Basically just the CPU fan, case, and PSU (if you’re lucky). If someone can figure out how to get Doom running on just those 3 things, young people will be able to ascend.
Basically just the CPU fan, case, and PSU (if you’re lucky). If someone can figure out how to get Doom running on just those 3 things, young people will be able to ascend.
I disagree about why I got downvoted, but I don’t care enough to argue the point.
You’re correct about the temperature/duty cycle curve, but not “the only things that determine maximum fan speed” and what that means in relation to that curve. I’m loath to toot my own horn, but the concepts you’re describing and are claiming I don’t understand are what I work in professionally. I mentioned earlier I’m an EE - an electrical engineer.
Maximum fan speed is inherent to the fan itself and, put very simplistically, in a brushless DC motor is determined by the torque generated. As the motor spins faster, the total resistance (again simplistically, back EMF and net friction) increases, and once it equals the motor’s torque output, the motor has reached its maximum speed. Fans operating at a given voltage will have different maximum speeds based on blade size and geometry and motor design.
PWM fan controllers simply correlate a temperature with a duty cycle percentage, but cannot cause a fan to spin faster than its maximum speed. If one fan is rated for 3500 RPM and another 6000 RPM, they will spin at their respective rating at 100% duty cycle. No more.
Noctua’s fans in general tend to have engineering superior to many lower priced alternatives, somewhat reducing the sound generated at a given speed, but the low-noise line of fans for which they are often noted achieves that low noise primarily through reduced speed, and thus reduced output. Similarly, the low noise adapter included with some fans is simply an in-line resistor, also reducing speed for reduced sound.
My main point though is that it isn’t the electronics or the fan’s max speed that are the critical parts, it’s whether the fan is able to dissipate the heat being generated with the total sum of how everything is set up. If it can’t, then temperature creeps up until that max speed is hit (thus it can’t dissipate anymore and throttles, hits equilibrium at a higher temperature (because bigger temperature differential means more heat transfer even at the same fan speed, so it’s possible it won’t just run away when the max speed is hit), or melts/overheats to failure) or until the fan speeds up and is able to find an equilibrium or reduce the temperature.
Thus whatever tricks they use need to result in fans that are still good enough to replace whatever fan they are replacing or they will cause performance issues.
Though if someone is just adding case fans, then as long as it doesn’t disrupt the airflow, it will help even if it isn’t very good, and you can use multiple quiet fans to replace a single loud one and see an overall improvement even if the individual fans aren’t nearly as good as the single one they replace. So based on that, I’ll back down from my previous “their reputation speaks for itself” because the reality is that they can be overpriced underperforming garbage but still get a good reputation because they aren’t just being evaluated via a/b testing and I was naive to oversimplify it like that.