The TA450DC is a great fan - I have a few of them :) And yes, headphones are the answer to noisy fans :D

The P12 is in the first run of tests - check out Part 2 of the series. I've now tested 24 fans and will be uploading and discussing the results and rankings shortly.

Thanks! The P12 was in the first line-up of ten fans, and I'll be doing a short analysis video in due course, but there is more testing to be done still!

oh right. Forgot about that one. It just feels that you pick for some tests some fans and I am constantly wondering about how they fit in the overall results. Hope you having a great week. @@FanPhys

Possibly in the future I can test case airflow - thank you for the suggestion!

It's a good shout and I'll be looking into that in a future video. When preparing for this series I ran the tests with various fans, and one of my Nidec 38mm fans was beaten by the Gentle Typhoon in the thermal test. It is certainly the case that not all 38mm fans are performance optimised, but one of the main aspects of that optimisation is the rotational speed - which I'll demonstrate soon. :)

The San Ace 9RA1212P1K001 is such a fan too, but it interestingly has the same performance specs as the T30 (at H model speeds), bar the noise, so it should perform the same at the same rpm. I really like mine though, much better than a P12 Max in terms of annoying additional noises, even though my case amplifies the bearing noise somewhat

​@@FanPhys I mean you can make any fan perform well by spinning the fuck out of it. But then you can just say the fastest fan is the best fan and there's clearly more to it than that, so I'm a big fan of noise normalized performance comparisons.

Definitely not a dud haha, just not a great fan - that's what they get for the shameless copy+pasta of the A12x25! And yes, the Thermalright fan surprised me too, a lot like the Cougar Vortex and the eLoop.

for certain use cases the price of the T30 can be justified as it is a low percent of total build cost. I.e. a custom loop pc with high end parts. Also for such use cases noise normalized performance and noise tone are all that matter. Performance at a given RPM is irrelevant.

Yep and to their discredit, it is just empty marketing flavour text. Most high-end PC fans are highly optimised to make you pay as much as possible on the pretence that you are getting extra pressure/performance/cooling. I mean, some fans are as much as £40 a pop nowadays. It's ridiculous.

@@FanPhys yeah, brands are misrepresenting their product, its the world we live in. But for example, its clear that the noctua one had more static pressure than the others, since axial fans are bad at it, any increase is going to be noticeable on dense radiators for example. So going for the high static pressure pc fan still holds value.

You could probably make a reasonably accurate guess based on the two data points at 1600rpm and 1100rpm. On this particular heatsink (high fin density) the P12 is not among the best performing fans. I'll be interested to see how it does on a different cooler. On the matter of "optimised" fans, it's just marketing guff. Almost every fan these days is described as a "High Performance" fan, which is just a sales pitch. My feeling is that the variance in performance is mostly coincidental, as most PC fans are designed based on what looks cool rather than what actually performs best.

Feel free to buy one and send it to me then...

Im also interested to know how the nidec fan is compared to a t30, in terms of noise.

The nidec is noisey

The Nidec G1238B is definitely not a quiet fan, and because of the metal frame the vibrations are more of an issue, but it's surprisingly quiet at 1100rpm - so much so that I'd be more than happy to use it daily without any bother. Problem is, it costs over £100... :D

Nidec

@@ChielScape Thanks for that...

He said it at the end; desktop pc fans aren't performance or static pressure optimised, they're noise optimised. The general tech press will tell you this fan is super optimised for static pressure and that one for airflow, but in reality they're not, as shown previously where the nf-p12 has more static pressure than the hallowed a12x25.

@@MakinComputers Good point, that was indeed what was stated. But then that raises another question: was the sole purpose of the video to debunk marketing mumbo jumbo? I am not opposed to that, but I think the video could have been a lot more compressed as this could have been demonstrated in 2 minutes IMHO. Consumers are either going to buy delta fans for maximum performance or watch/read some sort of review of a heat exchanger or cooling fans for domestic use that has a decent enough noise/performance ratio. I think it is solely the more literate (but not literate enough) tech folks that fall for the static pressure/airflow mumbo jumbo. Most (non) technies that I know just watch or read a review and watch the actual benchmark results for example, rather then care about static pressure/airflow, but I could very well be talking about a minority of the people who fall for the mumbo jumbo. Maybe I am wrong and a lot more people end up buying e.g. fans based on static pressure/air flow marketing then checking actual benchmarks, as that is what should matter in my opinion, not the labels you put on the box to justify a higher price.

@@masterTigress96 I think it's more a series in introducing people to a new/different way of thinking about fans. The vast majority of people would buy into fan hype, and reviews, even if taken with a pinch of salt I used to refer to the spec sheet if I was choosing between a couple of fans (never been one for spending silly money on fans, more middle of the road ones), but as it turns out spec sheets might as well be listed in the sci-fi section. They're all total nonsense, all tested differently and even reviews from reliable sources can't be trusted (cough-igorslab-cough). Just find a fan that's within your budget and suits your eye, it will probably be fine. There are so many variables in systems and environments, results in a review might differ greatly than those for your individual use case.

@@MakinComputers Yes, agreed with a lot of what you said. Let's hope then that the "Static Pressure Fans Don't Exist" series can introduce people to a new way of thinking. With the introduction of the internet the idea was that we would have access to an unprecedented amount of information, which has been proven to be true. However, the creators never seemed to have thought about finding the factual information you're looking for in this unprecedented amount of information. As you stated, tech specs or fact sheets are all a method of marketing nowadays instead of having any objective information on them.

Once I've done more tests (I need to be thorough) I'm planning to do a "midway" review where I look at all the results and draw some preliminary conclusions. When it comes to thermal testing, I need to try different heatsinks before I can draw definite conclusions, so there's quite a bit more to do.

It's not really an efficiency comparison though (nor is it intended to be "fair"); it's just a way to put into perspective what happens when a 120mm fan is actually optimised for air-moving performance.

I made two videos about measuring fan noise, addressing the futility of so-called "noise normalized performance".

@@FanPhys it isn't futile. And it's more relevant to review that way than RPM.