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chameleoneel
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2005
- Messages
- 7,650
I've had a set of Tougfan 14 for a couple of years (140mm fans). I like them a lot. They have no bearing noise and no real 'motor' noise. Push a lot of air. And have a great balance of quiet/cooling. IMO, overall better than other 140mm fans I have tried (Noctua, Corsair, Be Quiet). However, they do get pretty loud, after a certain point.
I was using them for awhile, on a Corsair 280mm AIO. With that setup, my CPUs never got warm enough to cause the fans to spin up to any noticeable noise level.
However, I ditched AIOs and for about 10 months now, I've been using 1 of them, on a Noctua NH-C14S. This of course has less cooling capacity, due to smaller heatsink and only 1 fan. (You can technically use 2 fans for push/pull. But I only have room for a bottom fan, in my ITX case. the fan is pushing up, through the heatsink.).
Somewhere in the RPM range for the original Toughfan 14, they start stirring up quite a bit of air turbulence. it can make temperature swings more noticeable. Starfield, for example, causes my CPU to pass this threshhold while in cities or combat with big groups, and its been annoying.
At max RPM, there is A LOT OF Air turbulence noise. So they have never been a fan I would run at Max speed, for any real reason.
Sometime this year, Thermaltake released the new "Pro" version, which is a major redesign. I decided to get it, after seeing stellar reviews of the Toughfan 12 Pro (120mm fans).
I will try to make some temperature tests, soon. However, here are some other impressions:
Drastically less air turbulence noise. You can actually run these at max speed and not have a bad time, noise-wise. Even at max speed, the turbulence noise is surprisingly minimal and controlled. And because of that, there is no longer a clear cutoff point, for noise comfort. These are very linear on their noise output.
They do have some motor noise which you can start to hear somewhere after the midpoint in RPM. but even at max speed, its much less of a noise than the air turbulence of the original design.
They seem to have more focused airflow/better air pressure. Because I can feel noticeably more air coming through the heatsink, at any speed. (This aligns with Techpowerup's review of the 120mm Toughfan 12 pro)
They only negative for me, so far, is that the corners are not split like a traditional fan. This causes problems with heatsink fan clips. Some clips don't work at all. The clips for my Noctua NH-C14s work, but I have to be really careful and deliberate, with how I set them into the heatsink. Whereas with the original design's 'traditional' split corners, I don't have to think about the clips, at all. Some people think the solid corners look better or "cleaner". And I suppose they do. But, its a problem for compatibility. YMMV.
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You can see the new design has longer blades, which curve more. The center of the fan is also a lot smaller. The diameter of the center is about 43mm. Compared to about 51mm, for the original Toughfan 14.
I was using them for awhile, on a Corsair 280mm AIO. With that setup, my CPUs never got warm enough to cause the fans to spin up to any noticeable noise level.
However, I ditched AIOs and for about 10 months now, I've been using 1 of them, on a Noctua NH-C14S. This of course has less cooling capacity, due to smaller heatsink and only 1 fan. (You can technically use 2 fans for push/pull. But I only have room for a bottom fan, in my ITX case. the fan is pushing up, through the heatsink.).
Somewhere in the RPM range for the original Toughfan 14, they start stirring up quite a bit of air turbulence. it can make temperature swings more noticeable. Starfield, for example, causes my CPU to pass this threshhold while in cities or combat with big groups, and its been annoying.
At max RPM, there is A LOT OF Air turbulence noise. So they have never been a fan I would run at Max speed, for any real reason.
Sometime this year, Thermaltake released the new "Pro" version, which is a major redesign. I decided to get it, after seeing stellar reviews of the Toughfan 12 Pro (120mm fans).
I will try to make some temperature tests, soon. However, here are some other impressions:
Drastically less air turbulence noise. You can actually run these at max speed and not have a bad time, noise-wise. Even at max speed, the turbulence noise is surprisingly minimal and controlled. And because of that, there is no longer a clear cutoff point, for noise comfort. These are very linear on their noise output.
They do have some motor noise which you can start to hear somewhere after the midpoint in RPM. but even at max speed, its much less of a noise than the air turbulence of the original design.
They seem to have more focused airflow/better air pressure. Because I can feel noticeably more air coming through the heatsink, at any speed. (This aligns with Techpowerup's review of the 120mm Toughfan 12 pro)
They only negative for me, so far, is that the corners are not split like a traditional fan. This causes problems with heatsink fan clips. Some clips don't work at all. The clips for my Noctua NH-C14s work, but I have to be really careful and deliberate, with how I set them into the heatsink. Whereas with the original design's 'traditional' split corners, I don't have to think about the clips, at all. Some people think the solid corners look better or "cleaner". And I suppose they do. But, its a problem for compatibility. YMMV.
----------------
You can see the new design has longer blades, which curve more. The center of the fan is also a lot smaller. The diameter of the center is about 43mm. Compared to about 51mm, for the original Toughfan 14.
