EK sure are "fans" of themselves!

[Jerakl]

I'm sorry, I really am.

 

No I'm not.

 

 

So EK makes fans now...

Source:

http://hitechlegion.com/news-press/press-release/42473-ek-announces-new-high-pressure-120mm-fan-ek-vardar

 

 

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.

 

So here are some specs:

 

Fan speed: 1150-3K rpm

Duty cycle (?): from 60-100 to 40-100

Loudness: 23.7-42 Decibels

 

 

Oooooh pretty colors.

 

Key features

 

• 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.

 

 

I hope these perform well, EK seems to be a reputable company in the cooling industry (Never ventured too far into that domain).

 

Thoughts?

 

Proof it's legit etc.

[Glenwing]

To be honest they look vaguely familiar

[MeltingPoint]

*cough* Gentle Typhoon *cough*

[The_Strict_Nein]

Those motors.

If these are Gentle Typhoon V2, oh man, EK go straight to the top of all fan lists

[hiyayhi]

Mmmm, first thing I thought was, gentle typhoons?

[Jerakl]

Those motors.

If these are Gentle Typhoon V2, oh man, EK go straight to the top of all fan lists

Mmmm, first thing I thought was, gentle typhoons?

 

Educate me on the "Gentle Typhoons" please.

[RazeG3SG1]

Educate me on the "Gentle Typhoons" please.

One of the best fan made in the whole history.

They were made by Scythe and Nidec, with variants of 1850 and 1450 rpms. They are well known to be very quiet at full rpm and high static pressure. In fact, they perform exactly like a Noctua and cost lower. A favourite among water cooling community.

Unfortunately, production ceased due to Scythe and Nidec fallout.

[Jerakl]

One of the best fan made in the whole history.

They were made by Scythe and Nidec, with variants of 1850 and 1450 rpms. They are well known to be very quiet at full rpm and high static pressure. In fact, they perform exactly like a Noctua and cost lower. A favourite among water cooling community.

Unfortunately, production ceased due to Scythe and Nidec fallout.

I see. Thank you for the info.

[VSG]

That proof is not really valid since EK definitely did not write it on the HiTechLegion website. The actual source should be this: http://www.ekwb.com/news/548/19/EK-announces-new-high-pressure-120mm-fan-EK-Vardar/ if you wanted to show proof

Now that this is done, these aren't Gentle Typhoons. Though the P-Q curves are similar and the max rpm also, these are totally an EK product. I have one on the way so will find out for myself how they perform.

[GM_Peka]

"Fan speed: 1150-3K rpm"

What the hell, that's hella fast, I run all my fans at 350rpm : /

 

I doubt they will perform as well as GTs did anyway.

 

Edit: oh never mind, I read the article, and 1150 RPM is the maximum speed of the slowest varient.

[p5ych00n5]

"Fan speed: 1150-3K rpm"

What the hell, that's hella fast, I run all my fans at 350rpm : /

 

I doubt they will perform as well as GTs did anyway.

 

Edit: oh never mind, I read the article, and 1150 RPM is the maximum speed of the slowest varient

 

I used to have 5 Scythe Ultra Kaze 3K fans in mah rig, imagine if you will having a Server Room strapped to each ear  :lol:

[GM_Peka]

I used to have 5 Scythe Ultra Kaze 3K fans in mah rig, imagine if you will having a Server Room strapped to each ear  :lol:

Oh god, that would kill me, the noise my HDD gives off is enough to put me on edge. As soon as 4TB SSDs are available for 350 pounds or something, I'm going full SSD (you may notice I'm using 2TBs roughly for storage ATM, so why would I want 4TB, that's because storage needs are only going to increase as time goes on).

[MeltingPoint]

This is actually good news if they perform similar to the GTs. We now have a new source for these awesome fans.

[p5ych00n5]

Oh god, that would kill me, the noise my HDD gives off is enough to put me on edge. As soon as 4TB SSDs are available for 350 pounds or something, I'm going full SSD (you may notice I'm using 2TBs roughly for storage ATM, so why would I want 4TB, that's because storage needs are only going to increase as time goes on).

To be fair that was when they were at full tilt, I had them undervolted to 5V and they were barely noticeable, well apart from the annoying clicking noise so I boosted up to 7V the clicking went away but they then had this weird acoustic pulsing that did my head in, so now I'm running TB Apollish fans which are dead silent, to me anyway and I lose about 5 degrees so it's a relative compromise.

 

All things considered they were beastly fans, but, just the noise.........I can't even

[Lynx]

One of the best fan made in the whole history.

They were made by Scythe and Nidec, with variants of 1850 and 1450 rpms. They are well known to be very quiet at full rpm and high static pressure. In fact, they perform exactly like a Noctua and cost lower. A favourite among water cooling community.

Unfortunately, production ceased due to Scythe and Nidec fallout.

Nope, they are better than Noctua. here's the review http://martinsliquidlab.org/2013/05/07/fan-testing-round-12/

[ManWithBeard1990]

It's weird how both these and the old GT's don't have a casing that diffuses the airflow over the square shape that radiators have. It'll be interesting to see how these perform. They definitely have "the look". To my eye, the high sweep angle and the winglets on the end indicates they might perform really well. The only problem I see is the motor struts are swept the wrong way round. So the fan blade design looks top notch to me, but it still might be loud due to the chopping noise created by the blades passing over the struts. The Gentle Typhoons and Noctua's (apart from the NF-F12 but the struts on that one have an aerodynamic job to do) haven't made that same mistake.

[RazeG3SG1]

Nope, they are better than Noctua. here's the review http://martinsliquidlab.org/2013/05/07/fan-testing-round-12/

Well, there are many reviews are out there claim either one is better. So it is kinda controversial IMO. They are undeniably cheaper than Noctua though. 

[Mooshi]

These do look familiar...a classic reborn under a new name?

[flibberdipper]

If those are as good as the GTs, I'll take some (assuming they come in both 120mm and 140mm versions, which they probably will).

[Mooshi]

I wonder the practicality of using these on a tower cooler would be. Static pressure is static pressure regardless of what is claimed to be their target use, right?

[VSG]

Well, there are many reviews are out there claim either one is better. So it is kinda controversial IMO. They are undeniably cheaper than Noctua though.

How can you argue against a video? Martin is also the best cooling tech reviewer to get info from. Anyway this is out of topic.

[Norman_the_Owl]

One of the best fan made in the whole history.

They were made by Scythe and Nidec, with variants of 1850 and 1450 rpms. They are well known to be very quiet at full rpm and high static pressure. In fact, they perform exactly like a Noctua and cost lower. A favourite among water cooling community.

Unfortunately, production ceased due to Scythe and Nidec fallout.

They're still in production, just in japan.

 

Scythe was just a daughter company for a japanese company whose name i forget.

The mother company produces these fans still, and some retailers in the US will do bulk orders to america and sell them here

[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.

[McMurderMonkey]

Oh god, that would kill me, the noise my HDD gives off is enough to put me on edge. As soon as 4TB SSDs are available for 350 pounds or something, I'm going full SSD (you may notice I'm using 2TBs roughly for storage ATM, so why would I want 4TB, that's because storage needs are only going to increase as time goes on).

 

Oh god, that would kill me, the noise my HDD gives off is enough to put me on edge. As soon as 4TB SSDs are available for 350 pounds or something, I'm going full SSD (you may notice I'm using 2TBs roughly for storage ATM, so why would I want 4TB, that's because storage needs are only going to increase as time goes on).

So glad I moved to my current SSD only system, Bliss. I am that much of a silence freak as well

[Norman_the_Owl]

 

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

 

I'm liking what i see...

 

Might just have to hold out on my order of GT's till these become a reality