Corsair has built a 500mm RGB fan. The single piece cuts great shape as a chassis fan. Used as an alternative to the side plate, temperatures drop dramatically. What seems strange at first glance can be a harbinger of a trend.
Giant fan general data
Gamers Nexus put the hand-assembled demo fan in front of the camera. Its design is consistent with that of the LL series, which also contains a peripheral ring of RGB LEDs. A pirate left it open whether it was a study, a concept, or just a joke. However, in principle, the fan works at full power.
Only the printed performance information turned out to be incorrect: the maximum consumption of 36 watts was converted to a measured 10 watts. Reducing the maximum speed measured by means of the integrated rotor control resulted in even more savings: from 280 to 290 rpm at full power to 100 rpm, consumption was reduced to 1 watt – the level of ordinary case fans of 120 mm format.
Benefit as a side
Gamers Nexus tested the fan as a side glass replacement with the MSI Sekira 500X. The site chose the case because it’s a combination of expensive materials and “some of the worst design decisions we’ve ever seen”. As a result, the tower can throttle components at or above the temperature limit.
Processor temperatures are observed in this worst-case scenario. In a pregnancy test, the temperature reached 67.8 degrees above room temperature. Without the side panel, that value dropped to 61.2 degrees, with the 500mm fan turned on fully, it stayed 48.2 degrees at around 290 rpm.
idea for manufacturers
A fan like this doesn’t have to be a gag. It may sound odd, but it fits the trend: With housing stocked with more glass than ever for years, manufacturers are increasingly opening up their towers in search of cooling performance – given consistently higher consumption values at the top-end of necessity, too. Products like Fractal Design Torrent attest to such a shift. Putting the side glass panels back in the box and installing an oversized fan would not be an innovation, but would bring out the old concepts that Thermaltake used, among other things, in the 2000s, but at the same time almost contemporary again.
The editors would like to thank ComputerBase reader “DerKabelbinder” for pointing it at you!
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