Introduction:

Today we will be looking at Noctua’s Sound and Static Pressure optimized Focused Flow fans. Now Noctua has always been a very great company in making revolutionary heat sinks and fans with a superb built quality which lasts long. NF-F12 are static pressure optimized fans so they are better on heat sinks and radiators. These are PWM fans which means the fan speed could be controlled using the duty mode inside the BIOS of your motherboard.

Here is a snippets from the product page on Noctua’s site:

Teaming up eleven stator guide vanes with a specially conceived seven blade impeller, the NF-F12’s Focused Flow system creates outstanding static pressure and focuses the airflow for superior performance on heat sinks and radiators. At the same time, a wide range of advanced aerodynamic design measures, second generation SSO-Bearings and Noctua’s new, custom designed PWM IC for fully automatic control guarantee astounding quietness of operation. The NF-F12 comes with modular cabling, integrated anti-vibration pads and two speed settings for full flexibility. Its commanding performance, exhaustive set of features and Noctua’s trusted premium quality make it an elite choice for use on air coolers, radiators and other pressure demanding applications.

Specifications:

Product Showcase:

Noctua NF-F12 comes in a premium packaging as all other Noctua products. This is the front side of the box which shows the branding, name of the product and lists some of its main features.

The upper cover on the front side opens up like a flip and gives you a sneak peek at the fan from the back side and shows 3 anti-vibration rubbers. It also explain about the fan and its features in brief.

The back side of the box shows the specifications, warranty and description of fans in many languages.

On fliping the back side on we can see all the features and technologies in the fan.

Inside the box we get the fan itself with accessories inside a plastic packaging and a user manual.

Along with the fan pre attached with the anti-vibration pads on the edges, we get a Y-cable, a Low Noise Adapter which brings down the fan speed to 1200 RPM, an extension cable of 30cm and 4 anti-vibration rubber to attach the fan to case if you wish.

Noctua NF-F12 looks just like other fans except its focused flow frame which helps the air to be directed in one straight direction.

This is the back side of the fan.

Juts a look at the fan from an angle.

The PWM connector of the fan obviously with 4 pins.

A look at the focused flow frame which helps the air to go in one straight direction.

The 3 gaps you can see on the focused flow frame blade increases the turbulence of the air which means more air pressure.

A closer look at the anti-vibration pad on the edge of the fan.

The inner surface microstructures inside the main frame create a turbulent boundary layer when the fan blade pass over it.

The direction of the airflow indicated at the bottom of the fan.

The 4 wires of a PWM fan. Black – GND(Ground), Yellow – +12V(+12Volts DC), Green – TACH(Tachometer which monitors fan speed.), Blue – PWM(Pulse Width Modulation).

Test Setup, Performance, Power Consumption & Acoustics:

Test Setup:

Cooling Custom Liquid Cooling (CPU Water Block: EK Supreme HF Full Nickel, Tubing: Primochill Primoflex LRT, Pump: Swiftech MCP655, Reservoir: Swiftech MC RES-Micro Rev 2, Radiator: EK XTX 360, Fans: Noctua NF-F12 VS Scythe GT AP-30 4250 RPM)

The FX-8150 was tested with different clock speeds at different voltages at ambient temperature of 22C.

The radiator used is a 360 RAD so 3 of both the fans were used.

For putting load on cpu I used OCCT lin pack with AVX and ran each test for 30 minutes.

FX-8150 4.2GHz @ 1.25V, 4.5GHz @ 1.3375V, 4.7GHz @ 1.368V

• Custom Liquid Cooling with Noctua NF-F12 fans
• Custom Liquid Cooling with Scythe GT AP-30 4250 RPM fans

Performance:

The performance on this fan is impressive with a good amount of static pressure. The focused flow frame really helps the fan to direct the air in straight direction which reduces the wastage of airflow unlike the conventional fans. Unfortunately I don’t have any scientific equipment and conditions to measure the airflow or rather show the air moving in straight direction.

As you can see in the graphs there is a difference in the temperatures but the Scythe GT AP-30 spins at much more RPMs than NF-F12. NF-F12 spins at max RPM of 1500RPM whereas Scythe GT AP-30 spins at max RPM of 4250RPM. No doubt the Scythe GT AP-30 will outperform NF-F12 but at the cost of higher noise level and power consumption as well.

But Noctua NF-F12s are only useful when using it on lower or moderate fin density radiators say max of 20fpi and if used with higher fin density radiators then the radiators must be thin. Its simply because more the obstruction less the airflow at low fan speed.

Power Consumption:

Noctua NF-F12 consumes 0.6W whereas Scythe GT AP-30 consumes 6W at maximum speed. Hence power consumption on NF-F12 is very low.

Acoustics:

Noctua as we all know is very good at making silent fans. All the silent freaks out there will just love these fans. You practically don’t hear any noise at all. The vibration compensators provided with the fans also help a lot in reducing the noise a bit. With a low noise adaptor the fans spin at 1200RPM and you won’t hear anything since its noise level is less that 20dB anyway.

Conclusion & Final Verdict:

Conclusion:

Awesome fans from Noctua with optimized static pressure as well as low noise and power consumption. Even with low fans speed and low noise their performance is amazing.

Pros:

• Outstanding performance at low noise and fan speed
• Very good built quality
• 6 years warranty indicates a long life span
• Very low power consumption

Cons:

• Not so good for higher fin density radiators
• Looks may be a concern for some people

The post Noctua NF-F12 Focused Flow 120mm PWM FAN Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Hello again guys! Today we will be looking at Cooler Master V8 GTS CPU air cooler. This is a compact triple tower cpu cooler with 2X140mm fans in the middle. It has a look of transformer robot face and has red LED lights. It looks very good and is one of the best coolers that will show off the rig if it has a windowed side panel. It has 8 heat pipes and uses a horizontal vapor chamber technology.

A Quick Look at Features:

Specifications:

Product Showcase

Box:

Box contents:

Top view:

Angled view:

Front view:

Side view:

Nickel plated copper base plate & heat pipes:

Inside the cabinet:

In the dark:

Test Setup, Performance & Acoustics

Test Setup:

The FX-8150 was tested 4 times with different clock speeds at different voltages with all of the cpu coolers at ambient temperature of 22C. For putting load on cpu I used OCCT lin pack with AVX and ran each test for 30 minutes. All the testing was done with the side panel closed.

FX-8150 4.2GHz @ 1.25V, 4.5GHz @ 1.3375V, 4.7GHz @ 1.368V, 4.7GHz @ 1.38V.

• Cooler Master V8GTS
• Noctua NH-D14

Performance:

The horizontal vapor chamber and the 8 heat pipes does the job well. V8 GTS was pulling the temps down at a consistent rate whereas the temps on NH-D14 were pulled down slowly as the overclocks were increasing. By saying rate of pull down temps I mean to say the time cooler takes to come back to the idle temps from load temps.

V8GTS clearly beats NH-D14 by 3C on 4.7GHz @ 1.38V test i.e at higher thermal loads.

Acoustics:

Cooler Master V8 GTS is very loud as compared to its rival Nocuta NH-D14. CM V8 GTS is barely audible in noisy environment. Gamers who spend most of their time using their headphone won’t worry much about the cooler not being silent. Tried to take advantage of fans being PWMs but sadly as the fan speeds were turned down the performance went down drastically and was not worth. Also I would have been happy to check the power of the heatsink but neither I have any 140mm fans nor any mounting mechanism for that.

Conclusion & Final Verdict

No doubt the V8 GTS looks good and it is good for show off. It performs very well specially at higher workloads. But the price could have been less.

Pros:

• Great looks
• Good build quality
• Performs very good at higher thermal loads

Cons:

• Expensive
• Noisy fans

Video Review:

Here’s the video version of this review –

The post Cooler Master V8 GTS CPU Cooler Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction

Hello guys! Today we will be looking at Cooler Master’s CM Storm QuickFire TK mechanical gaming keyboard. It is a compact and well built keyboard which should satisfy the needs of most of the gamers out there. It includes cool features like n key roll over, led backlight with 5 brightness levels and 3 different modes, the best cherry mx keys, removable key caps for ease of cleaning and a key puller tool included with the package and much more.

Features:

Choose from 3 distinct versions:

• Cherry MX Switch : Red , Blue , Brown
• Backlight Color : Red , Blue , White
• Steelplate Coating : Red , Blue , Brown

Cherry MX Red	Cherry MX Blue	Cherry MX Brown

N-Key Rollover over USB:

N-Key Roll Over in USB mode means even the wildest key combos are registered perfectly.

Easy Cable Management:

Detachable braided USB cable and cable routing groves at the underside of the keyboard. Easy cable management and better flexibility.

Full LED backlight, 3 modes and 5 brightness levels:

Stylish and provides optimum visibility even in dark rooms. Different backlight modes highlight different key groups.

Compact layout with integrated Num pad block:

The QuickFire TK’s unique NumPad block design merges both navigation and command keys. You get a compact gaming keyboard with a NumPad block.

Specifications:

Product Showcase

Box:

Keyboard along with accessories included inside the box:

Cherry MX Red Keys:

Backside of keyboard:

Easy routing of the removable cable:

Clip to rise the keyboard up which makes the keyboard ergonomic:

Click from an angle:

CM Storm logo:

Time for show off in dark:

Mode in which all backlights are on:

WASD cluster/Gaming mode:

Testing NKRO

To enable NKRO press N+ESC Keys simultaneously.
To enable 6KRO press 6+ESC Keys simultaneously.

While gaming, the NKRO worked very well. For e.g. W(moving forward)+CTRL(Crouch)+R(Reload weapon)+Spacebar(Jump). Also while going to the BIOS when NKRO enabled, there were no issues. The 6KRO was actually provided for the systems where there are issues while going to the BIOS when NKRO enabled.

Conclusion

Pros:

• Solid build quality.
• NKRO works very well.
• Compact size makes it portable and saves space.
• Easy to clean because of removable key caps.

Cons:

• No macro keys.
• A bit expensive.
• Could have provided a wrist rest(removable).

Video Review:

Here’s the video version of this review –

The post Cooler Master QuickFire TK Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction
Hello again guys! Today we will be looking at Cooler Master’s CM Storm Trooper gaming oriented cabinet. It is a solid full tower cabinet with a built-in fan controller. This cabinet looks great and has a ton of features in it which will be discussed later. But by looks this cabinet seems like a dream cabinet for a gamer.

Features:

• The first full tower chassis with two 90 degree rotatable 4-in-3 HDD modules
• The first with an easy-to-carry handle, and hidden tool box for storing private goods
• Removable dust filters on bottom and top intakes
• A built in fan controller for cool and quiet operation
• Supports up to 12 hard-drives for future upgrades
• Convenient external 2.5” HDD/SSD X-dock
• Supports high-end hardware, XL-ATX Mainboards and Quad SLI/CF with dual slot VGAs

Specifications
Lets go through the specs first :

Product Showcase:

The CM Storm Trooper in all its glory.

Front:

The CM Storm Trooper has a honeycomb structure i.e each and every removable optical bays have mesh on it for maximum air to get in as an intake or u can set it as an exhaust as well. The CM Storm logo with the caption looks amazing at the bottom side. You can even put an SSD in the X-DOCK and all you have to do is connect the molex power to it from inside of the case and hook a sata cable running it to your motherboard sata port.

When the rig is running the top CM Storm logo on the power on button looks awesome. The 120mm led fans on the front intake looks great. These fans do a great job in terms of airflow. They blow air to the graphics cards. You could even put one more fan as front intake above these two unless you are using any optical bay of the top three.

Back:

It is pretty much the same like the other cases. We have a 140mm fan at the back as an exhaust. You could even put a 120mm fan coz they have provided holes to do so. There are 9 pci-e expansion slots. On the right hand side of expansion slots you could see the Storm guard which secures your peripherals inside the case like GPUs. The PSU is obviously bottom mounted. The holes with rubber grommets are there for routing your tubing if you have your water cooling radiator outside the case.

Top:

Mostly the top of this case looks like a car. The right hand side has the inclined front panel. The middle section is actually a metal handle which is attached to the metal main chassis and is coated with rubber which don’t hurt your hand while carrying the case. There is a TROOPER caption to its left which looks cool. Other area to the sides of TROOPER caption is kept open to let maximum air to pass. Not again coming to the left hand side there is a mesh area.

Left:

The left had side of the case has a removable side panel having big mesh area where you could even put 2X120mm fans to blow fresh air inside the case onto the GPUs.

Right:

The right hand side of the case has a removable side panel having mesh area on the left hand side so as to let the air pass through the hard drive cages over the hard drives itself if you have set the fan orientation sideways.

Cabinet interiors:

The hollow part in the mid section helps to install most of the coolers’ custom back plate on the motherboard without actually taking out the motherboard. The rubber grommets help in cable routing. To the right hand side we have the hard drive cages.

We have a 140mm fan as a rear exhaust. PSU mount at the bottom. Storm Guard for securing the peripherals and 9 pci-e expansion slots.

At the top we have the molex connection and sata connection ports for the X-DOCK where we can put an SSD. The hard drive cages are removable just in case you want a 360mm radiator for water cooling in there. You could also see a small SSD cage at the bottom.

From this angle you could see the cable management features like the rubber grommets, zip tie clips where you could tie a bunch of cables.

Front removable bays:

All of the front optical bays are removable. You could see 2X120mm fans set for intake. You could also remove the top optical bays and chuck in a pump-reservoir combo dual bay for water cooling or you could add an extra fan in there.

Top dust filter:

As you could see there is a dust filter at the top on the 200mm fan which is set as an exhaust.

Removable hidden box:

The front CM Storm logo plate on the front does come out. Behind the CM Storm logo on the front bottom side there is a box where you could keep things which you need like some cable ties, screws etc. It can be completely removed if you don’t want it in there.

Front panel & fan controller connections:

Let us start from the left. E-SATA, USB .0, HD Audio/AC’97, USB 2.0 headers.

The front panel headers power, reset switch, HDD LED.

These are the 3-pin dc power input for the dc fans which are connected to the fan controller at the top.

The molex connector is the provide power to the fan controller. The other 3 actually supplies the power to the fan LEDs which could be turned on or off as required by the button at the top of the case in the front panel section.

Components inside the case:

The Corsair AX-1200 is the PSU which is in there. The CPU cooler is the Cooler Master V8 GTS. The motherboard used is the ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z running an AMD FX-8150 processor. The GPU is the XFX Radeon HD 5970 which is very long as compared to this generation single core GPUs. So this case can fit really long GPUs.

Cable management:

I am not that good at cable management but tried to do something which is not so bad. the cable management in this case is awesome. You could pretty much route the cable wherever you want as per your wish.

Angled view:

Overall this case looks really very nice and is really build for the gamers.

CM Storm logo with beautiful LED fan:

The LED fans look great and does a good job on cooling as well.

Fan controller section:

Right at the top is the power on switch. Below that we have the – & + keys to decrease the fan speeds. The middle button is to turn the LEDs on or off. Other than that we have reset switch, E-SATA, a pair of USB 3.0 & USB 2.0, headphone and microphone jack with power and HDD LEDs.

In the dark the CM Storm Logo and the surrounding LED lighting is awesome. It gives the feel of a gaming rig.

Wanna drive this baby ? Go for it I say !

Conclusion

A complete package in terms of build quality, air flow, flexibility, water cooling options, cable management and compatibility with respect to graphics card length, motherboards of various form factors upto XL-ATX and dimensions of CPU coolers. This cabinet comes in an different edition CM Storm Trooper Window which has a window on the side panel to show off their rig. I have tested my Noctua NH-D14 and Cooler Master V8 GTS which gave better thermal results than that off Corsair 600T. This means that the airflow within the cabinet is very good.

Pros:

• Solid build quality
• Very good airflow
• Affordable with ton of features and flexible
• Good for custom water-cooling

Cons:

• Instead of thumb screws could have provided clip arrangement for opening and closing the side panel.

Video Review:

Here’s the video version of this review :

The post Cooler Master Storm Trooper Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction:

Hello guys! I am Prathamesh Patil back with another review for you. Today we will be looking at Cooler Master Seidon 240M. When the name comes Cooler Master we obviously know that they are very good at making cabinets, power supplies and coolers for cpu both air and water. They also make excellent quality of gaming peripherals like keyboard, mouse, mouse pads and gaming headphones.

The Seidon 240 is Cooler Master’s latest, incredibly compact watercooling kit that aims to bring watercooling to the masses. It comes factory filled, sealed and tested with a two year zero maintenance guarantee. The performance 240mm radiator is designed for dissipating huge heat from overclocked CPU. Thanks to a 120mm PWM fan with a wide RPM range Seidon can operate silently or unleash a powerful cooling storm at your command.

Overview & Specifications:

Overview:

• Factory filled with coolant, then sealed and pressure tested – requires zero maintenance for years.
• Waterblock made with UltraFine Micro Channel enlarge the contact surface between cold plate and coolant.
• Durable and powerful water pump – dissipates heat effectively and maintains temperatures through stable water circulation.
• Performance 240mm radiator is designed for handling high wattage overclocked CPU.
• Double 120mm PWM fan with a wide RPM range to fine tune and balance fan noise and performance.

Specifications:

Product Showcase:

Test Setup, Performance & Acoustics:

Test Setup:

The FX-8150 was tested 3 times with different clock speeds at different voltages with both of the cpu coolers at ambient temperature of 22C.

For putting load on cpu I used OCCT lin pack with AVX.

All the testing was done with the side panel closed.

FX-8150 4.2GHz @ 1.25V, 4.5GHz @ 1.3375V, 4.7GHz @ 1.368V.

• Noctua NH-D14
• Cooler Master Seidon 240M with max pump and fan speed
• Cooler Master Seidon 240M with max pump and fans @ 1700RPM
• Cooler Master Seidon 240M with max pump and Scythe GT AP-30 4250RPM fans

The reason I tested the Scythe GT-AP30 4250RPM fans on the same setup was to check the efficiency of pump and radiator. These fans have a very high static pressure of about 9.X mm H2O. The fan orientation was pull and the radiator was kept at the roof of my case as an exhaust. Do push or pull, both will yield u same results.

Performance:

Acoustics:

To be honest the pump wasn’t that loud so I kept it running at full speed. Fans are very loud when they run at maximum speed of 2400RPM so I decided to turn them down to a point where they won’t hurt ears. The sweet spot was at 1700RPM. These fans are PWM fans so I plugged them directly onto motherboard fan headers and set the fan speed to 1700RPM by using duty mode in the BIOS. Now I didn’t have any scientific way to calculate the noise level like using dB meter coz I don’t have one. So I didn’t make any number comparison.
The loudest of all was Cooler Master Seidon 240M with max pump and Scythe GT AP-30 4250RPM fans.

One thing could be done is by using a fan speed controller we could set the duty of the fans as per temperature rise, so that they are loud only when the temperature go high. But the stock fans that we get with the unit were loud as well. The most silent is obviously Noctua NH-D14 which never hurt your ears even when fans are at maximum speed. Silent coolers without compromise in performance. Cooler Master seriously need to provide better fans with the unit. Their pump and radiator has the potential to perform better with better fans.

Conclusion & Final Verdict:

Conclusion

Pros:

• Was able to hold down the temperature on the load even at higher overclocks.
• Good pump and powerful radiator.
• Easy to install.

Cons:

• Fans are loud when spinning at full speed.

Video Review:

Here’s the video version of this review :

The post Cooler Master Seidon 240M CPU Cooler Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction

Hey guys its Prathamesh back with another review. Today we will have a look at ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z motherboard.

ASUS has been a pioneer in making motherboards with high build quality and robustness. ASUS is currently in the top 3 motherboard manufacturing companies.

This is the flagship motherboard from ASUS for AMD CPUs. With the ROG(Republic Of Gamers) branding on it looks really good and also has a very good build quality.The Crosshair V Formula Z is an AMD based motherboard featuring the latest chipset 990FX from AMD for their AM3+ CPUs. 990FX chipset was meant for AMDs bulldozer and their latest piledriver architecture based CPUs.The 990FX chipset also brings back official support for NVIDIA SLI on their AMD motherboards. It means you can run either 2 or 3 way AMD Crossfire or NVIDIA SLI configurations.ASUS has added a ton of features on this motherboard specially for gamers and overclockers. This motherboard is the upgraded version of its predecessor ASUS Crosshair V Formula which had less features than this motherboard.

A Sneak peek into the 990FX/SB950 Chipset:

The post ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z Review appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction

Hello guys! Today I am going to review a kit of memory modules from G.SKILL(on AMD based system). The kit which I have is : G.SKILL RipjawsX 2133MHz CL9-11-10-24 2N 8GB(4GBX2) Kit. G.SKILL has been a pioneer in making memory modules for desktop computers. Many enthusiasts and overclockers use the memory modules from G.SKILL in their rigs for overclocking, benchmarking and gaming.

Technical Specifications:

The post G.SKILL RipjawsX 2133MHz CL9 8GB(4GBX2) Kit Review AMD Platform appeared first on OCFreaks!.