Today we’re having a look at the be quiet! Silent Wings 3 case fans that came with the recently reviewed Dark Base Pro 900. These fans are available in 120/140mm sizes at two different speeds of 1000 RPM and 1650 RPM as PWM or DC and are available at many retail outlets. An image from be quiet! showing an anti-vibration fitting on the corner. BTW, be quiet! has a PDF manual that shows you how to take these corners off. The manual has a diagram that helps us see just how vibrations are not transmitted with this corner fitting. Anti-Vibration Fitting Test Setup But all in all there's definitely something to like here for PC gamers. Fans are an often overlooked piece of any PC build, but they really make a difference to your PC gaming experience, both in terms of cooling performance and noise. It's good to see some firm competition (namely from Noctua) keeping manufacturers striving for more. Fluid dynamic bearings are an expensive option. FDB adds to the cost of a fan. Frame-shaping we have seen before. Specifications

that's interesting... exactly what i use Will for sure investigate a bit further... Thank you very much for that information, had no clue about that! We received the three as part of a Dark Base Pro 900 case, two intakes behind a dust filter in front and one exhaust. Fans Behind Filter 3 Fans in Case The Silent Wings 3 fan is a premium product. When you buy the fan retail it comes with two different fittings for the corners. However, we are reviewing the fans that came with the Pro 900 case, so our review will focus on the 140 mm 1000 RPM PWM fans that were included. The image above shows the fan with what be quiet! calls “hard plastic fittings.” These may be hard on the outside but on the inside, there is rubber for reducing noise when a screw holds it tight. Could be BeQuiet phased out the SW3s because there was a problem with using the pwm versions with AquaComputer Aquaeros. The Silent Wings 3 normally comes in a box with a variety of accessories, including two sets of corner mounts, screws and connectors (photographs from be quiet!). The case fans did not come with “anti-vibration fittings” at the corners, but retail fans do.

The only other problem to consider is that occasionally, components immediately adjacent to the motherboard fan header can get in the way of the larger 4-pin fan connector, physically preventing connection. This problem also occurs if you try to use an in-line fan speed controller such as the one made by Gelid. To make the SilentWings 3 into an absolute high-end product, be quiet! utilizes an advanced fluid-dynamic bearing with a brass core. The combined technology in this fan allows a lifespan of 300,000 hours. This applies to all four variants of the two available sizes (120 and 140 millimeters): be quiet! offers the SilentWings 3 in a 3-pin and PWM variant, and these are both also available as High-Speed editions. The headquarters are located in Glinde near Hamburg. Since 2002, here is where all products have been conceived and designed, and quality inspections and controls have been carried out. This is how be quiet! ensures that all products meet the high standards. Regular awards in categories such as "Best Fan", "Best Power Supply", "Best Cooler" and "Best PC Case" from specialized media as well as a high level of customer satisfaction ensure healthy and steady growth.

The fans were placed on a test stand, where their free air RPM was observed and their noise was assessed. The standard proxy for what you can hear is the Sound Pressure Level (SPL), measured in decibels and given a type A-weighting (dBA). A silent room is about 30 dBA. be quiet! SilentWings fans stand for state-of-the-art technology, virtually inaudible operation and superior cooling. The third generation of this award-winning fan series offers unrivalled and uncompromising performance with a broad range of meticulous optimisations. They feature a smooth-running 6-pole motor, an advanced fluid-dynamic bearing, a unique airflow-optimised fan blade design and a fan frame with funnel-shaped air inlets. The six poles of the motor produce a smoother transition between the magnetic poles. This results in very low vibration and silent operation with less energy consumption.

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As you can see on both intake and exhaust, these fans offer “optimized airflow” by providing their blades with a wavy shape. The furrows follow the air across the blades to smooth the airflow. It seems to work: these are quiet fans. So the 1000 RPM slow speed version is not a radiator fan. For that one should try the highspeed version that nominally runs at 1650 RPM. But let us now look at the PWM control: Now for PWM. You wouldn’t normally use a 1000-RPM fan on a rad, but this fan is PWM-controlled. So to compare it with other PWM fans: On the intake side the air tube flares at the corners to make the “funnel-shaped air inlets” previously noted. This corner shaping is in aid of static pressure. On the exhaust side, the air path is a straight tube. Intake and Exhaust Views The Silent Wings 3 are quiet fans. Their airflow is about mid-range but they are among the quieter case fans. Arguably with the other corner mounts, it would be quieter still.

For the SilentWings 3, be quiet! has also developed a new installation system. The system doesn't just feature special anti-vibration properties, but also allows for an easier assembly. Thus the SilentWings 3 can be mounted to coolers, radiators and to corresponding fan mounts in a PC case. Compared to its predecessor, the modular corners of the frame can be exchanged easier. Two included sets lead to a higher flexibility during installation. These are excellent results for fans that came in a case. Usually cases come with pretty cheap fans. The fans we received with the Dark Base Pro 900 were premium fans. The retail versions of the Silent Wings 3 are even more premium than that, coming with both kinds of corner fittings, providing those users who like to fiddle with things something to fiddle with. Therein lies some of that flexibility that Be Quiet is talking about with the Silent Wings 4, and if you're the type to reuse fans for all manner of purposes over their lifetime, perhaps they're a better all-round fit than some individually. Though that also means they're perhaps not as good for each task as a more bespoke designed fan would be.A speed range under PWM of greater than 500 %! Quite the range. If the highspeed version of the SW3 is like this it will be a fabulous rad fan. Availability and Price

Undoubtedly the fans are an integral factor in minimizing the noise levels of the products in the be quiet! portfolio.Specially developed Silent Wings and other be quiet! fans are used throughout all product ranges. They are equipped with a variety of noise-reducing features, such as special bearings, smooth motors, optimized airflow and vibration decoupling. Thanks to these fans be quiet! products attain a perfect balance of ideal cooling performance and virtually inaudible operation. The fans were installed with what be quiet! calls “hard plastic fittings” on the corners. Belying their name they have rubber cores designed to attenuate vibrations. To finish the job they fasten these fans with rubber washers. Installed fans close up A Closer LookAnyway, AquaComputer eventually added similar circuitry to the SPLITTY9 Active and QUADRO products, which helped mitigate the problem down the road. The airflow was assessed using a standard measure, cubic feet per minute, or CFM. The air entered a sealed 8″x8″x8″ box (200+ mm on a side) where it was allowed to mix. The air left the box through an exhaust port, where it was measured with the vane head of an Extech AN100 anemometer, averaging 10 readings per fan setting. The fans were tested in an unobstructed state, with a metal mesh dust filter and on a 30 FPI rad. Test Results And all the fans are built with PBT, the same plastic that's best for gaming keyboard keycaps. Be Quiet says in their testing these fans worked just fine for really long periods, and say that even for four of more years of maximum RPM, there shouldn't be any sign of impeller creep. That's basically when the constant spinning and centrifugal forces on the blades causes them to stretch out, which, you might have guessed, isn't ideal. Well if you have review questions, probably talk to @Avacado. Keep in mind not everyone necessarily has the specific comparisons you may be looking for. The people at be quiet! sell you the retail fans with what they call “anti-vibration fittings” as well. They say, “Removable anti-vibration mountings on all four edges of the fan reduce vibrations transmitted to the PC case to an absolute minimum.” The corner fittings look nice, but because I never had them in hand I can only say the the pictures from be quiet have the fittings looking nice.