Scythe Grand Tornado
We’ve known about Scythe’s preparations for a new fan for some time now. We are only now getting to the details of its design. While it hasn’t officially been released yet, it has appeared in Wootware catalogue – and in all its glory. In addition to the complete parameters, we have several high-resolution photos available. With the Grand Tornado fan, Scythe is sure to get a say in who has the “best” fan.
Regarding the new Grand Tornado fan, Scythe says its design will outperform the Gentle Typhoon D1225C. These were once sold under the Scythe brand, although that was a long time ago. Since then, the company hasn’t had anything to shake up the computer fan scene.
The Kaze Flex II 120 (Slim) models are decent, but they can’t compete with high-end fans like Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM or Phanteks T30 – they don’t have the geometric prerequisites for it. But now the Grand Tornado comes with those. This fan is based on the proven geometry of the more pronounced curved scythe-shaped blades. It relies on a larger number of blades (9) so that they don’t have to be too long and can be characterized by high stiffness. That is also supported by the use of liquid crystal polymer (LCP), which is also suitable in the context of very high speeds. According to the parameters, the Grand Tornado fan with model designation GT1225FD30-P is designed to reach up to 3000 rpm.
Thanks to the use of the rigid material, even at this speed, it’s possible there won’t be vibrations that would significantly increase the noise level of the operation by transmission to a case/cooler or at its own level (by vibrating the blades into rumbling sound frequencies). Airflow of as much as 166.2 m3/h is quoted. The lower limit is also known, at 400 rpm it should reach around 20.8 m3/h. Static pressure is stated in the range 0.62–5.13 mm H2O. At higher speeds across applications, the Grand Tornado will certainly outperform the GT D1225C and it will be interesting to see how it performs at the same noise level compared to, for example, the 120mm BeQuiet! Silent Wings Pro 4, which has virtually the same speed range. The format of the Grand Tornado GT1225FD30-P is 120 mm and the thickness is listed at 26 mm.
OThe fan rotation is clockwise, similar to the Kaze Flex (II) fans. This is good for increasing the cooling performance of dual-tower heatsinks if such a fan is combined with a counterclockwise-rotation fan. Scythe will probably reach for it again (as with the Fuma 3), perhaps as part of the Fuma 4? Let’s wait and see.
It is also worth mentioning the “sealed” fluid bearings, which will have increased precautions against lubricant leakage or, conversely, the ingress of dust particles, which increase friction in fans during use. This also explains the very high MTTF value quoted at 370 000 hours.
Although everything said in the article is unofficial, Scythe has confirmed the veracity of this information. There will be an official press release coming out in the next few days, which will hopefully include the price as well. We’ll be covering the Grand Tornado fan in our tests afterwards. As soon as possible.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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- Scythe Grand Tornado
Scythe’s Wonder snail 120 had relatively high vibration as RPM increases and a tonal peaks for some rotational speeds. I hope the new fan not to have those problems.
Also, I checked that “Sealed Precision Fluid” is a rifle bearing before. Despite the word “Sealed”, there were no structure for sealing the top of bearing. I wonder the new version of bearing had something changed.
Meanwhile, it seems more manufacturers have started to use LCP material on their fans nowadays. This trend began from Noctua, recently followed by Lian Li(Uni Fan P28), Thermalright(TL-B12 EXTREM LCP), and Scythe(Grand Tornado).
Within this trend, I think the difficultness of manufacturing fans with LCP will be finally reduced, resulting the emergence of more interesting fans. 😀
I wonder why the Wonder Snail is so “bad” relative to other GT-like fans. Perhaps the hub size is too small and the material isn’t strong, similar to the Akasa Alucia SC12.
Aside from the Grand Tornado, there’s the Wonder Tornado which seem to have identical rotor shape but with a “normal” material (maybe GF-reinforced PBT?) and max RPM of 2000. I can find the later already on sale on Biccamera in Japan (https://www.biccamera.com/bc/item/12019306/).
LCP is definitely gaining a lot of traction right now, there’s even an LCP fan that costs only 99RMB (€12.5/$13.5) called the ProArtist H12PE. But using LCP does not automatically means a good fan, as the H12PE reportedly has such thin fan blades that it resonates despite using LCP.
There is the tendency that fans with smaller motor hub and heavily curved 9 blades usually have relatively lower efficiency than fans with ~52mm hub size. The only exception is Lian Li’s P28.
I’m not sure about the actual reason. I think the inner part of blades can make some negative interaction in terms of noise-airflow.
I didn’t know about Wonder Tornado. For me, it is surprising that they didn’t stop the development of the new fans. Maybe I can test it within a few months.
Regarding ProArtist H12PE, I can only find a few informations about it now. (Even finding their official website is hard..) Maybe I have to wait until the local distributor in my region import the fan.
I have various fans of ProArtist, and they usually have a resonant noise from a motor, which makes strong vibration on the rear part of a fan. I assume H12PE may have same problem of non-aerodynamic noise.
Hmmm, “There is the tendency that fans with smaller motor hub and heavily curved 9 blades usually have relatively lower efficiency than fans with ~52mm hub size. I think the inner part of blades can make some negative interaction in terms of noise-airflow.”
Personally, I can’t really make sense of that. Why would a smaller hub have a bigger negative effect on efficiency/noise level? It will result in a higher noise level, but probably proportionally to the longer leading edges and higher airflow? Sure, the pressure differential around the hub is very low, so the gain in higher airflow is minimal, but despite the high tonal peaks for resonant frequencies from vibration at the blade tips, fans like the Arctic P12 and DeepCool FK120 or FC120 (i.e. all models with a super-small hub) are characterized by high airflow per dBA. Fans with a bigger hub do achieve more attractive results overall, also acoustically, but isn’t it rather because they usually have sturdier blades (made of LCP or thicker PBT or at least reinforced with a hoop…)?
I have never really looked into it, but my opinion is that larger (and overall more robust) hubs are used mainly because of the greater stability of rotors with heavier blades. Such a hub does take up a larger part of the total surface area, which reduces the airflow a bit. But really only a little as the efficiency of the blades decreases towards the hub. For example Noctua also made the hub smaller for their new 140 mm fans (compared to the NF-A12x25). The reason for this is that the new blade shape is supposed to use the span of the blades more evenly, which primarily means that higher efficiency is promised in the area near the hub. This is also thanks to its modification (Centrifugal Turbulator). Otherwise, if everything stayed the same (as with the NF-A12x25 PWM), there would be no point in making the hub smaller. This is a paraphrase of Noctua’s statement from internal communication.
But I certainly don’t want to refute your premise, I just can’t rationalize it. 🙂
For heavily curved 9-blades 120mm design, I was able to find that fans with smaller hub usually have lower efficiency than larger hub. As I wrote, I can’t certainly say the real reason so that I set the loose hypothesis as above. I think something more complex is there. There are some fans like FK120, which can take good efficiency as long as they don’t reach at resonance modes. Nevertheless, I assume that the essential principle may exist.
I agree that the explanation you wrote can mainly take a part. An impeller which has long blades by reducing hub diameter can undergo more vibrations that results bigger noise level or tonal peaks.
Maybe making a fan with thinner 9 blades (which will offer lower stability) and larger hub can slightly help to derive the answer. (Of course it will be really hard work..!) It seems that we are limited to evaluating only fans on the market.
When it comes to Noctua’s design of the new 140mm fan, it seems that Noctua is trying the new concept (fine-tuning the distribution of pressure) that is different from NF-A12X25. Considering this, It seems possible to assume that the smaller hub, the more likely it is that an imbalance in pressure distribution will occur.
Anyway, analyzing the design more specifically is really complicated for me. And that is why I often praise Nidec Servo’s Gentle Typhoon.
Maybe NF-A12X25 and D1225C could remove an imbalance of pressure by increasing hub size and eliminating the inner part of a rotor. But this is definitely just one of my guesses which can be far from reality.
And, one possible hint about this topic is that the fans with quite large hub, such as EKWB EK-Loop series and Sanyo Denki 9G1212P4H06-4P relatively get better on radiator than others as their noise level increases. The larger the standardized noise level, the higher their noise-airflow position. Of course, they have a mediocre efficiency for a medium noise level.
Sure, there will be some correlation. Eventually, we may be able to define it more precisely and technically (it just takes a lot of data and the right way to decipher it :)). I will also think more about it. Thanks!
Efficient geometry is a good basis, but by itself is not enough for an efficient fan (in the sense of a fan with an attractive airflow-to-noise ratio). Think for example of the Seasonic Magflow 1225 PWM. It doesn’t have a GT-like rotor, but I guarantee you that this geometry has potential and can achieve very good results (I know this from internal tests of the Genesis Oxal fan… when it will be sold separately for 6 euro or so, it will be an extremely attractive competition to the Arctic P12). But the Seasonic fan is tainted by tonal peaks at the level of non-aerodynamic components, so it doesn’t look good in tests with modes normalized according to noise levels. Something similar may be the case with the Wonder Snail fan.
A smaller hub can be a plus in its case. As the outer cross-section is larger, a higher airflow can be achieved. On the other hand, of course, a smaller hub can also result in lower stability, weaker balancing, and possibly a weaker motor. The hub itself also has an effect on the static pressure, or how the speed reacts to obstacles where it has to overcome a certain resistance. So it’s a bit of a two-way street when it comes to hub size. So it depends on whether the longer end of the rope is pulled by the eventual negatives or positives.
Akasa Alucia SC12 is a very specific case, although it doesn’t look like that at first glance. The material of the blades is very unconventional, soft. Flexible, but also soft (i.e. with an unusually low hardness). I will probably come back to this fan in the context of studying the dependencies of some mechanical phenomena.
Vibration at the blade tips will definitely be significantly lower with the Grand Tornado than with the Wonder Snail fan. Nevertheless, I am afraid that this design will not be completely vibration free even when using thick LCP blades at higher speeds (2000-3000 rpm).
PS: The LCP variant of the TL-B12 Extrem is new? Either I didn’t notice it when I was researching the Thermalright portfolio this summer or it was added to it recently. I’ve been keeping track of the TL-B12 Extrem for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve heard about the TL-B12 Extrem LCP, in your article. Judging by the fact that there is almost no news reports from the media (at least not in English), TR may not even run any press releases regarding at least selected fans. Or am I mistaken and is it possible to subscribe to them somewhere? It always makes me sad when I’m the last to know about a fan topic, haha.
Thermalright usually update their new products on simplified Chinese webpage. I often check their official website, because Thermalright releases new CPU coolers and fans really frequently. TL-B12 EXTREM LCP was released in August 29th. Now, you can also check it on English webpage.
Here, I wrote the news article about this one.
https://quasarzone.com/bbs/qn_hardware/views/1531757
I already bought one and it is now on my hand. (but I haven’t not tested it yet) It is actually made with LCP material maintaining the design of the original TL-B12.
Thank you for the info and the news from Quasarzone. So it is a fairly fresh fan after all. We need to keep a better eye on it. 🙂
i recently watched a review of the new thermalright b12e lcp and apparently LCP is lot more silent at max speed than other of pcb or plastic, don’t know to much about fans materials but in keyboards the pbt ones are a lot more better in terms of durability rather than the plastic, abs, pcb, etc. but alot more expensives too. so i think this new LCP fans will stay for a while, anyway arctic p12max and forget it all.
This is because LCP blades at a certain thickness create only very low vibrations in the speed range of the fan, due to high stiffness. Ones that don’t get them into resonant frequencies and don’t create tonal peaks that make the fan noisier. With PBT blades this is often unattainable even with a large thickness, if such material is used for long blades, which are almost always flexible enough to cause critical vibrations. These can be eliminated by fitting a hoop (and stiffening the blade tips in this way), but it is always a compromise to keep manufacturing costs as low as possible.
https://www.scythe.com.tw/grand-tornado-120
I found that the official page on this fan from Scythe’s Taiwan site is open now. We have some new information here, including a cross-section look at the motor hub and bearing, the existence of a 2000 RPM Grand Tornado, included down speed cable, as well as max airflow, max static pressure, noise level and current at 2000, 1800 and 1200 RPM.
There’s also some information limited to the desktop site. A main design feature of the fan is that the rotor is made to be as large as possible (116 mm “effective airflow area”, which likely means the diameter of the circular opening). The frame is stated to be only 1.7 mm thick at its thinnest point. What’s not too impressive is the rotor-to-inner-frame gap, which is stated to be 1.2 mm.
Thanks for the addition and pointing out the important details.
A smaller gap between the blade tips and the stator tunnel would naturally be better, but I don’t think it will actually make any significant differences. Sure, the larger that ineffective area is, the more the static pressure drops, but the question is how, using the same rotor, that pressure drop scales just by the effect of the different gap. The gap cross-section is a relatively small fraction of the total cross-section, and halving the gap at these ratios does make some difference, but it shouldn’t be anything dramatic. Anyway, yes, when you’re fighting for the highest efficiency, it does play a role in determining the “better/worse” ranking. In practice, where there is never a huge back pressure acting on the fan (as is typically the case when measuring static pressure at zero airflow), the difference between 1.2 mm and 0.6 mm will not be too noticeable.
However, it would certainly be useful to carry out a model situation that tracks the static pressure changes as this gap between the blades and the frame changes.
A wild idea I have is to uniformly add some thickness (perhaps a continuous piece of tape with known thickness) to an existing fan and see how the performance changes, without the blades scratching anything of course. Perhaps to fans with “normal” gap sizes and no aerodynamic details on the inner frame. The results will vary from fan to fan but it will be an interesting study.
Haha, yes, I’ve been thinking about that too. But instead of tape, I want to use different spacer rings (printed on an SLA printer tailored to the specific frame), which will allow to specify the exact shrinking of the cross-section. I just need to find some fans with large enough gaps to test it in a wider range. 🙂
It’s available for purchase in Taiwan via CoolPC now, no news yet on the Japan official site though. Wonder how long it’ll take to reach other parts of the world. The Wootware page now states an ETA of 2023-12-21.
The promised press release is finally here, with a launch date of Dec 8, 2023 in Japan. Can we expect a HWcooling review at or near launch? 🙂
https://www.gdm.or.jp/pressrelease/2023/1122/515367
Thanks for the heads up. We have them on the way and will release the tests by the end of January at the latest. I know I wrote about releasing the tests at launch, but it’s turning out pretty badly in the end. We’ll be working hard on the PSU tests for a few days in early December and probably won’t be releasing the key tests towards Christmas. By that time people are mostly busy with other things than studying fan tests, and with that our traffic is dropping. And in this case it would be a pity if tests of a fan like the Scythe Grand Tornado don’t get enough attention.
And then there’s the fact that we still want to focus mainly on 140 mm fans for the rest of the year. As you can see, fan tests haven’t been coming out for a while (because there was pressure on other things…), but we want to get them going again. The 140 mm BeQuiet Pure Wings 3 tests will be coming out soon, then finally the Noctua NF-A14 (PWM) and probably the Thermaltake Toughfan 14 Pro should get priority over Scythe Grand Tornado (in case Noctua 140 mm LCP fans will come out in early January).