The Steam Deck's Big Controversy - New vs. Old Fans
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- Опубліковано 22 лип 2024
- The Steam Deck switched its fans in some retail units vs. review units, causing some controversy over perceived "noisiness" of the Steam Deck. This tests the Delta vs. Huaying review fans.
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The Steam Deck launched with a different review unit fan than some retail units are getting, resulting in consumers being unhappy with the noise produced by their Steam Deck. In response, you can control the fan speed (to minimize the noise - though this doesn't fix the noise), replace the fan -- which we show you how to do -- or maybe just return the unit, but that's assuming it's bothering you. In this testing, we have like-for-like comparisons, including Steam Deck Delta fan noise captures vs. review unit (Huaying) fan noise captures.
This is the debut of our frequency spectrum analysis content, but also features something we're very experienced in -- which is noise level testing, except in a much more accurate chamber than ever before. We're still learning frequency spectrum analysis, so our interpretation in some parts will be softer-handed than typically as we want to learn and gain confidence first, but we are already confident in the data collection and quality. This means that you have a lot to work with between our subjective noise comparisons and objective noise comparisons, allowing you to form your own opinion.
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Advanced Testing for the Steam Deck Fans
01:25 - The Different Fans
02:10 - Eliminate Your Own Bias!
03:38 - Noise Testing Chamber & Methodology
05:30 - Noise Levels (dBA Differences)
06:33 - Analysis & Sample Size
07:48 - Noise Samples for Subjective Listening
10:27 - Subjective Analysis
11:43 - Objective Analysis
13:51 - Limited Recourse If You Don't Like Your Fan
16:00 - Delta Fan IS Higher Pitched and "Worse"
17:03 - Disassembling the Fans
17:30 - How to Replace the Steam Deck Fan
18:00 - Fan Physical Differences (Tear-Down)
20:15 - Conclusion
s & Future Plans
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Host, Test Lead, Editorial: Steve Burke
Testing, Editorial: Patrick Lathan
Video: Andrew Coleman
Video Production: Keegan Gallick
Special Thanks to Mike Chin - Ігри
Hey everyone! Thanks for all of your support on this type of content and your patience while we worked on it. We wanted to learn as much as we could before publishing anything. Naturally, any time we start new testing, our standards will still be growing and our ability to make confident statements will be limited. This is by design and to respect the scientific process and the fact that there are many unknowns we're still researching. It's been so fun and rewarding to work on this stuff! Can't wait to do more soon and improve each time to get the standard up each time!
Good video
Stick your deck in me Steve 🥵
Thank you all for the extremely hard work you do! It really means a alot to the community that you keep learning and sharing with us! Thank you!🙏
Jay: holds tissue next to fan to test airflow
GN: hold my fan
please review products faster near release , I almost bought the Alienware R13 . Thnx to you i did not waste my money.
Fan 1 is definitely less pleasant to me. It's the higher raspier pitch. Fan 2 sounds more like a window fan. A bit of a lower hum. So I would guess Fan 1 is Delta and Fan 2 is Huaying.
Excellent ear for the detail!
Yeah fan 1 sounds like a tiny vacuum
@@GamersNexus Why thank you! 😁
I had the same thought, fan 2 was more white noise, fan 1 was a little more annoying.
wouldn't be a delta if it didn't make noise. its nostalgic for some people like me. thermalright SK6 with a 60mm delta screaming trying OC mhz out of a athlon. 🤣
I feel like this confirms that the Delta fan has a more high pitched whine, which seems to be the real complaint people are having. It's no so much a volume issue, but more of a whine problem. High pitched noises can definitely be perceived as louder, though.
Yes people really have a whinnig problem
And the fact this is a portable console means it mostly used in public = using headphone
High pitched sounds indeed are louder to the ears, and are actually more damaging to the ears when loud than low pitched sounds. A loud low pitched sound will thump across your whole body, and loud high pitched sound will pierce your ears.
Audio engineer here. Firstly, great work! Appreciate the work put into careful control of the measurements. One thing that really stood out to me was the peakiness of the Delta. Not only is that undesirable from a frequency response standpoint, those peaks often include harmonics of other frequencies, generated by the design of the fan itself, and the chamber it works within. For good or ill, I've generally found those harmonics are what tend to set people off the fastest. (Harmonics are why some people have strong opinions about vacuum tube audio, for example, or prefer a particular guitar's tone.) 👍️
the 117hz tone comes from each revolution of the fan; ie the fan spins 117 times a second (117x60=7020rpm). the high pitched whine from delta is from the bladecount multiplied by the 117hz tone (47x117 = 5499hz). somehow the huaying doesnt produce much of this, which i think is preferable.
This makes me suspect that it can be traced to the way the Delta fan ran closer to the "hump" in the side. The closer an obstruction is the louder and "sharper" the noise produced. So each time a fan blade pass that restriction the air it pushes will hit that "bump" causing a noise.
I'm also looking at the blade design as I suspect some of the whining can be caused by turbulence around the sharp top and bottom of the blades. On the Delta these edges look very sharp while I got the impression that the blades on the H-whatever fan looked thinner and as if there was just a hint of a radius to the edges.
I'm pretty surprised that there weren't a larger difference in the higher frequencies of the frequency graphs. To my ear the high pitched whine was very noticeable, and my hearing is pretty bad these days.
Now it's been many years since I last deep dived into audio measurements but I remember something about different DB scales. One of which measured the audio energy and one that was weighted to better represent human hearing. Oh. Just looked it up and it was dB(A) on one hand and ITU-R 468 on the other that I was thinking of. 468 is weighted to better match human perception of white noise, and apparently we are more sensitive to a wide band of high frequencies than we are to low frequencies which could explain why the Delta fan sounds to high pitched even though the dB(A) frequency plot only shows a very minor difference in the amplitudes.
the annoying tones were actually the 6 and 12 kHz spikes on the graph he didnt mention. Not those low tones. You calculated how one of them exists but he never mentioned em. The 12kHz is the first harmonic of the 6kHz (one octave up).
(edit - i'm a sometime audio engineer/producer etc so i knew where to look on the graph for those spikes and that they audibly werent the tones Steve identified - its obv the annoying tone is more in the 5-7k area. Very cool that you identified WHY they were there.)
@@blahorgaslisk7763 its essentially identical construction to an air raid siren so you need to be really careful making a centrifugal fan. As you say that delta has one edge very close to an obstruction that would work just like the stator in an air raid siren, the blades are bent over like an air raid siren, teh blade edges seem thick like an air raid siren.......
ouch, math 😂
This could apply to these fans but it's not that simple and cannot be generalized as such. Different blade forms produce different sounds at the same speeds and the same blade count. This would not be possible if all there was is what you mentioned. The airflow in and around the fan has a huge effect.
In the first two "tests", I would say that number 1 was more annoying because of its higher pitch. But in the "player perspective" one, to me at least, both sounded equally "loud" or annoying.
Interesting. Just goes to show how subjective it is. I listened to it several times with my eyes closed, both with my speakers at a softer and a louder setting, and found fan 2 more annoying and I would call that a "higher, noisier, whining sound". Although I kind of wonder if the order makes it seem worse to me. Downloading the video and rearranging the audio several times would be too much work to test that.
Edit: It gets even more subjective apparently. I wrote the above at 2:35 after the initial clips. There are different clips at 8:55 though. In the first set of clips at 8:55 I find the ramp behavior of fan 1 more annoying, then in the second set I find fan 2 more annoying and in the third set I find fan 1 more annoying again (but only very slightly here, I almost don't care about the difference in this set).
@Hazard
You're really going to compare those to something many times more powerful? 🤷🏻♂️
I honestly thought that the low hum of Fan #2 would've annoyed people more. It certainly would've bothered me. You can hear lower frequencies at farther distances, as they travel through materials more easily. The sound waves are just too long. This is kinda why it doesn't matter where you put a subwoofer in your room and why you can hear the bass from a passing car, but not the song itself. It's also why you need thicc bass traps to properly sound treat a room, not just egg crate foam.
But I guess my theory falls apart once we get the results of the microphone pointed at the screen. The normal materials in the steam deck seem to be capable of absorbing that low hum quite well. In the grand scheme of things, it's not *that* low of a frequency. Meanwhile the other fan is still noticeable. Seems counterintuitive, but I think it's down to the fact that the shrill high frequency pitch of the bad fan is being produced at a much higher in dB than the hum frequency was. So it's brute-forcing its way into being heard through all of those layers of plastic and circuitry.
Also GN needs to get much better stands for holding the device during testing. Putting the device on a cardboard box, propped up by a chunk 2x4 is no bueno. Those materials resonate. Sound waves will bounce off of them, towards the microphone. Wanna see what I mean? Make a cone out of paper and hold it up to your ear. All of the upper-frequencies are much easier to hear, and from further away. Paper works surprisingly well for directing sound, despite being so thin and flimsy. And like I described before, high frequency sounds bounce more readily off of surfaces, while lower frequencies pass right through (and down into the noise-reducing foam, where they are diminished).
I'd like to see GN redo this test with some alterations to their testing apparatus. I think suspending the device from fishing line and attaching the line to a very slender, sound-deadened frame would remove all doubt. Because as it is, I can't really trust the frequency charts that they're giving me. I think Steve is somewhat aware of this as well.
Edit: Looks like I jumped the gun on that. Steve just commented that they used foam to hold the device during testing and the cardboard box was only for B roll footage. Disregard the last half of what I said.
@Hazard do you want it to light on fire or burn your hands? Then break?
To me fan 1 sounded more like what I'd expect with background jet engine noise on a plane whereas fan 2 seemed more like a basic desk fan. Was definitely more annoyed by 1 in most of the sound clips.
The most important difference is the 4.55 kHz (at max RPM) whistle on the Delta fan.
The Huaying fan has a tone that slopes downward more along the frequency spectrum, and lower frequencies are generally less annoying. Most of the lower frequencies are just wind noise anyway, and not directly caused by the fan's design.
The Delta fan definitely has less of a rolloff as the frequency increases, which accentuates the annoyingness of the 4.55 kHz whistling.
If I had to bet money, I would say that whistle is the only reason people are complaining. If it weren't for that, most people would never have noticed any difference in tone, let alone complain about it.
I noticed that little blip at around 5200hz on their chart and wondered if that was the frequency I was hearing that stood out the most to me. I tabbed over to a tone generator site and sure enough. That's the screech I was hearing
@@PiPArtemis Yup and the little spike at about 10500hz too, which is a harmonic of that and exaggerates it somewhat. Funnily enough I know I'm probably more sensitive than average in the 5000hz region (iem or headphones with a little bit of boost in that region are really hard for me to listen to), so it does stand out quite a lot to me.
12:35 I recommend a larger FFT length to get more resolution at low frequencies. Also more averages (as many as possible) and perhaps even 1/48 octave smoothing to remove most of the grass at high frequencies that is obscuring the peaks.
I also wouldnt use an empty cardboard box to prop up your dut, it's a resonating body.
definitely agree on the body, a better mounting solution would improve the quality of the data
I was just gonna comment on the cardboard box and the sampling rate. Not sure what they're using for sampling software so there may be limitations there? Maybe take two readings, one with lower Fmax and lower delta-F to collect higher res at lower F.
Definitely don't be using a cardboard box to prop things up, though, lol.
Scrolled through comments in search for cardboard reso body mentions.
add me to the "use a different Mounting device".
The Huaying unit has more of a toneless character to it, to my ear. I'd expect that most people would be less likely to notice it during actual gameplay (or at least less likely to care), over the Delta unit.
I agree, the Huaying sounds closer to that pink noise sound that is less annoying
I don't own a steam deck, I don't know anything about this "controversy". But B seemed lower to me in the initial sounds. They were lower, deeper sounds, easier to ignore.
everything has "controversy" now days. The fact that the steam decks is fan noise honestly tells me pretty much everything else about the unit must be dang pretty solid.
@@siege2928 k.
@@supervillain3213 k
@@builderphill1361 k
@@supervillain3213 k
The Huaying isn't perfect (seems to pulse, like it has some aeroelastic flutter), but the Delta's whistling is intolerable.
Noise-canceling headphones will also work better on the Huaying's noise.
From my limited experience doing audio engineering work (I am not a professional) I suspect it's those peaks in the roughly 5000-12000hz range that are the problem. That's the high treble range and it can be a very harsh part of the sound spectrum which can fatigue the ear over long periods. The Huaying having more high bass/low mid noise is going to be less annoying to most people.
Mine doesn't pulse.
Do u have a link to the best fans for the sd?
That 4.8k-5.2k hz range is what feels to be like the most audible difference. The delta fan almost sounded like it had a high pitched whine at some of the intervals played in the clips which I would assume is due to that. Chart @ 13:39. Also love all the new tools and testing to come with all this sick equipment, keep up the great work guys.
Fan 1 seemed WAY more annoying with a slight whine. Fan 2 seemed a bit louder perhaps but more pleasant.
Agreed
Agreed here too.
Higher pitch can so often outweigh the higher volume of a lower pitch fan, I agree, fan 2 is better imo
Exactly the same.
Theres narrow ~5 to 6 dB noise spikes visible on the graph and very audible if you know what youre hearing.
You can easily enough calculate where to look too - 7000rpm divided by 60 seconds times 47 blades = roughly 6kHz. 12 kHz is one octave up, the first harmonic. REALLY annoying places to have noise spikes.
As Steve said a number of times its a matter of experience and knowing where to look, i'm sure they will get there but for now hiring an audio/acoustic engineer would probably help make the best of the hundred grand or so they invested already.
I wonder if for the tonality analysis it might be worth showing spectrograms of audio recordings? Showing a recording of an RPM ramp with this tool might help to pick out clear rising and falling tones, which subjectively are some of the more unpleasant elements of a fan's acoustic profile
Good suggestion! We'll try it out.
I would say that the tone is going to be the killer question in the future total noise level is one thing but if the frequency is in that "annoying range" then a fan could be 10db quieter but more annoying to the audience case in point no one wanted the small chip fans on the x570 but can put up with 6 7 or 8 large fans in the same system
It would be beneficial to isolate the volume at frequency ranges. highs mids and lows. people can tolerate quite loud low frequencies but most people have a very low tolerance for high frequencies regardless of the volume. Therefore 40dba at 9khz is likely to be more annoying than 60dba at 40khz.
There is also a hearing loss gradient. All adults have hearing loss in low and high frequencies but if you graph this hearing loss on a linear (NOT logarithmic) scale it is much more sharply defined in the low range. Meaning you can hear the low range fine until you can't at which point you simply can't hear it. The high range people have pockets of deafness, and perceived differences at every minor frequency change. The result is when that frequency changes a little the volume is perceived to have changed greatly. So high pitch frequencies sound like they are changing in volume for many people. Which is very annoying.
regular pulsations are also really annoying and would show readily on a spectrogram
I see Steve has already responded to you, but I'm commenting anyway for the algorithm bump. This is a fantastic idea to help people bridge the objectivity/subjectivity problem for themselves. Neatly skirts around the audio compression UA-cam uses, too. 👍️
It would be so nice if you could record the sound different AIO’s and GPU’s fans make in future reviews, because one or the other might have better cooling abilities but like in this case the noise might drive you crazy. It would help so much more on deciding what hardware part one person would prefer over the other. Great work from the team once more!
Only problem I see with this is depending on the case used and exact placement the sound could be quite different, whereas all Steam Decks are the same design (just varying components like these fans). If there was anything egregious about the noise though then that would probably apply to any case & placement
Fan 2 is the better for sure. Man, that Delta Fan has some very high pitches. They're not consistent, but sure do hurt my ears when it hits that freq at the higher rpm's. Feels just shy of a dental drill.
What's interesting to me is that I work around Delta fans in servers every day and I could pick up on the "jet whine" that a lot of Deltas have during the subjective samples. In a lot of ways this reminds me of the difference between an MS Surface fan and your typical HP laptop fan.
Haha I was about to say, my HP laptop sounds just like this and I'm pretty sure it's a Delta, very whiny, it's annoying as hell to the point I considered a fan swap from a different manufacturer but it's hard to find something that fits.
What's funny to me is that for the PS5 the Delta fan is the most desired fan of the three different suppliers.
@@RamjeProductions delta makes a damn good fan so I understand why.
YEP! In the ramp-up sample, I was like "oh, I am 100% sure Fan 1 is Delta based on that whine"
Fan 2 was my preference. There’s this “pitch” in Fan 1 that I perceived as “slightly annoying” long term
I'd honestly try to put the H fan on the D motor assembly, and see how that works if i could ever get my day 1 pre-order to come up...
I've owned a few Delta fans, I could recognize their sound signature out in the wild. Good fans, but ungodly sound signature, unless you're a fighter jet enthusiast.
had these exact thoughts, I was like "That sounds like a delta, good fan, annoying whine."
Same type of fans used in the ps4 pro. That's one of the reasons I got rid of it.
You guys should definitely look into frequency over time audio analysis too, the high tone in the delta fan is very obvious when looking at a frequency over time spectrogram
nice, I think the high "whine" tones are super undesirable so fan 2 sounds much better to me
This is awesome, I love the sound chamber vs real world style testing. Overall, I prefer Fan 2. It has a lower tone, which is typically easier to drown out. Although it appears to sound very similar in the typical desk pose test, all the angles and locations I would use this will likely reflect the higher tones. I'm not going to sit staring down at a desk capable of full size gaming. I very much appreciate the teardown and analyses of the fan blades, etc. Great learning experience.
I honestly think the controversy stems from the previous fan curve spinning up to pretty high RPM frequently, in this scenario the delta-fan had a much higher pitched sound. Now, with the new fan curve, especially when running the device at around 5-10W. (which most people should, if they want to enjoy battery life) the high-pitched sound from the delta fan isn't actually very apparent anymore. Even when running Cyberpunk, I actually target 8W (3 hours battery life). And it is possible to do so with pretty decent settings even.
Honestly one of my favorite things about the steam deck, is how quiet I thought it was, even under full load, so I assumed I had the newer Huaying fan, but was curious, so I opened my deck up. Nope, it's the Delta one. Sure if I pay attention I guess it has a bit more high pitch? but I honestly don't really notice it myself, maybe some really are worse then others? I'll probably try swapping it out eventually, now out of curiosity more than need, but it really doesn't bother me or anyone I've shown on my unit.
Valve actually tweaked the fan curve in the past few SteamOS releases, so it could be that.
Play something really demanding. Like 25 watts total power. See how temperature rises to 84 degrees and fan rpm to 6000 and above. Then see if it really bothers you even at highest gear.
Oh I've maxed it out for sure. I've seen a total system draw around 27-28w. And I actually disabled the new fan curve recently cause it really didn't bother me. And normally I'm more sensitive to that kind of stuff 🤷 but that's just me, everyone's different when it comes to that kind of thing for sure. Or maybe it'll get worse with more use.
They've updated the fan curve so its better now
@@accidentalaccount4864 But Steam Deck benefits from the exact opposite bias - internet nerds WANT it to succeed despite all of Valve's failures and oversights. Only a few have even been ABLE to buy it - so the few who have it want to justify their decision to themselves.
Engagement piece: Fan 1 definitely sounded more annoying as I could tell there was some noticeable high pitch whine while fan 2 had none as far as I could tell via phone speakers. Lower frequencies and lack of high frequencies tend to be lessen annoyance for me.
I came to this conclusion as well. They both seemed to be "loud" but #1 definitely had a more annoying whine sound to it.
Theres narrow ~5dB noise spikes visible on the graph and very audible if you know what youre hearing. You can easily enough calculate where to look too - 7000rpm divided by 60 seconds times 47 blades = roughly 6kHz. 12 kHz is one octave up, the first harmonic. REALLY annoying places to have noise spikes.
As Steve said a number of times its a matter of experience and knowing where to look, i'm sure they will get there but for now hiring an audio/acoustic engineer would probably help make the best of the hundred grand or so they invested already.
always appreciate the details of your videos!
That is awesome to see the sound chamber in full use. Good work!
The Delta fan to me had a high pitched whine. Almost similar to being on an airplane that is preparing to take off. It's "loud" and slightly discomforting but temporary in that particular case. I wouldn't want to listen to it for hours while gaming.
The Huaying fan, while loud, reminds me of the white noise machines our therapist use in the hospital hallways to "hide" conversations. It's again "loud" but feels softer and more tolerable for long periods of time. It may even become less noticeable as time goes on as white mosie tends to disappear into the background.
Thanks again for another great in depth look at tech.
My Deck's fan is a delta fan and sounds exactly like fan 1. That being said the recent update that fixed the fan rpm made it far more tolerable. There's always the tape mod for those feeling like opening the Deck.
When I first got it I was surprised how aggressive the fan was, but I had only used it a few hours before I updated to the newer fan profile which really helps things. I cant imagine folks who dont have one hearing/seeing stuff like this and thinking its that obnoxious irl.
Dont know what fan type I have and Im not a fan(!) of loud/pitchy fans, yet I find the Deck (with the update) perfectly reasonable.
the tape mod doesnt work for everyone, for me it made it only slightly better
Superb quality video as always. Love you guys and the work you do.
Excellent content. Thanks for teaching as you are showing results. Are there any plans to use spectrograms and maybe doing a video on how to read spectrograms?
12:45 An opinion from an audio/tech/music professional: The tone you hear in example 1 (9:16) is a much higher frequency than 400-500Hz. My ear would ballpark it 5k-7kHz. I'd be very careful about how you average the frequency bins, if you get the maths wrong you end up with a poor representation, especially with higher frequencies where the bins get (perceptually) narrower and the chance of a tone appearing in multiple bins over the sample frames goes up. This might be what you're seeing here? A simple trick would be to try take a look at the maximum for each bin over your sample... or talk to SPCR, I'm sure they'll have a great solution :)
I tend to agree. Also when making comparative tests like this it can be helpful to take into account the specific frequency profile of your microphone and to normalize captured audio relative to the mic. Additionally, when it comes to perceived audio, it could be helpful to weight captured audio by the relevant Fletcher-Muson Curve. This could help to isolate the frequencies that are perceived to be louder. Though I will add that the spikes in the 400-500 hz range looked harmonic which could indicate resonance, something else that could be tested for.
@@mechanought3495 Interesting thought on the 400/500Hz peaks. The wavelength of those frequencies are suspiciously about the same as what I'm eyeballing the size of the cavity (~0.6-0.85m). Might be exacerbated by the positioning of the mic, dead centre. If one could present a sine sweep or noise profile of equal/known power, this could be normalised for as a compound IR with the profile of the microphone?
Also improper microphone placement. The screen acts as enough of a barrier to filter most high frequency content, our ears capture diffuse sound, so the only way to approximate is point at the grill. I have a steam deck with a bad fan and am also an audio professional, the source isn't properly represented.
theres a 6 kHz peak on the chart and a 12kHz peak - they're audibly what we're hearing (another engineer/producer). Someone else calculated what the 6kHz one is - 7k rpm is 117 Hz, times 47 blades is 6 kHz. (they hadnt even seen the ~6dB odd peaks on the charts at 6k and 12k that Steve didnt comment on)
If you look at 2:14 the construction of the Delta has the little air directing triangle come very close to the blades, effectively forming the stator of an air raid siren. The blades are also thick and curled over like an air raid siren.
The 12kHz peak on the chart is the first harmonic of that.
I was going to say, it would be nice to mention the Fournier transformation settings used for the frequency spectrum analysis. That would help provide feedback to make sure frequency-amplitude combos are properly binned.
As a scientist in an unrelated field to computer hardware, I very much like your thorough approach and your sense of awareness of weaknesses in your analyses. I love this content, money well invested!
Ooh. I didn't understand what was the deal with people having a loud fan on their Steam Deck. It turns out that I have a "day one" Deck with the Huaying fan. Thanks for making this issue clear to me!
Very happy to hear (no pun intended) that you guys are doing a frequency analysis in parallel to the loudness test. The Delta fan's higher perceived pitch is less desirable to my ears for sure.
Fan 1 (Delta) definitely sounds “worse” because it’s got a bit higher pitch. I can hear it even on iPad Pro speakers, it’s quite noticeable and I personally don’t like such high pitch noises. Lots of people dislike higher pitched noises: children screaming, cars honking, etc.
Fan 2 (H) feels like it’s more spread out through the specter with more emphasis on the lower part, which sounds more pleasing. Almost like waves crushing onto beach, or something I found recently that helps me concentrate when I write - brown noise, Fan 2 sounds rather close to brown noise, which is for sure more pleasant to the ears.
I hope Valve could fix it either by sticking to one supplier Huaying, or by testing some other fans with other blade curves which would match Fan H sound more closely.
And yeah, that thinner gap between casing and blades might be the reason why the Fan 1 sounds higher pitched.
What a sweet way to christen the sound chamber. Can’t wait so see more data coming out of it!
You are incredibile in the depth of details. Thank you so much, Steve and GN staff.
As an audio professional and nerd (I'm a sound designer with a pretty wide range of audio work-history ranging from live sound, to film and game work), it makes me very happy how you're analyzing and how well you're explaining. Seriously... You've done a better job than a lot of "audio engineering" focused youtubers that I've seen. Been a pretty solid follower of GN for quite a while because I love the depth and focus on proper data collection and analysis. If for some reason you end up needing an extra set of ears or brain with anything in audio, I'd love to help however I can. Somehow I didn't know about Mike Chin or his work. I can't believe I haven't run across it before. I love it!
One thing that might be nice is in the spectrum analysis, when you pick out specific frequency peaks as the cause of certain noises to play a synthetic sound that is just at those frequencies to better help the audience understand which frequency is responsible for which tones or the interplay between major tones.
Agree, I almost went and did this myself, but decided it wasn't worth it. Playing one sound, then the other, then both helps to understand the data better.
Playing a pure tone... Hurts.
@@InternetEntity Don't you mean hertz? 😉
.... I'll leave now.
I would prefer fan #2 except for the "over screen" sample, I find the #1 to sound better as most of the high pitch noise didn't carry as much as the lower pitched one.
But really, I'm a blower fan GPU aficionado and often jack up the fan curves. Either one is fine in my book, as long as they have the same level of performances.
So about same loudness, but fan 1 seems to have noise at higher frequency. One thing noticeable on the fan ramp test was that sample 2 started from a lower floor. It sounded like fan 1 was on from the beginning, but fan 2 was off initially.
You should try to model the way people will hold the Steam Deck; perhaps with adjustable hands. I suspect the wooden board and cardboard box affects the perceived noise. At any rate, thank you so much for going to this extent to test and help the rest of us understand - I haven't seen anyone else doing it!
Question: Doesn't the cardboard box the DUT is sitting on act as a resonance chamber for a specific frequency (and its harmonics)? Has this been measured with a frequency sweep and corrected for?
The cardboard was just in there to hold it for footage. I used a foam block for the actual test.
@@GamersNexus This is why you guys have a future in this industry, full due diligence and owning up to(very few mind you) mistakes. I can't wait until every website sites you and your team as a source for the products they review and sell.
@@thelazarous Cites, as in citation. No offence, just spreading knowledge.
@@taaktuuq I failed English in school and it's my only language, so none taken
Guessing time: fan 1 has more of the higher pitch sound so more annoying, probably Delta; fan 2 has more rumble and is less annoying, more like a fridge than a hair dryer, probably the H one.
Great testing and interesting data! Thanks so much for your efforts!
I find high pitches very annoying and was surprised that the data didn't show a greater difference. However, perceived loudness is also influenced by the number of frequencies hiding in it (richness?) (a square wave technically has every frequency). This might be visible by the high frequency peaks, being wider in the spectrum.
There's something I've always wanted to see, which is a 3D render of a sound spectrum over sound pressure, because a spectrum usually only show a sliver of the entire sound profile. In this case a spectrum over fan speed, I guess ...
What stood out most to me in the frequency graphs that backed up the differences I was hearing was the higher spl in the 5-8khz range. It's a pretty information rich band for human ears, since a lot of consonant sounds (s, t, and the like) happen up there. To be fair to the delta fans, the headphones I'm wearing right now don't have much bass, so the difference could be more exaggerated. Plus, I have no idea what UA-cam's audio compression does.
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When listening to the blind Fan #1 and #2 test, I recognized almost instantly that really annoying almost jet engine style whine/pitch of #1 since it's near identical to the pitch that my Deck has when in use. I was surprised at how "empty" Fan #2 sounded compared to it despite being very similar noise levels, and it makes me want to get it replaced once iFixit gets more stock of it.
Watching this through my phone and I could hear a total difference. Every time you played a sound clip it was always the second fan sounds better. The first clips had a high pitch whine.
I bet soon there will be a Noctua fan available.
@21:13: Totally agree and is the much better approach.
Sound is subjective for many of us and the influence it has varies from one person to the next.
Thanks for all the hard work.
Cant wait for static pressure testing fan series, planning to build DIY PC "case" that doubled as HEPA filter/fan where airflow is ducted from filters straight on radiators
im usually very bothered by high pitch noise but the delta fan didnt seem to be enough to really annoy me as much as I expected. yeah Id prefer the other fan, but its not something id even consider replacing just for the sound.
I personally felt like Fan 2 was maybe a little subjectively “louder”, maybe due to the lower hum of the fan? Fan 1 was, in my opinion, actually more annoying just due to the persistent “squeal” (if you will) that you hear when it’s ramped up.
Another thing you could do to help with understanding a little is play an isolated tone at the frequency of the peaks. That can sometimes help you identify if the peak you're looking at on the spectrum analysis is the egregious tone.
I feel like most of the difference comes form the ramping sound... with the delta, you can hear the pitch increasing as the fan starts increasing speed. but with the "H" fan, it really doesn't change sound profile as much (to the ear) and just gets louder. personally that's why I really prefer fan 2
GN Team, I just wanted to say it has been a pleasure watching you all grow and advance over the years. I look forward to seeing future testing from this new testing chamber! As for the Steam Deck fans, I'm not sure which I have in mine but I've never found it to be loud. In this video, I preferred Fan 2. Can't put my finger on why but it just seemed less "harsh". Either way, I've been very pleased with mine now that the fan curve has been tweaked since launch.
I prefered fan 2 for the first 2 tests (close up recording), but in the practical test(front facing) I think they're close enough for me to ultimately not care much, as both have pros and cons.
Are we able to tell which fan we have without opening it? I just got a 512 and it runs the fan every 10 seconds, on latest update with the "updated fan control" toggle on. It's annoying lol
This is not related to your video but I bought a cyber powered and it has a liquid cooler in it it’s supposed to have a front panel that pulls off of the liquid cooler to replace their logo inside but I don’t know how to takeoff that little round front panel it does it twister turn how does it come off I don’t wanna force it and break it so can you please help me in this situation I would really appreciate it
There's definitely a higher pitch when in Fan 1 that makes it less pleasant. I would guess Fan 1 is the Delta fan.
My first and only experience with Delta fans is a massively thick 92mm fan that I helped order for a machine at work when a machine with proprietary internal headers broke, and it was cheaper to buy a massive Delta fan with a 3-pin to AC power adapter jerryrigged to the intake vent than to actually properly repair the unit. Since it's blasting at full speed, it truly made it incredibly loud (and painful if you got your finger stuck in it, which I, uh, tested for science).
EDIT: After watching the whole video, this is a VERY interesting frequency analysis. Have you considered looking to the literature to see what frequencies have been reported to cause unpleasant reactions in humans? Comparing against these frequencies would probably give the subjective analysis a bit more objective quality.
he missed the 6 and 12 kHz spikes that are the really annoying bit. Its the frequency of the blades going past the plastic 'triangle' that comes very close to them, and the first harmonic of it. Essentially the construction of an air raid siren. REALLY annoying places to have noise spikes.
It's not as simple as saying "these frequencies are annoying", it's more a question of how the frequencies interfere with each other, at least as far as I understand.
Yeah, also generally noise in lower frequencies tends to be more acceptable, but that's very imprecise
@@9SMTM6 go listen to a 6kHz tone if you wanna drive urself nuts. Tho about 5k is the peak of annoying
Guess time: the 1st one has a higher pitch and sounds more similar with a server (i would guess thats Delta) and the 2nd one sounds more like a household-fan (that would be the H one). On the 2nd one you also hear less noice from the fan and more "movement from the air getting pulled by the air" and therefore i like the 2nd one a bit more.
I may have missed it in the video, but with the different blade styles, can CFMs be tested to see if one pushes more airflow than the other?
the delta at least has the specs available, Air Flow at zero static pressure 6.67-7.5 CFM. Air Pressure at Zero Air Flow 1.39-1.72 mmH2O. (0.35-0.5 Watts 5V)
I've only thought about this due to the Frore Systems air jet that's been shown at CES 2023. Just thought it could be better for the steam deck at 31.5 x 71.5 x 2.8 mm space its static pressure is 178.45mmH2O at zero CFM. however it doesn't show how much air is moved, just that it has high pressure. But it does claim to remove 8Watts of heat. at 1.75w of power used.
Cool soundchamber!
My understanding of sound is that resonance is much more hearable, so if there is a multiple of. This is easiest confirmed with putting the frequency back in the soundchamber (speaker). Not sure if that works for you or it's only usable for room resonance.
Hmm, they're definitely different. Fan 2 has a noticeably more aggressive ramp-up, but while the noise....texture?....is slightly different, it's such a minor difference, especially in the 9 inch over screen test, that it seems like the difference is largely irrelevant. That doesn't mean there's not a difference, and some folks are way more noise sensitive than I am, but....they're both "eh, this is kinda noisy but not a jet engine."
Its the specific high pitch that bothers me. Like someone is constantly whistling a single note. Or a mosquito buzzing around. I just cant ignore if.
@@gytux0258 For me its the opposite. Its the white noise or ''grainy'' sound from the second one that is really uncomfortable for me to listen to. Feels like sandpaper being held to my eardrums. I seem to be in them minority tho!
@@Tiasung Neither is pleasant to listen to for fun. But Fan 2 is what most fans loud fans in consumer goods sound like because any external noise masks it (like game audio from the speakers)
Fan 1 will pierce through a lot of external noise and ends up omnipresent no matter what you're doing. Had a laptop like that, couldnt use it when the fan was on...
You could consider filtering out certain frequency bands in software and playing back the result to isolate/demonstrate which frequencies are causing a problem sound like the high pitch whine here. I agree with other comments that the problem is probably a higher frequency like the 6kHz they suggested. It's be curious to hear how it sounds with those peaks removed.
theres a visible 6k peak and its harmonic 12k on the chart. the nasty noise is audibly about 6k. the 7k rpm of the fan divided by 60 seconds times 47 blades is 6k. Its 6kHz.
My guess is that the high pitch noise from the delta fan is coming from the sharp corner of the blades that abruptly ens at the motor hub, the blades of the Huaying fan are smoothy going into the hub by comparison.
Nice video.
Question.. Did place the units on top of those or other objects in the sound booth thingy? If so, it might be better to place it on foam or vibrations through the objects will likely amplify and shape the sound in as similar way as does a guitar resonance chamber.
Keep up the good work 🙂
P.S. I found both units fans annoying...
Another major factor in fan noise is the bearing type, which is where sleeve, rifle and fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) are generally more quiet than ball-bearing, at the cost of lifespan (ball-bearing having the longest lifespan). In a PSU you'd definitely want to have a ball-bearing fan, as well as in industrial equipment. Rifle and FDB are a decent trade-off, as they contain more lubricant than a straight sleeve bearing fan.
It'd be interesting to determine the impact these bearing types have on sound profiles, and whether it's also a potential factor with these two fans in the Steam Deck.
Had similar sound issues with the PS5 fan, Some PS5’s came with the Delta fans and some came with the Nidec fans, really keen to see if GN can revisit the PS5 fans as well
Mine has a Nidec fan and i hate it
Super late on this video, but I am wondering if you can fit the Delta blades on the Huaying housing and vice versa to see if it comes down to the blades/proximity to the housing or if its the cutout. Also it seems that extra cutout on the Delta fan is to allow some more airflow due to that solid base you spoke about where no airflow can occur. If you pause at 19:31 you can see that without that cutout on the Delta fan the bottom right section would have little airflow otherwise.
The delta fan blades being above would cause an extra wine due to the inner blade exit edge being above the center spindle. I did a lot of turbine engine blade repair and airfoil shaping. If leading edge is to sharp you start to cut the air then pulling. So looking again at the sharp being left opened at spindle will cause extra turbulence. While leading end is closed. This is typical of a centrifugal impeller
The frequency spectrum analysis plots were quite interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing more of them in videos in the future! I love a good plot.
Fan 1 definitely has a pretty clear whine (high pitched noise), kind of like some cheaper laptops. Fan 2 doesn't seem to have that and sounds like white noise (~ static) and IMO is much easier to ignore.
the pitch and volume shift sounded the same volume, but a worse noise in the second one, but im not sure I'd notice outside of an isolated environment
could you try and grind away some of the plastic on the delta fan where the fan blades outer ring comes close to the plastic that you showed in the video? You said that it could be a possible source of the sound. If so wouldn't it be nice if opening up that pathway a little bit solved or at least helped the issue?
The first fan definitely sounds terrible. I understand why people are upset if that’s the delta. The whine is obnoxious
Keep in mind that the Steam Deck is mostly going to be used to play games. A lot of the higher frequency noise is going to be masked by the sound from the game trough the speakers and of course with headphones, part of the sound is also going to be blocked. Especially the higher frequencies.
It's also difficult to judge the volume without a reference.
Judging a fan's subjective sound in complete isolation is not pointless, but also not very informative.
Even normal background noise can make a massive difference in how a fan's noise is perceived.
I've got pretty bad tinnitus as it is so the higher pitched whine of Fan 1 was definitely more annoying to me. Fan 2 sounds like a pretty standard mid-tier laptop fan in my experience, most of the noise ends up just sounding like light wind.
Those moments when you can't tell if your tinnitus just ramped up, and your brain hasn't acclimated to tuning it out yet, or if there's a high pitched noise somewhere close.
Great video! What is the actual performance difference between the 2, noise differences aside?
Im very curious if after market fans will become available to boost the cooling and reduce the fan noise. Im all for customizing this thing even further and upgrading it over time.
GN: Invests thousands and thousands into audio volume testing. Reality: pitch matters and isn't always volume specific. Steve: Dies inside.
GN: Spends 100 grand on Audio testing gear.
GN: doesnt hire an audio/acoustic engineer, fails to hear/see the obvious 6kHz and 12kHz spikes that are very audible, very visible on the graph, and easy enough to calculate (7k rpm divided by 60 seconds times 47 fan blades= 6kHz. 12k is the first harmonic).
Still there is more to investigate
@@mycosys translate this to dumb for me plz
@@Drip7914 FAN 1 BAD. FAN 2 GOOD. (I hope I am getting this right thou :D).
@@mycosys If I remember correctly, 6kHz was considered an undesirable frequency range to be boosted in headphones (specifically in the HD800).
I hope I receive the Huaying fans for mine whenever they finally let me purchase it. Based on your video the Delta has a high pitch during use.
My hearing is screwed up because my nerves fire too well so certain sounds hurt like hell.
I bet you have above excellent long distance vision as well as great perception of things you are not specifically looking at, like your peripheral vision or something closer/further away that is in the center of what you are looking at.
Is there any way to get tdp control setting like steam deck for any linux PC. I actually wanted something like throttlestop in Windows
engagement boost, I found both fans enjoyable and can't wait to hear their sequels
Yeah, the Delta fan has a very obvious, significant frequency around 3,000 Hz, which is a commonly unpleasant area of the sound spectrum. The Huaying fan sounds like a pure white noise, which is less offensive to the ears.
You guys do top tier work.
I've had two, because the first one's GPU crapped out.
The first was noticeable louder and higher pitched than the second one (and thank goodness it was that way around!). A distinct whine that could be heard across the room, where the new one is simply the sound of moving air, and only really audible if I point the exhaust vent directly into my ear.
I have no idea what make either was (I don't fancy messing with the new working one to find out), but there absolutely is a difference in how loud some of these get, as well as how noticeable the pitch is.
An important part of HVAC equipment noise comparison is the use of the Noise Criteria (NC) banding, it helps to compare noise that is multi-frequency in an objectively... subjective way? NC was based more upon what people find loud/quiet across the frequency bands so helps more directly compare mixed noise signals that get generated by fans, pumps, etc
Finally fan frequency profiles included in measurements as well! dBA numbers are sometimes absolutely misleading because it makes fans with bad whine appear much better than they are. I've found many reviews which show the Phanteks T30 to be a great performer at given rpm/decibel levels but when I used them in a build I could not tolerate the whine >1300rpm.
Looking over the history, pure tones were tested on subjects to produce equal loudness contours (as late as 2007) but in the late 1960s the BBC concluded pure tones were not a good fit as a substitution for noise.
The problem with proving or disproving A-Weighting, like generating different noise at the same noise number, is as Steve puts it, subjective to the listener (plus their equipment, and what they might have been exposed to that day).
I'd still like Steve and his team to test and give an opinion on the A-Weight filter against samples that result in the same noise number, they would all have the same equipment and environment. Not anything definitive but just exploring it's possible validity.
One problem I had with the sample recordings, they didn't say how much gain was applied, so future comparisons like between two heatsink fan reviews might become incompatible with each other.
"Thanks Steve" - a big fan
Some previous video, you were asking on new ideas of reviewing different pc products.
So this is what I'm trying to find for a long time.
Please do make comparison on thermal efficiency of radiators, since many forums talk about Hardware Labs Radiator's efficiency, and while most of the market is covered by EK, there's no such videos on UA-cam about PC Radiator's Thermal Efficiency.
I suspect what you are mainly hearing in the Delta fan is the blade passing frequency, which you can see in the frequency spectrum at about 5-6kHz. I'm not sure if your software lets you do this, but if you do several power spectral density plots of the sample, you can average them and reduce the 'hairy-ness' of the spectrum at high frequencies, which makes them a lot easier to interpret. A lot of people who work in acoustics do this type of analysis in Matlab, but you can also do it in Octave, which is an open source alternative. It's lets you do lots of good things with narrow band spectral analysis.
Really happy Valve worked with ifixit for replacement parts. Just replaced my delta fan with the Huaying fan and it’s so much better.
Listening to that fan genuinely made me go crazy.
Something to think about regarding sound samples: I don't believe UA-cam guarantees lossless compression of audio, or even any particular bitrates. You might want to consider hosting some sound samples on the GN website and linking them in the video description so that viewers don't end up hearing something different after UA-cam does its magic to your uploads. If I'm wrong about UA-cam and their audio processing is sufficiently accurate that would be fantastic, but I just don't trust UA-cam not to miss subtle but important details when they re-encode the audio.
It's one of the best lossy compressions
I think it would be interesting to see a fan's noise profile rendered in three dimensions; The Y axis being volume, the X axis being frequency, and the Z axis being time (corresponding with an increase in RPM,) showing visually how the sound of a fan changes as the RPM increases; I doubt the GN team would find it useful and / or applicable, though.
Deltas fans always has way loud sound i know them from my ps4 pro, but Nydac is less noise, my stem deck received it last week try couple of games it's really getting hot and the fan is getting louder after seconds from gameplay is this normal?
I wonder if there was additional noise generated by setting the steamdeck on a box instead of something more inert, like a brick. Whether it generated noise that was picked up by the mic or not, I have no idea - could be minimal but the cardboard will resonate some amount.
We used a foam block for the actual test. The box was for footage.
@@GamersNexus ohhhhh.
You would have to be extremely capricious to return one of these in order to "gamble" to obtain the other version. That being said, the H fan looks physically and acoustically superior in all departments. The blade design, the way it aligns with the cutouts, even the way it looks. If they have similar power and thermals, hopefully the D one is phased out.
they looked identical. he showed them next to each other
Steve: and here's the reveal!
UA-cam: smash cut to an ad for steak.
Hey I have a faulty 1660 super and I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. Would you be willing to maybe take it and try to fix it?