I have a few standard 80mm fans in my case, which I believe are like 80x80x25mm (right?). Then I also have this Thermaltake fan from a hard drive cooler which is also 80mm, but is thinner, like 15mm maybe. The standard fans are 7 blade, and the thinner fan has 9 blades. Even though it is thinner, it seems to move a lot more air. Is this to be expected from 2 more blades? And if so, then when buying new fans ( I am changing to all 120mm, and 140mm where I can), should I look for 9 blade fans? I know that the Yate Loon 120's, Deltas, and Panaflows are supposed to be some of the best performers you can get, but they are all 7 blade, correct? So, what's the deal? Shouldn't 9 blade fans perform better? Maybe the 9 blades make more noise? I don't exactly want my tower to sound like a jet engine, but I will sacrifice some silence if the performance is worth it.
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7 vs. 9 blade fans
- Thread starter Deejay3d
- Start date
IIRC, (and with a bit of logic), the bigger the fan & the more blades it has, the more CFM it moves whilst maintaining a lower noise level.
That's how 220mm fans like the Antec bigboy move large amounts of CFM even on their slow setting. At high its just fucking insano.
That's how 220mm fans like the Antec bigboy move large amounts of CFM even on their slow setting. At high its just fucking insano.
It depends on the fan. The amount of air a fan pushes is determined by the surface area of the fins, the curvature of the fins, and the rotational speed of the fan. Unless you're comparing two fans that are identical except one has 7 fins and the other has 9, don't take the number of fins as representation of the fan's performance.