High cooling efficiency is the foundation, but with the BioniX P14 A-RGB fans, Arctic has also made efforts on other fronts. In addition to the clever daisy-chaining method (with the aim of reducing cabling to a minimum), this includes, for example, illumination as intense as possible. The light is guided not only through the entire impeller, but also through the surface of the frame, from the side. There are light guides in these areas as well.
… and of airflow
With airflow measurements, we can well explain why the test tunnel is shaped the way it is. It doesn’t consist of two parts just so that the “exhaust” can be conveniently clogged for pressure measurements. The anemometer (i.e. the wind speed measuring instrument) is held together by two parts, two formations, through the flanges.
The front part, at the beginning of which the fan is mounted, becomes steadily narrower and from about two thirds of the way through the cross-section is smaller than that of a 120 mm fan. The reason for this is that the cross-section of the anemometer is always smaller than that of the fans tested. The taper towards the anemometer fan is as smooth as could be chosen and the tunnel walls are smooth. This has minimized the occurrence of unnatural turbulence.
The difference between the cross section at the intake (fan under test) and at the constriction point (anemometer) also means a difference in dynamic pressure, the principles of the Venturi effect apply here. In order to avoid distortion at this level and to ensure that the fan airflow is not different from what it actually is, the Bernoulli equation must be applied to the measured values (for maximum accuracy, the calculation also takes into account the internal cross-sectional area of the anemometer, i.e. its inactive part ). After all this, it is again possible to confront our results with the paper parameters.
We use an Extech AN300 anemometer with a large 100 mm fan for the measurements. Its big advantage over other anemometers is that it is made for bidirectional sensing. This allows tests at different fan orientations. However, the “pull” position is more suitable or accurate for measurements, even though it may not seem so at first glance, but we’ll explain.
Here, we get to the second part of the tunnel, the part behind the anemometer. It is part of the whole device, mainly to allow a laminar flow of air to arrive at the impeller of the anemometer. Otherwise, uncontrolled side whirls would be reflected in the results, which are inconsistent with accurate measurements. Therefore, we will test the flow in the pull position. If anyone would like us to elaborate more on this topic, we can elaborate further at any time in the discussion below the article. Ask away. 🙂
In regard to the anemometer, we shall return for a bit to noise measurements and to setting modes according to fixed noise levels. It may have occurred to you as you were reading that the anemometer fan is also a source of sound that needs to be filtered out when measuring fans. For this reason, we insert a securing pad between the frame and the anemometer fan before each measurement and mode setting according to the fixed noise level. This, by the way, also holds the anemometer fan during static pressure measurements.
And next time, shall we do the Seasonic MaxFlow fan? 🙂
Me again. Still none of tables do show up. Instead only error messages show. I did check using three devices and two different browsers. Only your newest Arctic BioniX test is affected.
Could you please give me some examples of pages where the charts aren’t displaying correctly? I’ll take a look afterwards and we’ll incorporate the fix—I’ll fix them. Thanks! 🙂
Hey, it might be an issue on my end but several pages of this test don’t load correctly on two devices of mine. Apart from that, thanks a lot for the test. It did perform exceptionally well in the hwbusters-test, too.
Personally, I would like to see a test of the “Noiseblocker NB-eLoop X B14-P ARGB”, since I own several of them. However, testing them probably wouldn’t be interessting to you, since they are really old and I know only of one vendor still selling them
https://www.caseking.de/search?q=eloop+B14&search-button=&lang=de_DE
They used to cost 25 or even 30€ per fan, if I remember correctly. I think, the noiseblocker fans were one of the first to use an outer ring on the impeller.
Thanks for the contribution. Yeah, there were a few charts that weren’t displaying correctly, or weren’t showing up at all. If you spot anything like that, please let me know. Everything should be there completely now, but…
The NB-eLoop X B14-P ARGB is definitely worth testing, of course, but our capacity… Anyway, one Noiseblocker fan will definitely appear in our tests down the line, as it has been planned for quite some time and we already have the samples. 🙂
The issue regarding the results pages not loading is still ongoing – even without VPN and no ad blocker.
The div-container usually containing the result tables shows:
“Oops! That page can’t be found.
It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try one of the links below or a search?”
Everything should be fine now. The issue was on our end. The charts were being linked to URLs with the wrong month in them, which we’ve corrected (from 08 to 09), and they’re working now, haha. 🙂
Just a small addition: In the case of the three-pack, you can connect only one fan separately to a single motherboard header. But, of course, you can connect all three if the fans are daisy-chained with the tokens. 🙂