Arctic Introduces P14 Slim PWM PST 16mm-thick 140mm Fan

[btarunr]

Today ARCTIC, a leading manufacturer of low-noise PC coolers and components, introduces a new 140 mm case fan, the P14 Slim PWM PST. Small form factor enthusiasts will appreciate the slender frame of ARCTIC's latest case fan: with a mounting height of only 16 mm, the P14 Slim PWM PST takes up much less space than a standard case fan. This makes it an ideal choice for HTPC cases, SFF and mini PCs.

The P14 Slim PWM PST employs ARCTIC's signature PWM sharing technology (PST), allowing up to three additional fans to be connected in series. Fan speed can be controlled via PWM, and with a range of 150 to 1800 RPM, the P14 Slim PWM PST guarantees high cooling performance while keeping noise levels at a minimum.



Like all fans in ARCTIC's P series, the P14 Slim PWM PST is optimised for static pressure. This ensures efficient cooling even with increased air resistance, making it a great choice for use on heatsinks and radiators as well as in small cases where tightly stacked components, cables or tubes severely restrict free airflow.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Valantar]

Oh, this is very cool. Nice to see that it's a P-series as well, even if it's clearly very different from the regular P14. There are far too few slim 140mm fans on the market, so this should be a great option for the use cases where that's desirable.

 

[phanbuey]

I have the slim 120mm of these and they are great. Very nice to see this product

 

[Chrispy_]

This is good. I don't need them but I can think of several scenarios where a 140x25 fan wouldn't fit.

I also want thicker fans. 38x140mm would be a better solution for delivering quiet static pressure and likely better than sandwiching a radiator between a pair of standard 25x140mm fans.

 

[Tulatin]

This is good. I don't need them but I can think of several scenarios where a 140x25 fan wouldn't fit.

I also want thicker fans. 38x140mm would be a better solution for delivering quiet static pressure and likely better than sandwiching a radiator between a pair of standard 25x140mm fans.

Silverstone made those at some point, they're just hard to find. FHP-141.

I used to have 8 of them for a push-pull 560mm rad setup. They were... okay fans, but not great tbh

 

[Prima.Vera]

Experience told me not to trust 7 blade fans any more... I prefer the 9 blade setup for fans to be honest.

 

[Chrispy_]

Experience told me not to trust 7 blade fans any more... I prefer the 9 blade setup for fans to be honest.

Number of blades is almost irrelevant. There are good 3, 5, 7, 9 blade fans and bad 3, 5, 7, 9 blade fans.

The number of blades combined with the RPM does play a significant role in the pitch of the fan noise produced, but that's about it.

 

[Valantar]

Experience told me not to trust 7 blade fans any more... I prefer the 9 blade setup for fans to be honest.

The normal P14 is a 5-blade design, so ...yay? Honestly though, does blade count really matter much? Isn't it rather the blade design that matters? With this they've clearly tried to maintain the (very good) blade geometry of the P14 while adding a few more fins to account for them being shallower and thus not covering as much area. 9 fins would most likely have required a very different blade design, which would kind of take away the point of basing this on the excellent P14.

 

[Chrispy_]

Silverstone made those at some point, they're just hard to find. FHP-141.

I used to have 8 of them for a push-pull 560mm rad setup. They were... okay fans, but not great tbh

Interesting! The old AP183 Air penetrators (180x32mm) were fantastic fans without equal in the consumer space.

Did you try just using them in a push configuration? The whole point of thicker fans is that they can produce better static pressure and if I had to guess (I *am* guessing) you'd probably have had near-identical performance out of just using four of them.

 

[Valantar]

Interesting! The old AP183 Air penetrators (180x32mm) were fantastic fans without equal in the consumer space.

Did you try just using them in a push configuration? The whole point of thicker fans is that they can produce better static pressure and if I had to guess (I *am* guessing) you'd probably have had near-identical performance out of just using four of them.

I always wanted to see someone make an SFF build in a custom case around a single 180mm rad, one of those Air Penetrators, an ITX board and <180mm long GPU for a nice high performance cube. A challenge to find a PSU that would fit, but it could definitely be done.

 

[harby13]

True VFM fans. Let others spend $$$ on bling bling rgb with subpar performance.

 

[Chrispy_]

True VFM fans. Let others spend $$$ on bling bling rgb with subpar performance.

RGB anything is a performance downgrade for sure. Even if the fan blades are the same size, shape, and RPM as the non-RGB version, you've gained a rats-nest of cable spaghetti to get in the way or airflow and that ARGBLED controller needs performance-sapping (and often shoddily-written) software to control, whilst also dumping 10-20W of additional heat into your case that adds to the burden of cooling your PC.

 

[Jokii]

True VFM fans.

As long as you don't care about silence, I guess.
I found these P/F Arctic fans to be quite low quality, with noticeable noise at certain RPMs.

 

[Valantar]

As long as you don't care about silence, I guess.
I found these P/F Arctic fans to be quite low quality, with noticeable noise at certain RPMs.

That's a known issue with these, though seemingly intermittent - my P14s are extremely quiet across their entire range, and I've heard many report the same, but your issue is also rather common. AFAIK Arctic is aware of it as well, and I think you can get them exchanged if they're noisy.

 

[jigar2speed]

Experience told me not to trust 7 blade fans any more... I prefer the 9 blade setup for fans to be honest.

Experience has told you wrong, check P12 reviews.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I am using BioniX P120 as defacto fans for my builds for others. You simply cannot beat them price performance wise.

Arctic is really doing well.

 

[Gungar]

Experience told me not to trust 7 blade fans any more... I prefer the 9 blade setup for fans to be honest.

You should trust the color of the fan, red fans are faster and grey ones are noisier. I even heard that the white ones are noiseless.

 

[Ferrum Master]

You should trust the color of the fan, red fans are faster and grey ones are noisier. I even heard that the white ones are noiseless.

You forgot the ECO green ones.

 

[Prima.Vera]

The number of blades combined with the RPM does play a significant role in the pitch of the fan noise produced, but that's about it.

What do you mean, "that's it" ?! That's exactly IT. More blades means less noise and more CFM with less RPM. Usually CMF is something that I look when buying a fan...

 

[Valantar]

What do you mean, "that's it" ?! That's exactly IT. More blades means less noise and more CFM with less RPM. Usually CMF is something that I look when buying a fan...

The 5-blade P12 and P14 beg to differ with that statement. It might be broadly true, but is clearly dependent on blade geometry.

 

[Chrispy_]

What do you mean, "that's it" ?! That's exactly IT. More blades means less noise and more CFM with less RPM. Usually CMF is something that I look when buying a fan...

No, you don't understand.

Pitch (frequency) is not volume (amplitude). In leyman terms, you can sing high or low, and you can sing loud or quiet. The volume you sing at has no real impact on how high or low the note is.

More blades does not mean less noise.
More blades means a higher-pitched noise.

A majority of the fan noise is caused by the number of times a trailing blade edge passes one of the hub supports. Since almost all fans have a hubs supported by four arms, and each blade passes all four arms once per revolution, the number of pressure pulses a second (ie, the sound frequency) is:

(number of blades) * (number of arms) * (revolutions per second).

The volume, or amplitude, of the noise is determined mostly by the relative pressure of the air at the trailing blade edge, and that is a complex calculation involving matrix integrals in SEA fluid kinematics but the dominant factors in how much noise a fan makes are the rate of blade angle change (the aggressiveness of the cross-flow sweep) and the absolute speed of the blades (effectively the RPM).

TL;DR

• blade shape and size = loudness
• blade count = pitch

 

[trsttte]

Basically low blade count for the win, much better to have it humming along than screeching higher pitch sounds

 

[Chrispy_]

Basically low blade count for the win, much better to have it humming along than screeching higher pitch sounds

It really isn't that simple, as it's very hard to build a quiet, high-CFM fan with only 3 blades in a 25mm deep frame.

Large blades either means a shallow angle which means low airflow speeds (and amazing static pressure) but you'd have to spin that at very high RPM to get the same CFM...

...or, it means that there's a big gap between small blades which leads to abysmal static pressure, so CFM suffers because even slightly positive case pressure, a restrictive mesh/filter, or a dense heatsink would be too much for the low static pressure to overcome.

High power server fans with only 3 blades get around this by being 38mm deep, which allows each of the 3 blades to have a much better angle for a good balance of static pressure and CFM.