CORSAIR Launches New ML Series Fans With Magnetic Levitation Bearings

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
CORSAIR®, a world leader in enthusiast memory, PC hardware and components today announced the launch of its new range of ultimate, high-performance cooling fans, the ML Series. Equipped with a revolutionary new Magnetic Levitation Bearing and custom rotor design, the ML Series redefines fan performance to deliver higher airflow, lower noise and better cooling, whatever the requirement. When powered, the magnetic levitation bearing completely suspends the fan blades from the motor housing, delivering almost frictionless operation. The huge reduction in friction, in comparison to all conventional physical contact bearings, allows the ML Series to offer lower noise at higher RPMs giving PC Enthusiasts a true no-compromise fan.
 
These are pretty expensive for case fans. I'll look forward to seeing some reviews, and whether the cost is justified.
 
I wouldn't mind throwing a few of these in my case but $30 for a 120mm fan really is just ridiculous.
 
My last experience with maglev bearings was with the Enermax/Enlobal Marathon fan. That one had a nasty tonal resonance that all the mounting kung fu I tried couldn't get rid of, and had a grinding issue when mounted in a horizontal position. Hopefully whatever bearing design corsair has gotten hold of is a significant improvement over Enlobal's in that respect. The tonal noise I'm pretty sure was a result of the fan blade and frame design, so corsair should have that sorted out.
 
Just ordered the Corsair ML120 PRO CO-9050040-WW 120mm 120mm Premium Magnetic Levitation Fan - Newegg.com to check it out (most expensive fan I've ever purchased, but only by $5).

I have a 4 year old COUGAR CF-V12HPB Vortex Hydro-Dynamic-Bearing (Fluid) 300,000 Hours 12CM Silent Cooling Fan with Pulse Width Modulation (Black)-Newegg.com mounted on the back panel that is acting up (stops spinning sometimes) so it will be a good test since I need to replace it anyway. I'll post again once I have the Corsair installed and can compare.
 
I also look forward to hearing whether this is actually worth it or just a marketing gimmick carrying little value.
 
Sovereign said:
I also look forward to hearing whether this is actually worth it or just a marketing gimmick carrying little value.
Click to expand...

I imagine that it could help get rid of noise resulting from fan vibration translated to the case, but the whooshing air noise is never going to go anywhere :p

We can already combat case vibration noise by using rubber grommets when mounting fans though, so I wonder how much this really helps, compared to a well mounted traditional fan.
 
Hey Steve, any chance of a case fan review on these? There seems to be a lot of interest in this "all-new" technology.
 
I bought a Lian Li K10B case back in 2008. Figured I'd replace the stock 120mm fans (2 intake, 1 exhaust) when they start to die out.

Eight years later, they all still work, and they're all still quiet. I'm beyond impressed.
 
Sunon has a maglev fan out for many years but I only seen small 40-60mm and nothing larger.

Corsair should put these in their PSU's instead of sleeve or rifle bearing.
 
Yoda4561 said:
My last experience with maglev bearings was with the Enermax/Enlobal Marathon fan. That one had a nasty tonal resonance that all the mounting kung fu I tried couldn't get rid of, and had a grinding issue when mounted in a horizontal position. Hopefully whatever bearing design corsair has gotten hold of is a significant improvement over Enlobal's in that respect. The tonal noise I'm pretty sure was a result of the fan blade and frame design, so corsair should have that sorted out.
Click to expand...

I've been running a couple different 120mm Enlobal models for years my case has 5x 2pin models (the clear ones) and one of the 4pin versions on the CPU cooler. I cant say I've had a problem with them. They are quiet and the no bearings to go bad.

Ocassionally one gets a bit too much dust in the hub and gets noisy. A disassembly and thorough cleaning does the trick.
 
Quality of bearing and fan design have far greater impact, most of these are gimmicks to sell fans. As has been stated, it is nothing new, and I have used and tested for personal reasons many maglev type fans, they are nothing great, yet at the same time there are sleeve bearing fans that have almost perfect sound signatures. Assuming no weird grinding etc the bearing seems to have little effect on noise, rather humming from the motor or blade/wind noise cover everything else up.

If you are going to spend that much for a fan, go with the NB-eloop fans.
 
their benchmarks on that site dont seem that promising, maybe 20% difference than the next best fans.

the idea of having great cooling with no noise is something I would appreciate.
 
DF-1 said:
their benchmarks on that site dont seem that promising, maybe 20% difference than the next best fans.

the idea of having great cooling with no noise is something I would appreciate.
Click to expand...

Those are not benchmarks, those are marketing, meaning you can believe even less in them. Tonal quality also tends to have a bigger impact than out right volume to an extent.

You will never have a fan with no noise, even if the bearing and motor/blades make zero noise, you will always have the sound of air turbulence. However, having great cooling at or just above ambient noise floor is already doable.
 
I wonder if these are better than my Gentle Typhoon AP15's. I am quite happy with them and they've been running quiet and reliable for like 5 years now.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Quality of bearing and fan design have far greater impact, most of these are gimmicks to sell fans. As has been stated, it is nothing new, and I have used and tested for personal reasons many maglev type fans, they are nothing great, yet at the same time there are sleeve bearing fans that have almost perfect sound signatures. Assuming no weird grinding etc the bearing seems to have little effect on noise, rather humming from the motor or blade/wind noise cover everything else up.

If you are going to spend that much for a fan, go with the NB-eloop fans.
Click to expand...

My 11 (push-pull on a 240/360 loop, plus exhaust) NB-Eloops are about three years old now. And as they aged, they developed hums, clicks, rattles, and vibration as bad as any cheap no-name fan I've ever used. Great when new though, didn't start displaying the various bad habits for about six months. Kinda like my second wife.
 
Croak said:
My 11 (push-pull on a 240/360 loop, plus exhaust) NB-Eloops are about three years old now. And as they aged, they developed hums, clicks, rattles, and vibration as bad as any cheap no-name fan I've ever used. Great when new though, didn't start displaying the various bad habits for about six months. Kinda like my second wife.
Click to expand...

No issues with the first 4 I have had since launch, I have added 2 more to that system in the last year and 4 to my server, which have all been perfect.
 
Do these have sufficient static pressure to mount on a radiator, or are they only worthwhile as case fans?
 
Simple magnetic bottle levitation. Problem is if the blades aren't perfectly balanced, the whole thing gets out of whack as it hits the sides.

If you want high static pressure look for fans with many blades. This will increase your noise factor however.
 
It has been quite some time since I've seriously looked into fans, but my understanding has been that Corsair's previous offerings have been pretty solid all around. I wonder if Corsair could launch a RGB LED variant, for those who would like the option of other/variable colors? After all, RGB LEDs are getting much less expensive.

I'd like to see a comparison between modern high end fans for best performance (airflow and static pressure) versus noise, and to see these included alongside Corsair's lineup, Scythe Gentle Typhoon, Cougar Vortex, and other highly recommended offerings for case and radiator usage alike.
 
Azrak said:
Just ordered the Corsair ML120 PRO CO-9050040-WW 120mm 120mm Premium Magnetic Levitation Fan - Newegg.com to check it out (most expensive fan I've ever purchased, but only by $5).

I have a 4 year old COUGAR CF-V12HPB Vortex Hydro-Dynamic-Bearing (Fluid) 300,000 Hours 12CM Silent Cooling Fan with Pulse Width Modulation (Black)-Newegg.com mounted on the back panel that is acting up (stops spinning sometimes) so it will be a good test since I need to replace it anyway. I'll post again once I have the Corsair installed and can compare.
Click to expand...
I received the Corsair fan I ordered from Newegg and just installed it tonight. I'm not a professional reviewer, so I'll just write what I see, feel and hear as I install this thing into my PC and use it tonight. Obviously some of the things I write will be subjective and are based on only a couple of hours of using it, so take that into consideration.

  • Specification comparison: The Cougar is 800rpm to 1500rpm, PWM controlled. The Corsair is 400rpm to 2400rpm, PWM controlled. So the Corsair is not a direct replacement for the Cougar.
  • Overview, first impressions: The fan is heavy. It has some heft to it compared to other 12cm fans like the Cougar it is replacing (which wasn't a real lightweight compared to some cheapies I've come across). Solid, stiff plastic used for both the housing and fan blade. Might be fiberglass reinforced, not sure. Plastic corner mounts are rubber isolated from main fan chassis with gray colored rubber material. Rubber is fairly stiff so some vibration will still transmit to chassis depending on vibration frequency (fan speed).
  • Installation: Simple. Same as any other 12cm fan. 4 screws, 1 4-pin PWM connector plugs into MB. Done. In my case it is plugged into Chassis Fan 2 connector on the ASUS Rampage IV Formula (CHA_FAN2 is on the bottom-middle). I only used 2 screws diagonally to mount the fan in my case.
  • Performance, first impressions: Moves a LOT more air than the Cougar it replaced. I should note that the Cougar it replaced was acting a little flaky lately (I found it had stopped on its own twice in the past couple of months) and has always been slower than an identical Cougar mounted in the front of the case which is still running fine. The MB is controlling the fan speed dynamically according to CPU usage. The BIOS does not show specific fan control settings for chassis fan 2 so I do not know how it is linking or controlled with other fans. I have Q Fan control enabled and both CPU and CHA_FAN1 are set to Turbo in the BIOS. Maybe CHA_FAN2 follows CHA_FAN1. Anyone know for sure?
  • Noise, first impressions: It's not quiet. At moderate to higher speeds, it is easily the loudest fan in my setup. The noise is typical fan blade noise/buzz of air passing by the fan chassis and 3 motor mounts. No clicking. No ticking. No motor noise. No bearing noise. No whine. No hiss. No rubbing sounds. Just standard blades whizzing past fan motor mounts and outer fan chassis edge causing noise. I should note that I had completely removed the integrated fan grill (using a dremel) from the back of the computer case since day one, so there is literally a 12cm open hole where the fan mounts. This was to try to eliminate as much noise and airflow impedance as possible. I have no kids or pets so there is no danger of someone sticking their fingers in there (except me, and I deserve whatever I get if I do).
    • At idle, the fan noise is OK. I can hear it, but only because it is new and I am so used to how the computer used to sound before the swap. It's not annoying, but I can barely hear the blades making noise. I know more air is being pushed out the back of the case, though, compared to the Cougar it replaced.
    • At load, the fan noise is borderline annoying. Maybe I could move the power connector for the fan to OPT_FAN1/2/3 and configure it differently in the BIOS to reduce the speed a little. I'm a little disappointed in the noise to be honest. Maybe I'm spoiled by the Cougars with their feathered blade design and other tricks to reduce air/blade noise. I may also be spoiled by the fact that the original Cougar was sub-par in performance since day one so I got used to a lower level of noise for the last 4 years. Now that I have a fully-performing fan, I'm hearing more noise and I'm not used to it.
  • Final thoughts: Obviously the jury is still out on the reliability of the bearing design, but it seems OK out of the box. But if you are looking for a quiet fan, I say keep looking. Actually, I'd still recommend the Cougar linked in my original post. Since my goal when building a system is to make it as quiet as possible, I don't think I'd buy another one of these Corsairs. I'm not even sure I'll keep this one installed. I'll need more time with it to decide.
tldr; It's heavy, well made and moves a good amount of air, but it's kind of loud at medium to high speeds.
 
Last edited:
BlueFireIce said:
If you are going to spend that much for a fan, go with the NB-eloop fans.
Click to expand...


I'd go with the Noctua Industrial PWM 2000rpm fans. I have the 140mm versions of these in my system, and with pwm fan control they can go from practically silent, up to full tornado mode when needed, all with a decent amount of static pressure for a 140mm fan.

Can take some work to get them to spin down like you want though. Many motherboard fan control settings suck, and want to spin them at a much faster minimum speed than needed.

If they get 0% PWM signal - however - they shut off, which is awesome. Spinning speed is a minimum of 500rpm (though 480 in practice for some reason) at which point they are barely audible to me unless I'm sticking my ears into the fan blades.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'd go with the Noctua Industrial PWM 2000rpm fans. I have the 140mm versions of these in my system, and with pwm fan control they can go from practically silent, up to full tornado mode when needed, all with a decent amount of static pressure for a 140mm fan.

Can take some work to get them to spin down like you want though. Many motherboard fan control settings suck, and want to spin them at a much faster minimum speed than needed.

If they get 0% PWM signal - however - they shut off, which is awesome. Spinning speed is a minimum of 500rpm (though 480 in practice for some reason) at which point they are barely audible to me unless I'm sticking my ears into the fan blades.
Click to expand...

Having used them, I find no reason to spend the money on the "industrial" versions over retail, unless you need those higher speeds, which I do not. If I needed more I would go with a larger rad and slower fans.

I also do not find the Noctua fans to cool any better than the NB in a case setup and the NB do better on a rad. I love the Noctua fans I have, but find the NB to be the better fan.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Having used them, I find no reason to spend the money on the "industrial" versions over retail, unless you need those higher speeds, which I do not. If I needed more I would go with a larger rad and slower fans.

I also do not find the Noctua fans to cool any better than the NB in a case setup and the NB do better on a rad. I love the Noctua fans I have, but find the NB to be the better fan.
Click to expand...

Well, I got them for the static pressure. Good 140mm fans with decent static pressure are pretty rare.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Well, I got them for the static pressure. Good 140mm fans with decent static pressure are pretty rare.
Click to expand...

Have not tried the NB in 140mm, but there are so few good choices in 140mm fans to start with, I am willing to bet these two are already going to stand out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top