Corsair AF Series Airflow Optimized 120mm & 140mm Cooling Fans Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,576 words · ~7 min read
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welcome to an unboxing of a product that I think people are pretty excited about
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I know I am Corsair has fans now so fans
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okay not complicated right there's like
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a motor in the middle inside the Hub there's uh you know blades that like
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spin around there's a frame what all can be done in order to innovate on fans
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well I think we've seen over the last couple of years that a lot can be done
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to innovate on fans higher quality bearings will reduce noise um more
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better design that okay better design
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into the exact shape the design of the blades can improve air flow and you can
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also do a bunch of other stuff so Corsair has okay check this out they
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have replaced what would be more of a traditional just either closed or open
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Corner fan design with sort of a uh it's
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got the advantages of closed Corner in that it's a little bit more solid it's a little bit more sturdy it's got the
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advantages of open Corner in that you can more easily affix um short screws
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through them and sort of like run screws in from this way and bolt them into a
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radiator whatever else the case may be I mean take a little bit of work at it but
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there you go and then they've also put in noise dampening so noise dampening is
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a huge thing for fans because no matter how smooth the rotation of your fan is
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no matter how awesome your bearing is there's always going to be a little bit
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of vibration passed along to the case so using rubber here here here and here
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means that it's pretty difficult for that vibration to be passed to your case
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you can also see little little touches like using all black connectors and all
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black wires these are things that Corsair first started doing on their power supplies to really set them apart
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from the competition in terms of Aesthetics corsar has also done
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something kind of cool and that is the implementation of this multi- ring
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system so every Corsair fan whether it's an AF Series so flow optimized series or
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whether it is an SP series or static pressure optimized series of fan comes
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with these replaceable I've never done this before so I'm just kind of guessing
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right now but maybe yeah go like that or
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something so guys you just use a screwdriver put it in here pop the one
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clip out and then the rest of them will follow very easily and you can easily
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replace it with white blue or red and I'm I'm sure corser will look into the
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possibility of doing other colors in the future whatever the case may be so there
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you go that's yet another Innovation where instead of releasing like a bolt
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load of different SKS and different colors Corsair has just included everything you need to put a nice little
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accent color to go with your build on the fan right out of the box so I think
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that's kind of neat so what else can you innovate on well you can innovate on
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whatever this scan is optim okay we got to sorry about that guys the door was
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open so sound was passing right through anyway um so you can uh you can innovate
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on what they're optimized for so the AF series is optimized for airflow much
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like competing fans such as no no don't look over the outload over here it's
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much like the antech true true quiet Pro so what does that mean that means these
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are for situations like in the front or back of a case where there's very little
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restriction if you wanted to use an AF series fan on something like a radiator
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or heat sink you wouldn't get the Optimal Performance because the way the
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fans are scooping the air and blowing it out towards the back of the fan it is
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more if if there's something in the way you're going to lose a lot of what
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you're trying to move through out around the uh in between the fins whereas if
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you have a completely open air environment they are very aggressively
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scooped in order to move as much air as possible in a low restriction
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environment so they've also uh lowered the size of the Hub in the middle which
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gives you just more overall blade and less overall dead zone is what it's
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called in the Middle where you're not actually moving any air and uh until we
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actually get these on the test bench although I've got some numbers that uh
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look pretty promising um I haven't I haven't actually done acoustic testing
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personally on these ones yet though in terms of the uh subjective testing so
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I've seen the objective tests for their performance as well as for their noise
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output but I haven't really put them through the paces for how do they sound
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when you undervolt them do they develop any ticking do they have more of a low
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drone do they have a high wine so that I
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am really really looking forward to so there you go they are available in a
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variety of configurations although let's finish looking at what's in the package
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here so we've got a low noise
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adapter as well as four included black screws Corsair is so good at those nice
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little touches including black screws instead of silver screws including a
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sleeved inline resistor instead of with black connectors and black cables
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instead of you know not having black connectors and black cables and not
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having it be sleeved uh Solutions guide 2012 bunch of course products and
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whatnot in there so that's good stop do not return this product to the store
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return it to Corsair or talk to their tech support right so what all do they
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have first of all you can buy their fans in single or dual packs so dual packs
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come with two fans inside single packs come with you guessed it one fan inside
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you can also get them in a variety of different configurations so we've got
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140 mm quiet fans 120 mm quiet fans and
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120 mm performance fans so these are
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actually using the same overall blade design it's pretty much the same thing
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but the difference is the default RPM the default noise and the amount of airf
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flow that obviously they will use so what would you want a quiet fan for
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personally I would use a quiet Edition fan for running even quieter you know in
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a super silent PC kind of configuration
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that was what I that's what I would want that for what would you use the higher
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speed one for well if you were if you say for example you had an ASUS
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motherboard with their fan configuration whatever it's called Uh easy fan is that
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what it's called easy fan fan expert fan expert too so you could use one of these
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higher performance ones to run at high speed when things are getting hot and to
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turn down to very low speeds when things are getting not as hot so that's uh
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that's why you'd want a more higher performance one also if you're not as sensitive to noise personally I'm a
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silence freak when it comes to fans and cooling so I have zero interest in this
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one and I am all about this quiet Edition one here because I'm going to
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turn it down even lower and see just how quiet I can get it they also an example
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of a system configured with their fans so you can see here with the radiator
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there's a push pole configuration they're using pressure fans you can tell from the shape of the blades for the
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front of the case they're using airflow fans you can tell from the shape of the
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blades again just because it's more free flow more open air same thing with the
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top of the case so really that is where you're concerned with pressure although
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for me personally I find there to be advantages to pressure fans in many
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different scenarios even even in the front of a case for example where a lot
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of cases don't just have free mesh in the front so if you have a case that
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sorry about that guys battery died but if you have a case where the front panel
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is actually quite restrictive then you're going to want to look at maybe using pressure fans and those scenarios
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so if you need any help just you know check out the Forum the ncx forums or
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whatever else and see what people think but in most cases
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um there will be a more optimized fan for your particular application so thank
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you for checking out my unboxing and first look at Corsair's AF series fans
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and don't forget to subscribe to lus Tech tips for unboxings reviews and
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