively bullshit" claims when it comes to their fans.

 

[VSG]

Scythe didn't make any of the GTs, so let's get that cleared for everyone. The company making and selling them is Nidec-Servo, and currently you can still buy them from a couple of vendors in North America. I will soon have one of those reviewed on TPU as well.

The EK Vardar has fewer blades and a raised lip so it's not really a copy. The closest visually are the Swiftech Helix120 and Silverstone FQ121 but even here both have small differences visually and larger differences performance wise as mentioned before. So until I get to see these new Noctua NF-A12 fans in person and test them myself, I will keep an open mind and not judge them as copies or clones or anything.

 

[HTC]

Scythe didn't make any of the GTs, so let's get that cleared for everyone. The company making and selling them is Nidec-Servo, and currently you can still buy them from a couple of vendors in North America. I will soon have one of those reviewed on TPU as well.

The EK Vardar has fewer blades and a raised lip so it's not really a copy. The closest visually are the Swiftech Helix120 and Silverstone FQ121 but even here both have small differences visually and larger differences performance wise as mentioned before. So until I get to see these new Noctua NF-A12 fans in person and test them myself, I will keep an open mind and not judge them as copies or clones or anything.

Seems fair.

AFAIK, none of Noctua's fans are copies / clones: no reason for them to start doing it now.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

From an engineering perspective I don't think there is anything wrong with taking hints from the GT design, it is a great product, and having quite a few of them I can say they lived up to the hype. A lot better than the Corsair SP120s that I bought a while back which turned out to be significantly more noisy than the stock fans in the 550D... And if Noctua does live up to their hype of a fan that is visually and in terms of some of the more basic design characteristics similar to the GTs by backing it up with the performance to match or surpass the GT, good on them!

What I very dislike is when other companies try to make a product that visually goes after elements of a good product like the GT, and then actually makes a mediocre product and sells it off the perception that it was "inspired by" said high performance product.

 

[Athlonite]

Reminds me of Gentle Typhoons.

My thoughts exactly except shit brown one instead of black and gray