After many years, we finally managed to get our hands on the Antec Storm 120. That is, 120 mm fans combining an attractive (and efficient) geometry with good price accessibility. Although these are not outright cheap fans, the price is still relatively low. The result is quite appealing. Don’t look for technical perfection here, but “for that kind of money” it is good. Especially if you also value other things than the price/performace ratio.
Results: Static pressure w/o obstacles
Explanatory note: Static pressure without an obstacle is measured in two different scenarios—using laminar and turbulent airflow at the inlet. The results in this section reflect the first case. This means that airflow to the impeller is laminar, guided through a dedicated inlet tunnel. In such a setup, the fan has access to a larger volume of air, and the resulting static pressure values are higher. This represents the optimal environment for properly measuring fan parameters. For a detailed explanation of what “static pressure” means and how to interpret it, see this article.
Why is a value sometimes missing for a fan? There can be several reasons. Most commonly, it’s because the fan couldn’t be regulated to the target noise level. Some fans have higher minimum RPM (or they spin slowly but have an excessively noisy motor), or they are simply slower models that can’t reach higher decibel thresholds. Results are also omitted from graphs if the impeller scrapes against the mesh of a nylon filter. In such cases, we classify the combination as incompatible. And of course, a zero in the graphs naturally appears in situations where we record an actual 0.00. This often occurs at extremely low speeds when obstacles are present or during vibration measurements.
Next up will be ID-Cooling… with one aerodynamic feature that none of the fans we’ve tested so far make use of. 🙂