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GELID Silent 12 Fan
Submitted by jwhitakr on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 20:26.
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Whether you are out to achieve the highest speeds by overclocking your CPU, video cards and RAM, or if you just want a PC that is as quiet as possible – you know that fans are a vital piece of the puzzle to keep your PC running cool and stable. They may not be the sexiest hardware component – they do the dirty work while high powered graphics cards, RAM and CPUs get all of the attention - but they are a necessity for any air cooled computer.
For those who choose air cooling over the more expensive choice of water cooling, a company called GELID Solutions has released a new series of 80mm, 92mm and 120mm fans called the “Silent” series. We have a couple of fans from GELID to take a look at, but today we will focus on the Silent 12 Fan. Read on as we take a close look.
Design
A black frame casing surrounds the white blades of the 120mm fan, with the GELID logo adorned on the center. While the features list for this fan boasts “Optimized fan blades”, to the naked eye there isn’t much difference between this fan and other fans on the market.
The company used a long life Hydro Dynamic bearing design to keep the noise level as low as possible. While I don’t understand the differences between this design and traditional sleeve bearing or ball bearing, it does differentiate the fan from competitors.
A couple of nice features with the fan are the rubber mounts instead of traditional metal screws, and the fact that the power cable is sleeved to hide the bare wires.
Features and Specifications
- Silent Operation Optimized Fan Blades
- High Airflow & High Static Pressure
- Rubber Fan Mounts
- Long Lifetime (50'000 h MTTF at 40°C)
- 5 Years Warranty
| DC Fan Dimension: |
120 x 120 x 25 mm |
| Material: | Plastic |
| Color: | White |
| Bearing Type: |
Hydro Dynamic Bearing |
| Airflow: | 37 CFM |
| Fan Speed: | 1000 RPM |
| Noise: | 20.2 dBA |
| Rated Voltage: | 12 VDC |
| Weight: | 116g |
| Cable Length: | 500 mm |
| Warranty: | 5 years |
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| Silent 12 Box | Box Contents | Closeup of fan blades |
In the Box
The test unit included the following:
- GELID Silent 12 fan
- 4 Rubber Fan Mounts
Installation
Not a whole lot to say here - the fan comes with four rubber mounts and a Molex power adapter. I removed the old Ultra fan that came with case and popped in the Silent 12.
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| Installed Top View | Installed Side View |
Performance Testing
Case temperature measurements were taken under idle and load conditions. Idle measurements were taken with the computer idling at startup for 30 minutes. Load temperatures were taken while running 3DMark06 for 1 hour.
Test setup:
- Motherboard: ECS KN1 SLI Lite
- CPU: AMD Athlon X2 3800+ Dual-Core
- Memory: 2GB Corsair TWINX (2x1GB) DDR400 RAM
- CPU Heatsink: Spire Verticool IV
- Video card: EVGA 7800GT
- Hard drive: Western Digital 250GB SATA2 16MB cache
- Power supply: Ultra XVS 700W
- Case: Ultra Grid
| Temperatures |
| Idle | Load | |
| Generic case fan | 29 | 33 |
| Silent 12 | 29 | 33 |
GELID Silent 12 Fan
The GELID Silent 12 fan is an inexpensive and well designed fan that fits well with the needs of those aiming for quiet cooling solutions for their PC. Although the performance is not outstanding, the noise levels produced by the fan are certainly impressive. At 1000rpm the fan produces much less noise than generic fans, and will rival other more expensive fans on the market. With a couple of nice features thrown in – a sleeved cable, rubber mounts and a 5 year warranty – I would have no problem recommending the Silent 12 fan to anyone.
Pros: Very quiet, stable running, low price and 5 year warranty.
Cons: Overall cooling performance is about the same as competition, not widely available in the U.S.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
