Endorfy Stratus 120 PWM: Efficient fan on a budget

Cooling, Extra tests, Fans | | Ľubomír Samák

Endorfy Stratus 120 PWM in detail

Why spend as much money on one fan as you would on four or five Endorfy Stratus 120 PWMs? There is a clear answer to this, but it may not be interesting to everyone. Especially when the fans are meant to fit well into builds designed with the best possible price/performance ratio in mind. That’s when low-cost fans make sense, and the end-user often dismisses the “imperfections” of the Stratus 120 (PWM) with a wave of the hand.

The Stratus 120 PWM is the cheapest fan in the Endorfy product range. It’s priced at the level of the Arctic P12 PWM PST, with which the comparison makes the most sense, as they are directly competing models. But also notable are the various differences from the old Sigma Pro 120 PWM fans still sold under the SilentiumPC brand. And fan enthusiasts won’t overlook how these fans stack up next to the Fluctus 120 PWM they’re sort of based on.

The first thing that catches the eye is that Stratus fans, unlike the Fluctus models, do not have notched leading edges. They are, on the contrary, smooth. And perfectly smooth, with none of the minor imperfections that tend to result from less precise injection moulding, such as with the Enermax SquA RGB.

The rotor geometry is built on a very similar basis to the Fluctus 120 PWM – it’s a bet on nine-blades with more pronounced leading-edge curvature, although the blades are still relatively shorter and wider. Thus, even when using PBT with less material thickness, they are still quite stiff. The Arctic P12, for example, has more flexible blades. The most striking difference from the Fluctus models is that the Stratus “lacks” the aforementioned leading edge notches, which then naturally determines the nature of the boundary layer.

   

Larger (than on the Fluctus 120 PWM) is the gap between the blade tips and the inside wall of the frame. But this is while keeping the same rotor cross section. This larger gap is created by the thinner frame walls.

And why the gap between the blades and the frame has to be bigger (about twice as big) is obvious – it has to do with higher manufacturing tolerances, which was confirmed by vibration tests of 15 different pieces of the Stratus 120 PWM fan. The spacing of the blade tips from the frame can only be as small as the manufacturing tolerances.

Given the nature of the differences between the Stratus 120 PWM and the Fluctus 120 PWM, it is thus obvious which of these fans achieves the lower static pressure. The model tested, codenamed EY4A007, is of the 120-millimeter format and has a claimed speed range of 200–1400 rpm.

Note: Specifications chart, which used to be in the following place, is now on the second page of the article. We have reserved a separate chapter for it because of its growing size and already relatively large height. This separation should thus contribute to better user control, especially on mobile devices with smaller displays.

And one more thing: To navigate through the result graphs as easily as possible, you can sort the bars according to different criteria (via the button on the bottom left). By (non)presence of lighting, profile thickness, brand, bearings, price or value (with the option to change the sorting to descending or ascending). In the default settings, there is a preset “format” criterion that separates 120mm fans from 140mm fans.


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