Be Quiet! Silent Wings 2 (80mm/120mm/140mm) Review

1. Introduction2. Be Quiet! Silent Wings 23. Testing Methodology and Performance4. Closing Thoughts5. View All Pages

To test these range of fans, we decided to strap them to a Xigmatek Dark Knight Heatsink (part of the Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler), as this allowed us to install a different range of fans from various manufacturers.

To compare against the Be Quiet! Silent Wings 2 fans, we will be using the Xigmatek 120mm fan (included with the Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler), as well as the Phanteks PH-F140TS_OR.

The specifications show that the Xigmatek 120mm fan has a max airflow of 89.45 CFM, the Phanteks 140mm fan delivers 78.1 CFM and the Silent Wings 2 deliver 60.4 CFM and 50.5 CFM (140mm/120mm respectively).

We like to try and mirror ‘realistic’ conditions when possible, so instead of the ‘open bench concept’, we are mounting our test system inside the BitFenix Shinobi XL case that we recently reviewed, which does offer very impressive thermal performance in itself, as such our temperatures can't be compared directly to previous tests.

Room ambient temperatures were maintained at a steady 20c throughout testing and the coolers were all set to their maximum fan speed.

System Specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom X4 965 Black Edition @ 3.7 GHz.
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD- M Evo
Cooler (Heatsink only): Xigmatek Dark Knight Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler
Memory: 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600MHz
Graphics Cards: AMD Radeon 6450 HD (GPU @ 850 MHZ, Memory Clock @ 1000 MHz)
Power Supply: Akasa Venom Power 750W
Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex I 60GB SSD (OS only)

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit

Sound Level Meter: Pyle Digital Sound Level Meter PSPL03

Our thermal results are conclusive, showing that the Xigmatek provided the best performance by a clear margin, with the Phanteks 140mm just beating the Be Quiet! 140mm fan. The Be Quiet! 120mm takes up last place.

Now we turn to the sound level output of these fans, and we expect Be Quiet! to do well in this test, as they are specifically designed to emit very little noise.

Acoustical Performance

10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20–25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The Be Quiet! fans are inaudible to the human ear unless placed extremely close (within hair cutting distance!).

The Xigmatek fan may have delivered the best thermal performance, but the downside is the high level of noise emissions. The Phantek fan is quiet yet offering a little more airflow than the BeQuiet! fans.

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