EK Vardar F3/120 Fan Review

EK Vardar F3/120 Fan Review
Today we’ll be taking a serious look at EK’s “Gentle Typhoon Killer” – the Vardar F3.  First off a big thanks to EK Water Blocks for the samples:

Our first look at the Vardar was a preproduction sample tested for us by VSG who has since started his own site.  Since then we’ve got the real production fans in house to see if they really do live up to EK’s hype!  For those that don’t know – Nidec’s Gentle Typhoon fan (and in particular the 1850RPM model) has long been recognized as the “best” fan for radiator cooling because of its high static pressure to noise ratio.   In other words even with restrictive radiators it can get a good amount of air through the radiator without needing to get loud!  The best example of testing on the Gentle Typhoon comes from Martin where it clearly dominates in terms of pure noise measured.  Nidec wasn’t a fan (get it?) of producing the Gentle Typhoon and so even at the best of times it seemed to be hard to get.  Recently they have stopped production and the only available units are “NOS” – new old stock.  So there was a gap in the market – and one that EK intended to fill with the “Vardar”.

“Vardar” is the name of the north wind in Macedonia which is not so far from EK’s native Slovenia.  So this fan is designed to cool, and to do it well!

The back of the box has some techical specs – most of which like noise are irrelevant:

The bottom line is – it’s a 1850RPM 120mm PWM fan orientated towards radiators.  PWM is a win as one of the major complaints with the Gentle Typhoon series was that PWM was only available on the crazy high RPM versions.

Inside the box is the fan and 4 self tapping screws.  There are no other accessories such as a speed adapter or anti-vibration mounts that some other fans include.  In addition there are no LEDs mounted to the fan.  Although this version is a grey rotor with a black frame there will be some white and black versions “soon”.

The sticker tells you all you need to know here.  12V and a 0.12A rating means this is a bit more power hungry than the AP15 which rates at 0.08A.  In addition although the cable is sleeved we can clearly see that it’s only sleeved from the frame out and it doesn’t continue all the way to the hub.  If you want a clean look you’ll still need to resleeve.

At least however the fan header itself is black.

While first glance might make you think this fan is just a copy of the AP15 – there are real differences – not just the branding either.

The corners are square and the central hub itself has quite square corners:

The fan blades though do seem very similar in shape and material to the AP15:

So at a first visual check –  the Vardar is an improvement on the AP15 – it’s PWM, has partially sleeved cables and a black fan header.  But this is Extreme Rigs and we care about performance!