Verax GmbH P14 Silent Heatsink Review
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Verax Ventilatoren GmbH of Villingen-Schwenningen Germany make one the most unique zero-noise fans in the marketplace,
and accomplished this feat by tossing out convention, and starting over with a completely
new impeller design.
So quiet is the Verax CAIRdB fan that you literally have to hold
it up to your ear to hear it - there is almost no discernible noise signature. The trade off however comes
in terms of cost, and in measurably lower airflow to that of standard
hi-RPM axial fans.
The revolutionary impeller design works by accelerating
the air within the fan evenly, over a substantially longer distance than with
standard axial fans.
The kicker for everyone looking at the snazzy picture of the impeller over to the left
may be that it rotates counter-clockwise (backwards) - totally opposite to that of
traditional axial fans. |
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The grey bar above the picture of Verax fan on the left is meant to
illustrate the amount of useable surface area for drawing in air.
Conversely, on the right hand side we can see a typical axial fan cross
section and the lower amount of useable surface area it has for drawing in
air. |  |
Verax GmbH make a really quiet heatsink, but one that we'll have to
test out before we can really tell how well it performs. When we
first tested this heatsink we were in for a pretty big shock just because it was
so quiet. Unless you literally put your ear next to the variable temperature
controlled fan, it is nearly impossible to hear the unit. Of course, rotating at
1600RPM-3100RPM means that airflow may not be what all of us are used to, but
for those systems which require absolute silence the Verax P14 offers up a very real
solution.
The
fans themselves are used in powersupples where I think they might actually be better
suited. Retailing for about $59 USD this heatsink can be picked up from Veraxfans.com. The Verax P14 is a
sizeable investment for a heatsink given the overall design of the pure extruded heatsink.
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| Heatsink Specsheet: |
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- Model Name: P14
- Fan Specs: CAIRdB TYP80251231-KT2, 1600-3100RPM, 18CFM, 12V, 0.62A.
- Fan Dim: 25x80x80mm
- Heatsink Dim: 80x80x63mm
- HS Material: Extruded Aluminum
- Weight: 310grams
- Mfg by: Verax GmbH
- Cost: $59USD
Sold By: www.verax.de
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The fan is pretty strange in its design since we've yet
to see anything which even remotely
resembles the unit. Overall though, a fancy design won't always get your
computer running cooler. With the onslaught of small formfactor PC's and VIA's EDEN
motherboards a noiseless fan such as this could fill out the role of home entertainment
system, or MP3 player quite well.
Additionally, since the fan is just the right size for a
powersupply, it might be useful there where it can serve as a less noisy fan
for cooling the internal electronics. In this task the verax fans might just
ultimately be suited best for. Given that
the internal thermistor which measures temperature and consequently adjusts fan speed is
located in a small recess in one of the motor braces. That location
makes it ideal for tracking the input air temperature and pretty bad at adjusting to
the temperature of the actual heatsink.
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For our tests we had to make a small adjustment to the
placement of this internal thermistor in order to get some respectable
performance out of the Verax P14. Prior to this very minor and very simple
adjustment the fans were stuck at a lower rotational speed which resulted in temperatures on
the 100W test
platform in excess of 107 degrees Celsius. To make the fan react
to the actual temperature of the heatsink we moved the thermistor out from
its location and bent it is so that it would be in contact with the
tips of the aluminum heatsink fins.
75%
