Details of the Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice
Gigabyte has put together a fan that combines ARGB LEDs, clever daisy chaining using connectors in the frame, and very good results on radiators. All of that for an attractive price. The design of the Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice seems to be optimized for use on radiators in particular. In fact, these are the cheapest ARGB fans with daisy chaining and this kind of efficiency that we’ve ever tested.
The Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice has a fully lighted impeller. The material it is made of is milky and conducts the light of the (ARGB) LEDs well. These are situated in the center, which is also where the highest brightness is, which gradually fades towards the tips of the blades. But it is still high at the tips. The lighting is connected via a 3-pin connector, i.e. addressable/digital with 5 V. That is, in a fairly traditional way that can be applied on all motherboards, barring some rare exceptions.
Aerodynamically, nine sharply curved blades were used. This shape is, as you already know from our earlier tests, very efficient. To what extent in relative comparison with other fans depends on several characteristics.
The size of the impeller itself, or its “effective” part, the outer cross-section, is key. This means the area behind or in front of the blades. This area is the difference between the total area (of the impeller) and the area of the impeller hub. The latter’s diameter is about 51.5 mm and is therefore quite large, taking up a considerable part of the impeller. This means that even with the chosen blade geometry, which is aerodynamically super-efficient, the Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice will not reach the highest airflows. The reason for this is that similar fans, in short, have a smaller impeller hub and larger blades. However, this deficit can be well compensated for on obstacles with the high static pressure that Gigabyte boasts about. And there’s something to it. If only because the gaps between the blades are relatively small, which is a good basis for making the drop in airflow over an obstacle exceedingly small.
To promote the highest possible airflow and to suppress noise, there are notches, or serrations, on the trailing edges of the blades. It depends on how you look at it. These “laminarize the airflow” in places where it is useful, or perhaps more accurately, smooth out microturbulence, allowing more air to pass through the fan. And this with less noise (more laminar airflow = quieter airflow). So we can talk about an element that is supposed to increase the aerodynamic efficiency of the fan. Sure, it does so marginally, but still.
One of the key features is the in-frame connectors. Through them, multiple fans can be connected in series. That’s to reduce cables that would otherwise be redundant. Multiple fans daisy-chained in this way connect to the motherboard header, or fan hub, using just one cable. Or rather two, considering that one 3-pin ARGB header is for the lighting and the motor is then connected through another, PWM header (4-pin).
In any case, these cables are only brought out from one (outermost) fan, instead of typically, for example, three, if you want to mount the fans on a 360-millimeter liquid cooler radiator. This is also the destination to which these fans are directed. For example, they are also used on the Aorus Waterforce II (Ice) or Waterforce X II (Ice) liquid coolers. Although pieces that are sold separately have a slightly smaller speed range, with a maximum of 2000 rpm (instead of 2300 rpm of those on the liquid coolers).
Unlike most other fans (such as the Seasonic MagFlow ARGB) with in-frame connectors, these don’t use magnetic attachment, but a “click mechanism”. The advantage of such a solution is that Gigabyte did not have to work with magnets, which require more space. This then causes the need for thicker frames, which results in a smaller impeller cross-section in a given format, which also decreases cooling efficiency. And of course without magnets it is cheaper, although you could argue that the mounting system of the Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice via snap-in elements is less user-friendly. That’s true, but you can definitely still handle the mounting. Everything is intuitive, precise, and in short, things fit together well without the need for excessive effort.
The Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice is sold both individually (GP-ECFAN1201 ICE) and as part of a three-pack (GP-ECFAN1203 ICE). Availability at the time of writing is weaker, but that’s because this is a new product that is still being stocked, according to a Gigabyte representative, and inventory in stores should increase in the future.
- Contents
- Details of the Aorus EZ Chain Fan 120 Ice
- Overview of specifications from the manufacturer
- Basis of the methodology, the wind tunnel
- Mounting and vibration measurement
- Initial warm-up and speed recording
- Base 6 equal noise levels...
- ... and sound color (frequency characteristic)
- Measurement of static pressure...
- ... and of airflow
- Everything changes with obstacles
- How we measure power draw and motor power
- Measuring the intensity (and power draw) of lighting
- Results: Speed
- Results: Airflow w/o obstacles
- Results: Airflow through a nylon filter
- Results: Airflow through a plastic filter
- Results: Airflow through a hexagonal grille
- Results: Airflow through a thinner radiator
- Results: Airflow through a thicker radiator
- Results: Static pressure w/o obstacles
- Results: Static pressure through a nylon filter
- Results: Static pressure through a plastic filter
- Results: Static pressure through a hexagonal grille
- Results: Static pressure through a thinner radiator
- Results: Static pressure through a thicker radiator
- Results: Static pressure, efficiency depending on orientation
- Reality vs. specifications
- Results: Frequency response of sound w/o obstacles
- Results: Frequency response of sound with a dust filter
- Results: Frequency response of sound with a hexagonal grille
- Results: Frequency response of sound with a radiator
- Results: Vibration, in total (3D vector length)
- Results: Vibration, X-axis
- Results: Vibration, Y-axis
- Results: Vibration, Z-axis
- Results: Power draw (and motor power)
- Results: Cooling performance per watt, airflow
- Results: Cooling performance per watt, static pressure
- Airflow per euro
- Static pressure per euro
- Results: Lighting – LED luminance and power draw
- Results: LED to motor power draw ratio
- Evaluation
While I understand the need to trim down the length of the charts, I miss being able to directly compare between 120 and 140 mm fans in one chart.
Perhaps an article can be made that updates every time a new fan review is posted, that includes all up-to-date charts for all fan formats? This will also make sharing the fan test results easier – the link will always lead to the latest data. Well, at least it would be the stop-gap solution before a proper database is created. Alternatively, add a filter option into the charts that let you toggle some data on or off, though I am not sure how feasible it is.
Another suggestion is to embed the links to the reviews of each fan into the charts themselves.
Thank you for your feedback on this matter. 🙂
We thought about how to do it and whether to do it at all – the separation of 120 mm from 140 mm format fans. In the end, we approached it like this, and maybe it would be a good compromise to release at some intervals (always at the end of the year) a complete database of the results, where both formats are included in one graph?
You have some good ideas about filtering, but here we encounter the limited possibilities of the interactive graphs we use. They are very outdated in their core and while it would be useful to completely rewrite (and modernize) them, unfortunately we don’t have the capacity to do that at the moment.