Arctic F12 Fan CFM

GotNoRice

GotNoRice

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jul 11, 2001
Messages
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I was looking at the Arctic F12 Fan, the basic 120mm 3-pin version, as you can get a 5-pack for ~$20 and it seems like a decent general purpose case fan.

On their website it shows the airflow for this fan as 53CFM (90.1 m3/h), however, many places that have this fan for sale show the fan as having 74CFM (126 m3/h). In all cases they are listed as having the same 3-pin connector, the same 1,350 RPM, the same 0.3 Sone Noise Level, and the same 0.25A power draw.

Does anyone by chance know the story behind why the CFM is listed differently on different sites? Would it make sense to buy from a site that is clearly showing as still having the 74CFM "version" in-stock, or is the 53CFM "version" newer and superior somehow?

F12_Rear.jpg
F12_Rear2.jpg
 
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The F14 spec page lists 74cfm. Either you're looking at an F14 listing, or the listing erroneously used the specs for that fan, is my guess.
 
Nobu said:
The F14 spec page lists 74cfm. Either you're looking at an F14 listing, or the listing erroneously used the specs for that fan, is my guess.
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I don't think so, because it's in many of the pictures also. Like the first picture above, is from one of the pages that still has the 74cfm fans for sale. It's a picture of the back of the box where it shows 120mm and 74cfm. The F14 is a 140mm fan. Many older reviews of the fan mention the F12 as having 74cfm also, so it seems like the fan went through some sort of revision at some point. Though not sure how the CFM can change when every other spec stays the same and the fan looks the same. I'm wondering if it always put out closer to 53cfm and the older 74cfm rating was simply an exaggeration to sell fans that they finally had to fix.
 
GotNoRice said:
I don't think so, because it's in many of the pictures also. Like the first picture above, is from one of the pages that still has the 74cfm fans for sale. It's a picture of the back of the box where it shows 120mm and 74cfm. The F14 is a 140mm fan. Many older reviews of the fan mention the F12 as having 74cfm also, so it seems like the fan went through some sort of revision at some point. Though not sure how the CFM can change when every other spec stays the same and the fan looks the same. I'm wondering if it always put out closer to 53cfm and the older 74cfm rating was simply an exaggeration to sell fans that they finally had to fix.
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Yeah, that's weird. Checked all the variations (TC, PWM, Pro, etc) of their F12 fan on their website, and they all list 53cfm for airflow. I guess it could be a different revision, or maybe they just changed the specs on all of the 120mm fans to make their 140mm fans look better. Could be they goofed when making the product specs or packaging for the 120mm F12 too, but no way I could prove that.

Anyway, 53cfm isn't bad for a 120mm fan if that's accurate (Noctua's NF-F12 is specced at ~55cfm). 70+ would be pretty unbelievable except in free-flow conditions, imho.
 
For perspective, the NF-F12 is rated as 55CFM at 1500rpm, whereas that fan is (supposedly) rated at 74CFM at 1350rpm. Both fans are 25mm thick, and Noctua has spent a lot of money optimizing their fans. Even their iPPC 2000rpm fans are "only" rated at 71.7CFM.

I'd wager something is off about those specs (for the 74cfm fan). Either they're in ideal conditions, erroneous...or they have some amazing tech there.

Edit: could also be that the 74CFM figure was measured with the fan operating at a higher rpm than it's spec'd at (say, 1500rpm). They might have reduced the maximum rpm of later revisions, reducing the top CFM rating to 53 from 74. They may have done this due to complaints about noise or reduced fan life, from people who didn't know how to reduce the fan speed.
 
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Ran into another obnoxious fan mystery today, unrelated to the Arctic fans. I had also bought a pack of AVC PWM fans, same model number as a fan I already had which had proven to be extremely reliable. Fans got here today and are totally different than the fan I already had. I guess I'm finding out the hard way that in this day and age, even if you order the exact same model number item from the exact same company, you still don't know if you're going to get the same item that had been sold under that model number in the past or something completely different.

AVCfan.jpg

In this case the fan on the left is the old used fan, the fan on the right is part of the pack of new fans I got. Both AVC DA12025B12L 4-pin Fans. The fan on the left has a much larger motor and is much heavier. The new fans feel cheaper in pretty much every way. I'm wondering if maybe I got counterfeit fans in this particular case, but thankfully they aren't for anything super important.
 
The fan on the right has a much more modern frame style. It may feel "cheaper" if it feels lighter but I would have to assume just going from looks it's an update.
 
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