EK-Furious Meltemi Fan Can Break Your Fingers at 3,500 RPM

By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

With speed up to 3,500 RPM, protect your fingers (and ears).

(Image credit: EKWB)

EKWB is introducing a fan like no other. The EK-Furious Meltemi is a 120mm fan that comes in an extra thick 38mm format capable of spinning at speeds up to 3,500 RPM, so it'll push more air than many alternatives.At that speed it'll also make more noise -- and could break your fingers if you weren't careful.

"The fan is equipped with a red sleeved cable just to warn off those curious little fingers from getting hurt. Seriously, 3,500 RPM is no joke, and you should be extra careful around these fans if they are in operation." EKWB said in its announcement Thursday. The fan comes with a red-sleeved cable attached to warn users.

(Image credit: EKWB)

When running at full blast, the seven-bladed fan will push about 121 CFM of air and generate an impressive 7.13mm of static pressure. EKWB said that the fan will work best in a pull-configuration with a radiator.

The press release (conveniently) didn't mention a noise level, but digging further yielded the following figure: 60.9dBA. As far as computer fans go, that's quite loud.

With its power rating under 10W, it can run off a motherboard header, though you might prefer to use a dedicated fan controller just in case your motherboard isn't happy to handle the load. Fortunately, EKWB also makes the Loop Connect controller.

Pricing sits at $29.99, and the unit is available immediately directly from EKWB.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Pat Flynn
    I wonder what the low end range of RPM is on this fan. It might be super loud at max RPM, but could be a lot better at 50% and still provide good static pressure at a reasonable volume level. It'd be really interesting to see a benchmark between this fan and Noctua's newer A series fans.
    Reply
  • TechLurker
    I want to see actual comparisons to similarly available Delta fans in the 3000-3600 RPM range, as well as comparisons to the old guard used by hardcore (besides the Deltas and rebranded Deltas); the San Aces and Nidecs. Maybe any spare GT AP-29s and AP-30s and Noctuas too.

    About the only immediate advantage to this new 38mm thick fan is consumer-level PWM. Some newer Deltas or rebranded Deltas feature consumer-ready PWM, whereas San Aces and Nidecs (and Sunon, etc) use a different PWM frequency that either requires controlling via a custom PWM controller, or just voltage controlling them.
    Reply
  • PaulAlcorn
    TechLurker said:
    I want to see actual comparisons to similarly available Delta fans in the 3000-3600 RPM range, as well as comparisons to the old guard used by hardcore (besides the Deltas and rebranded Deltas); the San Aces and Nidecs. Maybe any spare GT AP-29s and AP-30s and Noctuas too.

    About the only immediate advantage to this new 38mm thick fan is consumer-level PWM. Some newer Deltas or rebranded Deltas feature consumer-ready PWM, whereas San Aces and Nidecs (and Sunon, etc) use a different PWM frequency that either requires controlling via a custom PWM controller, or just voltage controlling them.

    I had some San Ace's back in the day, jesus they were amazing. Two paired in push/pull on a copper TRUE. The pinnacle of air cooling, and noise, for those days. Probably even still today.

    Had a few AP-30's, too, though i used AP-15's for my rads. They still run smooth as butter to this day.
    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    Still running a pair of high cfm San Ace 120's with a high end CPU air cooler, and they don't seem to need be run much past about 40% to get the most out of them. Still amusing to hear the rev up of the jet engines. :)

    Sure as heck wouldn't intentionally stick my finger into one of them, even sans the red wiring.

    It would be interesting to see graphs of various fans compared, to see just how well they work from say 20% (or min starting voltage) - 100%, comparing temperature deltas with noise levels, seeing at which speed each fan hits that point of diminished returns.
    Reply
  • Darkbreeze
    These are really not terribly impressive, considering the obvious comparison would be to Noctua's NF-F12 iPPC 3000rpm industrial fans which have a 7.63mm H20 static pressure compared to the ~7.13mm of these fans, and a 109CFM airflow compared to 121 CFM, BUT, with only a 43.5db decibel level compared to the eardrum shattering 60.9db for these jet engine turbines.

    Personally, if you want to really move a lot of air I'd just slap some of the Noctua NF-A14 iPPC 3000rpm fans on a heatsink or radiator, because with over 10mm static pressure and 158 CFM, if brute force is going to be the key, it's pretty hard to beat the performance of those fans and they still only belt out 41.3db max. And at only 25 bucks for the 140mm version, they are also cheaper.

    I think EK still has some work to do in the lab.
    Reply