Closer Examination

We have examined the general design of the EK-Vardar 120 mm fans before, with the non-RGB version having been a victim of association by looks to the Nidec-Servo Gentle Typhoon even though the direct equivalent has a significantly different impeller where it counts. Moving away from the generic OEM black and gray color scheme helped EKWB a lot, with the recent EVO versions going with full white or black in color alongside other features of distinction, including a hydrodynamic bearing in some versions and a reworked motor enabling a zero RPM mode.

The newer EK-Vardar EVO 120ER RGB is inherently based off this very design, but uses a translucent rotor to allow for the RGB lighting to shine through the fan in action. It is a square frame 120 x 120 mm fan with seven curved blades that have a lip on their leading edges on the impeller, and the same thick PBT frame. There continue to be no vibration-dampening corner pads here; instead, there are cutouts around the open corners that enterprising customers can use with some foam pieces if they so desire. Also, there are no arrows to point out the direction of airflow or the impeller's rotation if you are unsure, and instead, we have the EKWB logo on the frame. I would have definitely liked some rubber pads here, if only to help isolate vibrations from sources out of their control.


There are nine RGB LEDs integrated into the central hub, which is smaller than the massive hub on the non-RGB fan (1.88" vs 2.06"). This smaller hub means that the inclusion of LEDs still adds to the central dead spot, but not to where EKWB had to compromise on the impeller design and blade length. This means that there is a good chance this will perform similar to the non-RGB fan, assuming the smaller hub has not meant the PWM motor and bearings have been affected either. As it turns out, the latter is different—this fan has dual ball bearings instead of the hydrodynamic bearing used in the non-RGB version that has a lower noise potential at slower fan speeds relative to ball bearings.

Each fan is rated for 0.2 A (2.4 W) on the 12 VDC rail, which corresponds to the peak draw with start-up boost. This number is also not present on the back hub sticker, which may or may not indicate the number was independently verified. In practice, I noticed a maximum operating current draw of 0.14 A here (~1.7 W on the 12 V rail), so you should be able to operate a good number of these fans off a single 1 A fan header if start-up boost can be accounted for. Alternatively, you can also get a powered PWM splitter and leave nothing to chance by powering the fans directly through the PSU.


The fan has two cables, one to power the PWM motor that runs it and the second to power and control the RGB LEDs. As such, we see the four individual wires that make up each cable, and there is no sleeving here with EKWB instead having gone with ribbon-style cables in black insulation for each wire as seen above. Both cables terminate in standard 12 VDC 4-pin female connectors and are 50 cm long, which is on the longer side of average. This does mean more cable management to be aware of, but also helps out in other ways, especially with the LED cable you may want to hook up to a splitter cable and then to a motherboard LED header.


I do not have one such motherboard, and I ended up using a simple RGB controller to demo some of the lighting effects possible with the fan. As it turns out, the EK-Vardar EVO 120ER RGB fan does not use addressable RGB LEDs and relies on a controller for static and/or dynamic effects alike. Seen above are some images showing the fan lit up, and another with the LEDs going through a multi-color breathing mode. EKWB mentioned that the LEDs are capable of more with support for motherboard lighting solutions, including ASUS Aura Sync, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light, and ASRock RGB LED, so I will have to take their word at this point in the absence of a more powerful controller. The product page also calls it "the brightest RGB fan on the market" though, and this is contentious at best.