Arctic's new fan-cooled fans might be for servers but I want a gaming rig full of them for the ultimate cooling kudos

2 weeks ago 4

A rendered image of a server rack, showing three Arctic S12038 cooling fans in a row

(Image credit: Arctic Cooling)

Cooling fans in servers don't have an easy life. They're jammed into a tiny space and typically run full-pelt all day long. Should one fail, it's not a quick task to replace them either, so anything that can be done to keep them running longer is a must. Cooling experts Arctic reckons it has the ultimate solution there: fan cooling your cooling fans.

Yes, you read that right: a cooling fan that has a cooling fan to cool the cooling fan. The main cooling fan, not the extra cooling fan. That apparently doesn't need a cooling fan but I do wonder at what point in the future we'll see cooling fans' cooling fans sporting an additional cooling fan. Okay, I'll stop now.

Arctic's new S8038 and S12038 series of server cooling fans (via Tom's Hardware) all sport an additional itsy-bitsy fan in the central hub. Its purpose is to lower the operating temperature of the bearings, helping to prolong their lifespan. Where a typical gaming PC's air wafters will spool up and down, only occasionally running at full RPM, those in a server will usually be called upon to blast as much air as possible at all times.

And oh boy, do these fans run fast: the 120 mm S12083 model comes in two flavours (4,000 and 8,000 RPM), while the smaller 80 mm S8038 is 7,000 or 10,000 RPM. If you've never experienced the deafening wall of noise blasted out by a typical server rack, then it's hard to appreciate just how loud a bank of 8,000 RPM fans is, let alone those with extra fans making more noise and vibrations.

Of course, such racks aren't meant to be used while sitting next to them, so the noise is a minor concern. Longevity is everything, though, so even if Arctic's solution only increases the bearing's lifespan by a few months or so, the potential savings from cutting back on server downtime easily outweigh the added cost of the extra fans.

Not that they're particularly expensive: Arctic is selling the S12038-8K for €19 (a fraction over $20). I'm very tempted to buy one just to mess about with but the inner child in me keeps looking at my main PC's case and giggling at the thought of it being loaded to the hilt with them. It's a Fractal Design North XL which can fit up to seven 120 mm fans so with a full complement of S12038s, I'd technically have 14 fans in my PC.

And since they're PWM fans, I could run them at their lowest rotation rate (800 RPM) and probably be fine, noise-wise. Well, fine-ish, because these really aren't designed to be as quiet as possible. The vibrations would be awful, too, because that's never much of a consideration in server cooling fans either.

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Still, I'd probably be able to cool any CPU with such a setup. A Core i9 14900K at 300 W? Pah, not a problem. Not sure that the long-term hearing loss and raging wrath of my partner would quite justify it, though.

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in 1981, with the love affair starting on a Sinclair ZX81 in kit form and a book on ZX Basic. He ended up becoming a physics and IT teacher, but by the late 1990s decided it was time to cut his teeth writing for a long defunct UK tech site. He went on to do the same at Madonion, helping to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com and over 100 long articles on anything and everything. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?

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