EK Announces Fans Specially Designed for Radiators: EK Vardar Series

[btarunr]

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to announce company's first fully in-house engineered computer cooling fan, designed and built primarily for highest-performance computer liquid cooling systems - the EK-Vardar. This product is the result of one year worth of development, CFD analysis, careful motor selection and anechoic chamber testing.

Dubbed Vardar, this family of cooling fans carry the name of a type of the cold northwesterly wind blowing from the mountains down to the valleys of Macedonia. It is a type of ravine wind, enhanced by a channelling effect while blowing down through the Moravia-Vardar gap, bringing cold conditions from the north to the Thessaloniki area of Greece. Most frequent during winter, it is blowing in the rear of a depression when atmospheric pressure over eastern Europe is higher than over the Aegean Sea.



"High-pressure fan design have distinct blade characteristics", said Vlado Schweiger, chief hydrodynamic engineer at EK Water Blocks. "The key task was to optimize noise profile throughout entire fan operational range."

The key characteristics of EK-Vardar Fx-120 series fans are:

• High-static pressure / low noise profile - unlike other general-purpose computer cooling fans, the EK-Vardar family of fans is built specifically for computer liquid cooling systems, namely radiator cooling. The 7-fin fan blade design is optimized for high pressure operation while maintaining the low noise profile throughout the whole operation range of the fan.
• High-quality motor and bearing assembly - Proven electrical design, actively cooled motor windings and Double Ball bearing with 50.000 hours lifespan (MTBF) ensures uninterrupted operation for years to come. Phase-width modulation (PWM) fan speed allows performance on demand.
• Sealed-edge fan casing - The classic, yet effective square shape of the fan casing ensures optimal performance in either pull- (suction) or push (pressure) regime without hydraulic losses thus ensuring optimal cooling capacity of your liquid cooling radiators.
• Timeless design - the EK-Vardar fan fits subtly into any liquid cooling computer without drawing too much attention. Single- and two-tone colour design with monochrome fan sticker. Less is more.

EK-Vardar 120mm cooling fan family currently consists of five models - four regular and one Furious Vardar with the latter built in distinctive all-black design. All fans come with four self-tapping screws and are pre-sleeved (F1-F4: black, FF5: red) for your convenience:



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[GreiverBlade]

Gentle Typhoon EK edition? (cause they look like .... with a bit less blades if i am not mistaken)

 

[LocutusH]

Seems to have much larger hub than the GT's... not sure, but i expect somewhat lower cooling efficiency.

 

[thekaidis]

The dead spot under the hub is friggin colossal. I have a feeling these will see a benefit from fan shrouds.

 

[Jorge]

You'd have to map the airflow to see what actually happens when the fan is placed against a radiator. What you believe happens does not usually occur. That being said most people understand that CLC type radiators are poor designs and require high static pressure to force enough airflow to actually cool the liquid. EK's stated goal was to reduce the fan noise while delivering a high static pressure and sufficient airflow at the high static pressure to be effective. Proper objective, scientific testing is the only means to know how these fans actually perform.

This is just one more product that EK will be flooding news sites with press releases for from now on.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Gentle Typhoon EK edition? (cause they look like .... with a bit less blades if i am not mistaken)

Yep. Sure is. The mostly discontinued standard Nidec Servo GT B4AP-14/-15. The more familiar nine blade Typhoon's are B5 and B6. The "Furious Vardar" is probably the B7AP-29.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Yep. Sure is. The mostly discontinued standard Nidec Servo GT B4AP-14/-15. The more familiar nine blade Typhoon's are B5 and B6. The "Furious Vardar" is probably the B7AP-29.

Wrong shot... those aren't PWM, so the controller is completely something else.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Wrong shot... those aren't PWM, so the controller is completely something else.

Probably not "completely something else". The Gentle Typhoon AP-29/-30/-31 also fits the parameters and are PWM capable (the terminal is present on the PCB). Like a lot of the Gentle Typhoon series, the fact they don't ship with PWM enabled is more a cost cutting measure I would suspect.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

the grey one kinda reminds of me Akasa Piranha fans

 

[Darksword]

Yeah, looks like a GT with a Phantek fin design on the ends.

I still have an old 120mm GT. Love that thing. =)

 

[manofthem]

Gentle Typhoon EK edition? (cause they look like .... with a bit less blades if i am not mistaken)

Indeed, the similarities are there. Unfortunately these fans are louder than the GTs so I'm eh about them.

 

[Eukashi]

yeah i like Gentle typhoon.
it has been discontinued for 3.11 earthquake.
that is good news.

 

[GhostRyder]

Gentle Typhoon EK edition? (cause they look like .... with a bit less blades if i am not mistaken)

I thought that myself, I literally said "Hmm those looks like Gentle Typhoons" LOL.

Though we have a lot of "Radiator ready" fans already on the market but I am always ready to see some "new" contenders.

 

[hyp36rmax]

I wonder if the oem is Nidec Servo of Gentle Typhoon as you're able to order fans to spec as long as you fulfill Nidecs MOQ. Please be so!!!

 

[badtaylorx]

This IS NOT a GT... Not even close really.

No metal hub,

Missing 2 blades,

Larger gap between blade and housing,

Non-composite plasic,

and GT's never did PWM....

Im not saying these cant be good fan's, just dont make the mistake of thinking you're purchasing a set of Typhoons.

 

[hyp36rmax]

This IS NOT a GT... Not even close really.

No metal hub,

Missing 2 blades,

Larger gap between blade and housing,

Non-composite plasic,

and GT's never did PWM....

Im not saying these cant be good fan's, just dont make the mistake of thinking you're purchasing a set of Typhoons.

Granted we do not know who the OEM for these new EK fans are as they may not be Nidec Servo, however you have a lot to learn as Nidec Servo always had the capability of releasing a PWM Gentle Typhoons by special order and in fact have released a PWM version of the AP15 (Model: D1225C12B5ZP-40) as well as PWM solder points in their higher end AP29 and AP30 models. You can also read up on Nidec Servo's Gentle Typhoon Data sheets as you can request a PWM capability.

For all we know EK may have private labeled their new fans through Nidec Servo to their specifications. Gotta love OEM's and the private labeling industry.

Source: Overclock.net
Source: Overclockers.com
Source: Nidec Servo Data Sheet

Just for fun: Did you know EK, Alphacool, Swiftech and many other Water-cooling manufacturers use Magicool as their OEM for radiators?

*Drops the MIC*

 

[badtaylorx]

yes, thats why i use Koolance, low fpi is overatted.

I thought i erased the PWM comment, guess not.... the rest is true though... It's not nidec....

furthermore i find it odd that they claim a "high static presure....." but dont list the specs...

suspicious

ps.. please try to be less insulting.... EVERYBODY has "a lot to learn"

 

[VSG]

Got permission from EK to post my findings for the F4 fan I had requested:

Note that this is a pre-production sample, but I couldn't resist requesting one for the sponsored build in the TX10-D. The packaging is finalized and tells you exactly what fan it is (the F4 in this case) and also the maximum fan RPM.

On the back we get tech specs and also the P-Q curve which, as others have seen, is similar to that of the respective Gentle Typhoon fan.

Nothing new on the side, and we see the contribution from Slovenia and the manufacturing company in China listed out here.

As I said this is a pre-production sample, and so there was only the fan in here. The final versions should come with 4 self-tapping screws and a few other cosmetic improvements. But enough about all this, let's take a look at the actual item:

As I said, cosmetic improvements incoming

I believe the heatshrink is getting a makeover and the label on the back of the hub will be done, not 100% sure about the retail sample sleeving material but I will likely buy a few anyway.

The advertized specs list a PWM duty cycle of 40-100%, but I was able to get it to as low as 20% on a single fan. The RPM response curve is mostly linear, especially from 25-95% where I suspect most people will be running this at anyway. Noise levels aren't the lowest I have seen at a particular fan RPM but when adding in the airflow through a radiator (a 11 FPI, 30mm thick 120mm radiator in push orientation), things get very impressive. As always, measurements were done 6" away from the fan to minimize background effects and also get the measurements in the >95% confidence range of measurement of the instruments used.

Here's how the GT AP-45 and eLoop B12-4 stack up (having removed the Swiftech Helix120 owing to potential uncontrolled variables and re-plotted as requested):

I will say that the AP-45 was not at it's best from 9-11 V here with an unpleasant buzz that I could hear in the open- not necessarily an issue inside a case a few feet away. But you can see that while the AP-45 and Vardar F4 are very identical in airflow through the radiator, the Vardar F4 is slightly quieter most of the time. The eLoop B12-4 needs a lot more fan speed to hit the same levels of airflow as the other two, and with it comes more noise. Another thing I will point out is that I was able to get the AP-45 all the way down to 186 RPM at 2V without issues, but at that point the airflow was lower than the reliable detection limits of the anemometer. Needless to say I am going to get a few more of these for the TX10-D radiators, and will test out the other NB eLoops also soon.