Page 3 - Performance Tests
To test the performance of the fan, measured the air speed at the outlet of the fan in two scenarios when it is operating at maximum speed. The first case is with an obstruction-free outlet. The second case is with the fan attached to a heatsink, or more specifically, the SilverStone AR12-TUF heatsink. The purpose of these tests is to see the airflow and static pressure of the installed fan, and quantitatively measure how they interact when they are free and when they are attached to a heatsink fin array. Higher airflow is better in both scenarios, and it indicates the fan's capability.
Compared hardware:
- HYTE FA12
- Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 RGB
- Fractal Design Prisma AL-12 RGB
- SilverStone AR12-TUF
With no obstruction at the fans output, the HYTE FA12 produced fan speeds of 15.8km/h or 9.8mph. This is just slightly above the output air speed of the SickleFlow 120 RGB. Considering the FA12 has a lower RPM but higher airflow numbers, these results are not too surprising.
With the heatsink attached, all the air speeds reduced notably, but again this is not a shocker. The HYTE FA12 produced a 9.3km/h or 5.8mph, which was the same number as the SickleFlow 120 RGB. Unsurprisingly, the SilverStone AR12-TUF fan produced the highest air speed, which is expected given this fan is designed as a tower cooler fan for this specific heatsink.
I measured the noise output of the fans spinning at maximum speed from the input side. As can be seen in the graph above, the HYTE FA12 fans were in the middle of the pack with a 33.6dB(A) measurement, and just so slightly quieter than the Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 RGB fan at 34.1dB(A). The Fractal Design Prisma AL-12 fan was the quietest of the bunch, but it also produced the least airspeed too. On the other hand, the SilverStone AR12-TUF fan was the noisiest at maximum speeds.
On a more subjective scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is silent and 10 is the loudest, I would rate the HYTE FA12 at 4.0/10 acoustically at full speed operation. In normal conditions, the PWM fan slows down notably to be near silence. This noise output is also like the Cooler Master SickleFlow fans, but the FA12s are slightly tuned better to emit a slightly lower-pitched sound, which blends into the background more and is less noticeable to my ears.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Performance Tests
4. Conclusion
