Arctic Cooling Fans

Testing

Installation

Installation proved to be exceptionally simple. All the fans can be secured in two ways: either by attaching them with the 4 screws provided or by using the clipping mechanism. Both are straightforward, but we chose to simply screw the fan in.

Then, all that remained was to plug the 3-pin (or 4-pin) connector into the motherboard and the fan was safely secured and ready for testing. 

Test Rig

Methodology

Testing fans is an odd practice, because without the kind of equipment needed to test airflow or a sensitive decibel meter, the tests arn’t as synthetic and replicate-abel (new word?) as we’d like. Unfortunately, XSReviews does not have the budget to equip all its reviewers with high tech equipment such as that. Therefore, judgment is left to the human ear; despite not having the same accuracy as a decibel meter it does still provide a good indication of noise levels.

Results

In order to fairly test the fans, they were all tested at their highest speeds. This made it evident that the 120mm model was definitely the most silent and I mean silent – it was virtually impossible to hear any sort of sound even when right up close to it.

Similarly the 80mm PWM and 80mm fans were also extremely quiet, however they were a little noisier when up close but certainly much quieter than most usual stock fans.

Finally, and quite disappointingly, the Pro TC fan was the nosiest by a long distance even when the speed was reduced to a lower rpm. Also, note that the fan requires a warm temperature for it to start unlike all the others.

Coolers