A Better Computer Fan - Sometimes: Cross-Flow Meshless AIO Case Benchmarks & Review

[Music]

this small form factor case works by

using

zero axial fans and one cross flow fan

which works by creating a lower velocity

air movement at a perpendicular path

tangential to the fan itself the

theoretical end result is a laminer

evenly distributed flow and in this

video we've animated it to make some

educational material but we also did

some practical Imaging of how the air is

moving on this case with photography

using that setup it's pretty crazy we

also did a full Suite of acoustic test

in our Hemi anaco chamber and all this

was worth doing because it actually

works really well we have in-depth

thermals on it today some Acoustics and

more but even the mechanical side of

this case is pretty

interesting oh the misophonia

hurts and now we get to the really

clever part which is the

GPU and the latch mechanism so this

mechanical solution is actually a tab to

pull the pcie slot into place check that

that is actually like the coolest way to

mount a video card that I've ever worked

with with a case and it all works with

this latch in here where you can see

this thing pulls that riser to Brin it

up to meet the GPU and then a 3D printed

plastic flange basically grab ABS it and

hooks and then the

fan so case is pretty interesting the

cooling part is definitely where we're

focusing our testing cuz if this part

fails then none of the rest matters but

even the mechanics of it are pretty well

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store. Gamers nexus.net so this is

called the meshless AIO it's a mini ixk

small form factor and it has a solo

designer the designer emailed us months

ago we've had it since that time and

he's already been working on some

improvements such as to the fan these

two look mostly physically the same uh

however there was a chain

to the hub on the fan and now it's

entering its final stages should be

ready for production and going on sale

soon for $360 which is expensive but

then you look at the ITX case market and

everything's expensive maybe with the

exception a few cases like the Dan Case

A4 H2O there's really only one way to

build the computer as opposed to the end

case where there's a million ways to

build it this however it is very

important to build it in that specific

way because of the fan

so this is supposed to launch sometime

in May and it is expensive however it's

produced in an expensive way it is

mostly one giant 4 mm thick aluminum

Extrusion that forms a unibody it goes

as wide as a little over 5 mm as shallow

as about two at the back but ultimately

it's a huge piece of aluminum and since

it's all basically one piece of metal it

doesn't need screws or rivets to hold it

together structurally this thing has

very little Flex even when it's

basically half disassemble like this

because of how it's built the unibody is

also finished with a lot of CNC

Machining to form these tabs and

mounting points that allow it to avoid

using a ton of hardware and screws

something that end case struggled with

there's optional Parts like this Ram fan

this uh has some 3D printed components

as a common theme at least with this

version of the case so we'll test with

that actually works it's pretty

interesting additionally there is this

flow guide in theory to help prevent

recirculation that's where our and

imaging will come in later to help

illustrate that so here's how the flow

path works on this this only supports

280 mm radiators no 240s the axial fans

come off that's by Design the air ends

up getting pulled in as a result again

of this fan which

mounts there we got a piece of foam down

there but it goes in here and when the

fan is spinning it's pulling air in

through the radiator so the air is

coming in it is not being expelled here

where it gets

expelled is out this side so this

narrower slit at the top of this panel

uh shoots the air out at pretty high

velocity actually despite the overall

concept of a cross flow fan that's

because so focused and targeted so it

comes flying out here and then as for

Distributing that air throughout the

case the interesting thing with these

fans is that the air will pass through

blades twice and uh that's by Design as

opposed to an axial fan where if air

goes through these blades two times you

have a recirculation problem and you can

watch our bit Phoenix video if you want

to learn more about recirculation

problems the air also is intended to

come in through the holes down here that

hits the GPU for the motherboard side of

things because it's just a sheet of

glass there's this tiny strip of fine

mesh and air is supposed to find its way

in that as well all of this functions on

basic principles of pressure systems

within physics where you have positive

or negative pressure systems and

depending on the pressure of the system

we get either air flowing in through any

hole in the case or air flowing out

through any hole in the case that's what

our animation will look at as well there

are a few other places with holes on the

case so on the motherboard side there's

holes above the motherboard and the

power supply there also holes cut out in

the bottom of the case on the GPU side

which are meant to be passive exhaust

holes for large gpus and with our

modestly sized 70 Founders Edition they

probably end up more as intake all of

the air converges at the fan and is

exhausted through the upper quarter of

the right side panel but it would help

to visualize this and because we can't

see air the next best thing we can do is

look at the air density gradient so

we'll head over to our and imaging setup

this is it we're right now set up in

front of a parabolic mirror it acts as

uh basically a lens to allow us to see

the air density gradient change so we're

not technically seeing the heat but

we're seeing the change in density of

air in this General region but basically

over on this side of the room we have uh

I don't know just looking at it it it

looks like a uh it looks like a mad

science experiment that shouldn't work

but it does work so there's a camera of

course the camera is receiving light

that's getting split by this razor that

set up in front of the lens we also have

a very tiny but super high-powered Point

light source here that's taped to this

tripod and you can see an alumin umum

can uh cut out with a pin hole in it

that is to help uh basically make the

light as narrow and small as possible

when it hits that mirror and comes back

we want a as long a distance as we can

get so that's why the mirror is the size

it is now for the rest of the setup so

this is wired down to a benchtop power

supply we're running 24 volts into that

light that's what it takes and I have

some props over here as well so this is

a hand warmer uh this is one of the

tools that allows us to generate some

heat not because we're seeing the heat

in in the Imaging but because we're

seeing that density change in the air

around the mirror and where the Fan's

pulling in now one of the problems with

doing it this way is creating a

propulsion this pushes and so what we do

is turn it off after it's heated up that

grill a little bit and just let the uh

fan naturally pull the heat in put it

off to the side up to the middle

whatever couple different locations and

pull the uh that heated air in rather

than pushing it in which would influence

the result now this isn't perfect but

it's a pretty good visual representation

then we can measure the exhaust as well

uh but that one's pretty easy because we

just run a heat load inside the computer

and there's your change to the to the

air density so that is the schen Imaging

setup pretty fun and this is the result

first here's the exhaust side of the

Cross flow fan you can see the air exits

up at a 45° angle which is great because

it helps prevent recirculation of hot

air in through the the holes in the

bottomer sides of the case it's

excellent design to project It Up and

Away rather than just straight out the

flow enhancer is actually fascinating as

well with it on you can see that the

exhaust path doesn't change much but it

does better angle the air away from the

case and the other reason this works is

because it instead is blocking the

cooler air lower in the frame from being

sucked up into the exhaust path and

pushed or pulled away this allows the

air to instead find its way into the

case through the lower 2/3 of the side

panel this orientation shows us air

intake at the top of the case when a hot

object is held above the case without

any air movement the shifting air

density is observable getting pulled

into the top of the case with a bias

towards the right side or towards the

Fan's Mount and exhaust the currents of

the exhaust also pull air in this

direction using an upside down air

duster you can actually see this even

more when we move the output towards the

left there still pulls to the right one

side of the radiator gets a higher speed

of flow here we were curious whether the

rear was acting as intake or exhaust and

you can see that it's exhaust cost the

air is Flowing out of the case thanks to

the video cards fans there's some very

slight air intake at the bottom left of

the frame at slow speeds it takes us a

day to set up and capture Shan Imaging

and we spent over $5,000 on all the

tools to do the job so to support this

type of unique approach to testing head

over to store. Gamers nexus.net and grab

one of our PC building project mats our

mod mats our coaster packs for your

drinks with PC themes or other items

like shirts even though the cross flow

fan as you'll see in our thermal testing

actually works pretty well in this case

it will not work well in every case

there's a lot of fine detail that has to

go into a case from the ground up to

make it work so all over this case

there's finely tuned shaping of metal 3D

printed inserts things like this for

example uh which is actually goes in

some of the cable routing area but it

can be removed or added based on if you

need the space and adding it helps with

controlling the air path even more so it

won't work just anywhere one of the

downsides of this approach is that the

GPU doesn't have enough space behind the

back of it so for modern flowthrough

designs found in most of the Nvidia

cards they'll run into restrictions and

more on this in the testing we wanted to

take this opportunity to teach more

about how this fan actually works and

also for us to learn about how it works

so this is called either a cross flow or

a transverse fan sometimes they call it

a tangential fan It's relatively new in

the world of fans it's about 131 years

old from the first patent the only case

we could find that used one was The

Cooler Master stacker case and it was an

optional part Silverstone also made one

for General small form factor

applications for the anatomy of a fan

that's crossflow so it's separated into

blocks that's these three large sections

of blades the blocks are separated by

joint discs which is these two on this

one and one on each end the blades are

cross-sectional and they're at a slight

rotation so they're not perfectly

straight all the way across this one

also has a drum motor on the end or an

impeller there are some that are duplex

cross flow fans but this one just has it

sitting on the end now we've wanted to

start introducing educational animations

were possible lately so you get to see

the first one in this review a

traditional and simple axial fan slices

through the air to scoop and move it in

the targeted Direction choices in Blade

shape and design can dictate how wide or

straight the column of air is but the

concept is the same squirrel cage blower

fans or centrifugal fans pull air into

the center and then eject it outward

along the blade path

this is useful in cramped areas to evict

air quickly like in handheld gaming

devices or laptops where we need to

exhaust the hot air out of the chassis

as fast as possible for a cross flow or

transverse fan the fan is a longer and

narrower cylinder that rotates

longitudinally with a entering

perpendicularly to the rotational axis

and being evicted from the cylinder

tangentially to that axis so fitted to

the Ambi facient lunar Wayne shaft that

side fumbling was effectively prevented

the blower fans we normally see in

laptops and some gpus the cross flow fan

doesn't pull air in from the middle of

the impeller instead it has separate

Inlet and Outlet sides across the entire

length the outlet is formed by this

wedge or Vortex wall stabilizing the air

vortices in just the right way to create

directional flow through the impeller

these fans are used in situations where

a constant laminer stream of air is

desirable without the buffeting effect

of large L axial fans the total pressure

of the fan is proportional to the square

of its speed according to research by

yon chanu at all and research in 1973 by

e at all found that a reduction in angle

of attack improves the total pressure

coefficient later research discovered a

combination of tuning to the angle or

curve of the blades across the length of

the fan would further improve pressure

you can see this present in the modern

cross flow fan used for the meshless PC

case its angle gradually swoops from

right to left cross flow fans create

lower velocity air movement from in to

out and produce a laminer flow which

gets evenly distributed across the

length of the blade you might find these

in a common Standing Room tower fan

where the goal is to distribute air

widely across the room but not to direct

it at a particular Point cross flow fans

can also be found in certain HVAC

products Refrigeration products and

outside and digital signage and

billboards they've also been considered

for Aviation use inside The Winds of

planes but the idea hasn't really gotten

off the ground so cross flow fan has

that downside it's not going to force as

much air into a single point as an axial

fan or something like a blower fan some

Jay's two cense style

editing the captain we should leave that

in shout out to Jay Captain Jay's two

cents I like boats all right let's get

into the tasting for theral on this so

for variables there aren't too many on

this one there's three speeds for this

fan we'll test all three of them they're

100% it goes all the way down to 45% or

in the middle 65% we are testing with

the Kraken 280 NZXT cooler we just

bought it on Amazon for this review the

axial fans are mostly removed there's

one test though where we pull this fan

and we instead install the original

axial fans uh but they end up largely

blocked off so it's not a perfect