Introduction

Recently my good friends at Cooler Master gave me a call and asked me to take a good look at their new case fan. I half expected a 140 mm version of their famous R4’s or maybe a stronger version of their 200mm line up. Little did I expect to see the Excalibur. This fan is a far departure from their current units and I for one was pretty excited with the design.

The Excalibur has been named after the legendary sword of King Arthur, which was said to have magical properties and then some. So does this case fan live up to the name?

Lets first take a look at the specifications from Cooler Master:

A Closer Look

The fan came well packaged in a plastic container, more like the high end Scythe variety than the blister pack variety. I prefer the blister pack a bit more as it seems to be a bit more safe for things like fans, but the two review pieces did reach me without any damage, so no complaints on that front. Once we open the plastic box, we get straight to the fan and the accompanying accessories. lets start with taking a look at the accessories that CM provides with this fan.

Now that’s a lot of extras right there. CM provides four rubber fan mounts, four metal case screws, four rubber washers, a three pin extender cable and a wonderfully simple 3 pin to 4 pin converter. All of these are of extremely high quality and I am especially pleased with the finish of the 3 to 4 pin converter, which is extremely easy to work with and has a very small footprint as compared to the stuff that I have seen with most other fans. Lets now take a look at the fans.

The fan is essentially a nine blade design, with slightly angled blades. The whole frame is made of punched metal and is overall very light in weight. The punched design helps the fan to suck in more air from around the frame and seems to be a pretty good innovation.

The rear of the fan holds no surprises and is the same as any other fan.

The fan is pretty well made and the attention to detail can be seen in the quality of sleeving used for the wires as well. I wish they had used the transparent wires that they used on the R4’s as well, as that would have given it a cleaner look.

The fans have a removable blade design, which makes them easier to clean once mounted in your case. They also come with a 4 pin connector, so one can use software to monitor as well as control the speed of the fans. Overall, a well made sturdy design, with lots of style.

Lets now move on to the performance of these fans.

Test Results

We tested these fans on my older setup consisting of a pretty hot running AMD 965 C2 overclocked to 3.8 Ghz and within a case. The case that we used was a Cooler Master Storm Sniper and it has been modified to ensure some pretty decent air flow. The contenders that I did have with me at the time of the testing were as follows:

1. The Cooler Master Excalibur

2. Yate Loon D12SH-12 High Speed

3. Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1450 rpm (D1225C12B4AP-14)

4. Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 rpm (D1225C12B5AP-15)

Let me say that the Scythe Gentle Typhoons are my favorites and they are the only fans that you can barely hear at full speed.

All the fans were run in a push-pull setup, with OCCT 1 hour testing their cooling powers. The heatsink used was the Thermolab Baram.

Lets start with the results of the Gentle Typhoons 1450 rpm.

The Gentle Typhoons 1450rpm managed to get a idle of 37 and reached a high of 59.5 degrees. That’s not so bad taking into account how hot this particular CPU actually runs.

Next up are the Yate Loon High Speeds.

The Yate Loons fare better, topping out at around 55.5 degrees as compared to the 59.5 degrees of the lower speed GTs. The idle temps we recorded for this attempt was around 37 degrees.

Lets now move on to the Ultra High Speed 1850 Gentle Typhoons:

The 1850 Gentle Typhoons manage an amazing 54 degrees at load and an idle of 35.5 degrees. Remember, this is with minimal noise output and basically shows the strength of the high air pressure that these fans manage to generate.

Finally we come to the Excalibur. One point to note is that since this is a close cornered fan, I had to use rubber bands to keep the fans on the heatsink.

And I was amazed. The Excalibur’s manage to stay on idle at 34 degrees and manage to keep the CPU temps at 52.75 on load. Now that’s an impressive result for any 120×25mm fan.

And just to recap:

Conclusion

Well, the Excalibur did put in an astounding performance and are worthy of winning this round. They managed to beat my favorite pair of heatsink fans – not by much, but then when you are really pushing for that Pi run, every single degree makes a difference. Let’s take a look at some of the Pros and Cons before we end this review.

Pros:

1. Superb CFM and air pressure
2. Great accessories
3. Nice looking and sturdy design
4. Quiet when under volted and run at around 1700-1800 rpm

Cons:

1. They are quite loud, but are a little better than the Yate Loons
2. I wish they would improve the sticker in the middle (I know, that’s nit-picking)

Well, that’s all folks. The fan should be available soon at around USD  22. They are great lookers and perform even better. Just keep in mind that they are noisy at full throttle and a fan controller is advised.

Happy Cooling.