Silverstone’s “Air Penetrator” fan not as kinky as it sounds
Despite a name that will cause us all to chortle, Silverstone's new fan airflow is so focused it can keep a balloon suspended in mid-air.
Now, we’ll give you a minute to stop sniggering at "Penetrator" and then we’ll carry on.
Ahem, feel better?
The new fan, which has the model number AP121, will come in 120mm and 180mm varieties – the latter for its Raven, Fortress and future cases – and Silverstone claims it’s the largest single moulded fan with overlapping blades. The blade size is about 50 per cent larger than normal fans and combined with the opposite angled grill on the exhaust side that acts to direct the airflow in a very linear angle from the fan.
It’s not the first time opposite an angled grill has been used, but Silverstone claims its fan is the first to use a close-pitch approach with many more twists.
The Air Penetrators are due for release soon and SilverStone is estimating the 120mm will retail for about $15. Interested in this new fan? Let us know in the forums.
Click to enlarge
Silverstones new "Air Penetrator" fan pushes narrowly directs the airflow
A competitors fan sprawls the air out at a much wider angle
Previous Article
43 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplySomeone needs to employ in marketing, that;s genius :D
Radiators don't really need linear airflow - the casing of the rad tunnels the airflow already. Case fans also don't really need linear airflow. They just need to get air in, and get air out.
Seriously, I don't particularly see the point...?
+1
hmmm.... DP?
So are you saying you will have double penetration?4 mintues and you stole it from meI agree with rickysio, when you want something to be air cooled turbulence is your friend so why would i want a linear (i dont think its good enough to say laminate) flow fan? The only time I can think of that being useful is if whatever you are cooling, the back of a GPU PCB for example, is at a right angle to the fan.
Those shown are only prototypes and quoting company figures is like pulling a number out of the hat most of the time.
If it's of any use, the one I saw was pretty damn quiet.
My thoughts exactly. I really want to think of a use for these, but other than having one in the roof and floating a balloon on top I can't come up with anything.
incorrect turbulent flow is much better than laminer flow for cooling
If we're talking about case airflow - laminar is better (moves more air in given time period). If we're about heatsink airflow, then it's the other way around.
:) love the name.
i think use of this is in cases that you want to direct where the air end up. with normal fans, the air spreads out too much. with these, you will be able to place one further away from the graphics card intake, trusting its directed wind to work its way into the graphics card.
Too far?
Jokes aside, pretty much I think the only use is to direct focused air across passively cooled cards.
But if you go for passive cards, you go for silence, not this type of 0.33A loud-ish fans.
Besides, all one needs is a 120MM diameter tube, and any normal fan pumps out nearly laminar airflow!
It eventually met its end when I managed to get a finger too close. Damn thing cut right to the bone before the blade snapped.
the name is funny so I'll buy two
You people obviously don't have your heads up your own arses or you'd realize that fans also have 2 sides. They have intakes AND exhausts. Isn't a linear exhaust a requirement for a high-performance engine?
When an object apparently doesn't make sense head-on, turn it around and think at it from the back.
Is it just me or are 140mm fans completely ignored? I'd kill for some nice ones to go in my case!
Think of the range and power you gain from a directional yagi aerial over say, a dipole. There are trade-offs in either case, of course. But there is a huge difference from narrowing the area in which the energy is directed.
But it might not lead to anything. We need real-world benchmarks, not figures.
That should teach that fan not to mess with your finger !
Really? So every product ever released onto the market is brilliant right? There's no one product out there (even from Silverstone) that when applied to an application in the real world fails miserably or doesnt match up to its expectations?
Consider Palm. Explain to me why they are going to kick the bucket soonish?
When your (initial) argument makes sense, turn it around and think at it from the other way, before posting it.
HP attached a honest to goodness 5400RPM fan to my Q6600's stock heatsink (which is basically a piece of crap extruded aluminium piece) and on full speed it buzzed like heck, while I awaited liftoff.
Come on, don't act like you don't get their point.
They didn't say Silverstone are immune to making bad products, but if you look at it sensibly, it's unlikely that they'd bring something all the way to the market that they knew was bad. They're a business, they're there to make money.
It's this point exactly. Sometimes it's not until you develop a product that you might find it just isn't needed or the design creates more issues than it solves. We'll see when we do another labs test I suppose.
When laminar airflow hits hardware components, its laminar no more.
A turbulent airflow remains turbulent, laminar becomes turbulent. Besides,
So turbulent flow is actually better for whatever (cooling) purpose we have, since laminar airflow is less efficient at heat transfer...? Someone call the SS engineer who proposed this. :X
Exactly, they can still make money off a bad product. Just look at the iPad, it's a bad product but it will sell.
That's actually a can of worms you shouldn't open. There are hordes and legions of Apple fans who, capable of thinking, will take appropriate and reasonable offense at your statement.
Then again, Lian Li did release that WTF of a case.
Now down to the important stuff, did you see the new TJXX case?
My machine would benefit greatly from have one of these at the front to push air past my passively cooled graphics card, and out the back.
I'd like to see whether the effect works well at slower speeds.
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_spec.php?pno=AP181&area=usa
Very good specs