XSPC Fan Review

XSPC Fan Review

Last fall Nathan of Koolertek contacted me. He had a new line of fans in. They were Xinruilian fans from XSPC. He wanted to know how well they would perform. If he sent me some samples, would I test them and tell him? Sure, I wrote back. So he sent them and I included them in the fan studies I was doing on the NH-D14. I was surprised. They did pretty well.

Actually, they did very well for seven-dollar fans. They were the most substantial sleeve bearing fans I had ever handled. And they blew more air with less noise than a number of more expensive fans. So when Nathan wrote to say that XSPC had expanded their line, I was happy to test this one too. This may be the last fan I test on my NH-D14 test rig before I dismount the heatsink.

So now we have enough fans for a proper review. Here they are -- three 120x25mm fans and one 140x25mm fan:

What struck me about these fans was that they didn’t look like they’d do much. XSPC is a company that provides water-cooling for PC’s. They sell all sorts of gear related to water cooling, including “Fans designed for XSPC Radiators.” But these fans don’t have the broad chord blades one usually associates with high static pressure fans. In fact, the fans look a bit peaked. Not promising, I thought. But the proof is in the testing.

They are, however, solidly built fans. I didn’t believe they were sleeve bearing fans until I peeled back the label on one and checked it out. Yup. Sleeve bearing.

Speaking of sleeves, though, look how the heatshrink tubing goes all the way into the PCB housing:

And in this closeup you can see how the heatshrink tubing passes pretty far out of the fan, and on the other end snugs right up against the black plug:

Black fan, black heatshrink, black sleeving, black plug -- guaranteed to disappear into your rig the way it is supposed to do.

Specifications and free-air performance

I never take the word of a brand seller on their specs. I always measure fans. I measured these by putting my SPL meter ten centimeters in front of the intake face of each of these fans as it ran in free air. By subtracting 20 dB from my results I got the sound pressure level you should expect at one meter away:

XSPC follows the admirable practice of saying their sound pressure levels are approximate. I laugh when I see numbers like 19.05. No one can measure sound that closely. Hats off to XSPC for their refreshing candor with their SPL’s. Too bad they didn’t do the same with their CFM and static pressure numbers.

Another thing: XSPC tells us their cables are 45cm long. Well, I measured them. They’re exactly a half meter -- 50cm -- from frame to plug tip. I guess XSPC wants you to be able to place your rad pretty far away from your power source.

By the way, do you notice how shockingly accurate their RPM and SPL specifications are? Until I sat down to compile this I really didn’t notice.

Again, this is amazing for seven-dollar fans.

Cooling Performance of 120mm Xinruilian fans

When I received the RDL1225S-2000 I went back and retrieved three charts from past testing. I tested the new fan with the three 140mm fans, added the results to the speadsheets, and generated new charts. I have highlighted the Xinruilian fans:

The KM2-1700 is a Scythe Kaze Maru 2 140mm 1700 rpm fan. It is also called a Slip Stream 140. The TY-140 is a 140mm PWM fan sold by Thermalright.

Conclusion

So much for predictions. These inexpensive little fans turned out to perform very well, thank you. And they weren’t noisy. They are handsome and solidly solidly built. And to the extent I could measure them, their specs were accurate.

Thanks to Nathan of Koolertek for providing the fans. I suspect he is as surprised as I am to see how well they did.

I did some further testing on the fans. I felt for vibrations in different positions.

120mm Xinruilian 1200, 1650 and 2000 rpm -- no change in vibration  when the fan was pointed in different directions. The fans had the same vibration with air pointed sideways, upward or down. This is not the norm for sleeve bearing fans, and is a hopeful finding.

OTOH the 2000 rpm vibrated much more than the rest, with mechanical sounds like something was hitting something. It felt like it was struggling. It might be running a little too fast for its construction.

Perhaps this fan has unique problems, but one of the eternal issues with inexpensively manufactured equipment is that it must have a robust design, able to tolerate the greater piece-to-piece variance that comes with inexpensive manufacturing, or it will be prone to failure. I think I'd either stick with the 1200 and 1650 rpm fans, or if I bought 2000 rpm Xinruilians I'd buy spares.

Note that the 120mm Xinruilian fans come with open corners.

140mm Xinruilian has closed corners, along with four ports for LED's. They look like they would accept 3mm LED's.

The 140mm Xinruilian also showed positional variation: it vibrated more when airflow was pointed up than when pointed sideways or down. This is to be expected with sleeve bearing fans. The construction also does not seem quite as sturdy as the 120mm fans. Those are rocks.

Update 2012-02-26: Listening again to the 2000 rpm fan I could no longer hear the random ticks I heard before. It also seems to have settled down in its vibrating. Turns out it's an OK fan after all.

The Swiftech is not quite the same fan.

It alleged to be designed in the USA. XSPC is a UK company.

The frames appear identical, right down to the dimple placement.

Where they differ is in product number. The Swiftech is an RDM like the 140mm XSPC. The 120mm XSPC is an RDL. If the L and M stand for Low and Medium, it would explain why the 2000 rpm RDL1225S seems to be running too fast for its design. In that regard it resembles the 1900 rpm Slip Stream -- too fast.

So if I were going to get this design as a 2000 rpm fan, I'd go with the RDM1225S, available ATM from Swiftech.

BTW -- + rep to mm67 for the find.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mm67 

Quote:

Originally Posted by KhaoticKomputing 

But are the the exact same fan? or are they just a similar product from swift tech. I can see the swiftech fans have no sleeving and what looks liek a different sticker.

I do think they are same even though Xinruilian datasheet lists 1650 rpm fans as 1700 rpm ones : http://www.x-fan.com/doe/index.asp

 

Another great find, another +rep.

I think that they can tailor the rpm. Certainly Nidec does it for Scythe with their GT's. Looking at the fan spreadsheet, the L is a design optimized for 1700 rpm. Advertising it as 1650 rpm is a bit of truth-telling by XSPC, I suspect. Lowering the rpm to 1200 is easy. But clearly, the fan was not designed for 2000 rpm. For that the manufacturer has the M available.

I wonder who sells the H? Might be an interesting web search.