PCCooler CPS F5 R120 BK in detail
Some really attractive things are often overlooked or given less attention than they deserve, for various reasons. This is somewhat the case with the technically remarkable fan from PCCooler CPS – the F5 R120. This 120 mm fan with its features is in the company of the most prominent names, although it has its weaknesses as well. These may or may not interest you either. It depends on the use case.
First, a quick look at PCCooler. This brand operates mostly in Asia, but there is an effort to break through its borders. How distribution outside the domestic market will fare, we shall see in the coming period. But naturally, we will be interested to see what offerings they come up with in terms of computer fans.
The F5 R120 are the newest fans that PCCooler has as of the date of this article. They are to be particularly notable for their performance characteristics and above-standard high efficiency. These assumptions are supported by the impeller design itself. The basis is the nine blades, whose geometry combines more pronounced curved leading edges with a relatively wider root. So much so that roughly in the middle of the blades the trailing edges are somewhat humped.
Obviously, there is an attempt to achieve the highest possible pressure also in places where it naturally drops with axial fans – around the root of the hub. This also makes the blades more robust and less flexible. This is also due to the relatively shorter length, and the engineers also point out the greater thickness. At the tips of the blades, this is up to around 3 mm. Considering the mid-range class in which the F5 R120s are priced, this is above standard for fans with 9-blade impellers.
Sure, such Arctic P12 have even thicker blades, but you have to take into account that their blades are significantly longer and thus there needs to be a push to keep the flexibility (and consequently the vibration) of the material as low as possible. The blades of the F5 R120 are really stiff, even though they are made of PBT.
The individual blades are relatively close together and the spaces through which pressure is lost, mainly due to obstacle resistance, are relatively small. The inclination of the blades is also slightly greater than normal. It is one thing to ensure that no more air escapes through the impeller than is necessary, and another to ensure that there is any airflow at all. This is already a bit of the “alchemy” that we find so fascinating in fan design.
The higher blade stiffness and lower vibration at the blade tips also allow for a relatively small gap between the blade tips and the fan tunnel. This is around one millimeter.
The impeller hub is relatively large. Its more robust design on the one hand can ensure higher stability and longer service life (although in this case the MTBF is quoted at “only” 60 000 hours, which is rather below average…), on the other hand it steals a larger part of the overall cross-section, which is already a negative element from the point of view of the achieved airflow. However, the impeller hub is still about 17% smaller than the high-end Noctua NF-A12x25 or BeQuiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 fans. But in turn, it’s more than 26% larger than that of the DeepCool FK120. Due to the relatively narrow frame of the PCCooler CPS F5 R120 and the large span of its blades, the effective area of this fan is one of the largest among 120 mm models.
The accessories include a controller on a half-meter cable. This is useful if only as an extension from the very short 15 cm cable, which is permanently attached to the fan.
The controller itself is quite unconventional. It has three levels, but it is not a step-down voltage limiting scheme. In the outermost position next to the symbol it does act as a deceleration adapter and the lowest speed is reached (about 1720 rpm), but at the remaining levels the fan behaves differently than you might expect. Only the middle position supports PWM control (in the range of approx. 515–2027 rpm), while the outermost position (next to the largest arrow, “OC mode”) should reach up to approx. 2200 rpm. However, we cannot confirm this and with a 12.00 V power supply there was no speed increase over the “PWM” mode and of course, it wouldn’t make much sense either since 100% PWM is supposed to behave the same as linear 12 V.
The manufacturer’s representative told us that the “OC mode” is a mistake that occurred inadvertently and that in optimal conditions the fan reaches even higher speeds. Optimal conditions here means “suitable” ambient temperature. However, as the temperature increases, the speeds of all fans naturally increase. Either way, this cable is useful to allow the fan to comfortably reach any header on the motherboard. Short cables are useful in a serial connection, where there are several fans in close proximity (a longer cable would be a nuisance in such a situation) and it is convenient to interconnect them with each other (each fan has a female connector on the cable for this purpose). The built-in controller is just an added value that can come in handy if you want to set a constant lower or higher speed. Or in the middle position to apply PWM control.
The PCCooler CPS F5 R120 fans are available in a white variant (with WH at the end of the designation) in addition to the black variant (with the BK designation) tested here.
Regarding the design details, praise for the quality of the workmanship is also appropriate. It is above standard in this price category (well below 20 euros). A lot of material is used for the fans, as evidenced by the weight of up to 195 grams (all 120 mm fans tested so far with a comparable or lower price are lighter) or the evidently high precision of the injection moulds. Nowhere did we encounter any surface defects or other flaws, and the anti-vibration pads in the corners of the fan are very accurately and tightly fitted.
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.
- Contents
- PCCooler CPS F5 R120 BK in detail
- Overview of manufacturer specifications
- 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: Airlow 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
That’s a very a good fan overall. No noticeable weakness with decent noise profile, at a highly competitive price point. I’m surprised that a PBT only fan without an outer ring can perform this well. I wonder how the Arctic P12 Max compares (maybe it’s comparable to the ARGB version?)
P.S. Frequency plots aren’t accessible in the English version, and most (all?) links in the conclusion page are broken due to lacking -bk.
Thanks! Fixed. 🙂
The motor sound link is still broken. It’s the first plot in the “hexagonal grille” page, right?
So, this sound only appears when speed is very close to the minimum RPM? I don’t think I’ve seen this behaviour before, interesting. It should be easily avoidable by the user, but can be limiting for those who want an extremely quiet build.
Haha, no mistake escapes you. What a great thing that we have such attentive readers. 🙂
And yes, it’s the first spectrogram with the hexagonal grille. This mode has the lowest fan speed at which frequency analysis of sound is measured. Several fans with typically cheaper motors are struggling at the lower speed limit and this behaviour is accompanied by such annoying sounds. I don’t always point it out, but here it was extra interesting especially in the context of high efficiency at very low speeds. When you go from that optimum 700 rpm down to somewhere near 550 rpm, it may not be so great anymore. Because of that annoying motor sound that adds to the well audible spectrum.
The blades of the F5 R120 are relatively short yet thick. Although we did measure some vibration, I don’t think it was due to the blades being “too flexible”. Something else will be behind their occurrence, maybe some manufacturing inaccuracies (around the axle for example) and such. The lower MTBF value would suggest this, but I don’t want to speculate on these things.
What is obvious, however, is that even a cheap fan with shorter PBT blades doesn’t have to be the source of any vibration. We have already been convinced of this by a test of 15 Stratus 1220 PWMs, where the variance of vibration across the samples is very wide. But it is given by the high tolerances. If the vibrations were due to blade undulations, we would never, on any piece, measure 0.000. And in that one case (the gold sample) this happened even at maximum speed with a fairly high (1600) RPM.
Strongly recommand you to add the 9RA1212P4G001, and maybe the 9RA1212P1K001 and 9RA1412P1G001 from Sanyo into the compaing list.
Thank you for the useful tips. We will definitely take a look at the fans and try to add them to the results database. I can’t promise when this might happen, but we will contact Sanyo and see.