Hey look we have a fans for review today… Yeah I know, it doesn’t sound too exciting, after all they’re just fans right? Well no, these really aren’t your typical case fans, these products are from SilenX and claims to have the ultimate in airflow to noise ratio of any fans out there. The first thing you’ll notice is the design differences, they look very different from any other fans out there, then when you plug them in you’ll notice the absence of any real noise coming from them. I bet you’re wondering how does one test a fan, well I figured the best way to test these fans would be to mount them on two CPU coolers that I reviewed recently, the Scythe Ninja Mini, and the Coolink Silentator and see how much of a difference, if any, there is between the silent Scythe and Coolink fans and the iXtrema Pro fans from SilenX…
Review: SilenX iXtrema Pro 80mm and 120mm Fans IXP-54-14 IXP-74-14
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio
Sponsor: SilenX
Tech Specs (SilenX iXtrema Pro 80mm Fan IXP-54-14) :
SilenX iXtrema Pro 80mm Fan IXP-54-14
Details:
The ultimate in airflow to noise ratio, iXtrema Pro Quiet Fans are the only fans in the industry to be designed with silence and optimal airflow in mind. Smaller, domed motor hub, larger, more dramatic fan blade sweep area, no other fans on the market come even close in performance! There might be fans that offer more airflow or lower noise levels, but when it comes to a balance between the two, these fans can’t be beat.
Specifications:
sku: IXP-54-14
rated: dba 14
dimensions: 80x80x25mm
rpm: 1700
cfm: 32
operating voltage: 8-14v
current draw: 0.12A
power consumption: 1.44w
bearings: FDB, fluid dynamic bearings
{mospagebreak title=Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info (SilenX iXtrema Pro 120mm Fan IXP-74-14)}
Tech Specs (SilenX iXtrema Pro 120mm Fan IXP-74-14) :
SilenX iXtrema Pro 80mm Fan IXP-74-14
Details:
The ultimate in airflow to noise ratio, iXtrema Pro Quiet Fans are the only fans in the industry to be designed with silence and optimal airflow in mind. Smaller, domed motor hub, larger, more dramatic fan blade sweep area, no other fans on the market come even close in performance! There might be fans that offer more airflow or lower noise levels, but when it comes to a balance between the two, these fans can’t be beat.
Specifications:
sku: IXP-74-14
rated dba 14
dimensions: 120x120x25mm
rpm: 1400
cfm: 72
operating voltage: 8-14v
current draw: 0.18A
power consumption: 2.16w
bearings: FDB, fluid dynamic bearings
A Better Look at Things
:
As with any review we look at the packaging first, the package for the SilenX fans is the hybrid type plastic clamshell, with plastic on the front and a cardboard backing that just slides out to access the contents. You can easily see the fans through the package, and the back has the specs, features and details listed for reference.
Opening the package up and unpacking everything we find the fan itself, four ‘weighted’ mounting screws, four silicone fan mounts and a 3 to 4 pin power adapter.
Besides the interesting metallic color of the iXtrema Pro fans, you can immediately see the blades are shaped very differently than any other fans out there, and you’ll notice the center hub is much smaller as well.
The back of the fans has an identifying holographic label, and from this view you can really see the pitch or angle of the blades, they are almost curled under actually, a very interesting design.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
As I mentioned in the intro I thought one of the best ways to determine the performance of these fans was to put them up against some other well known fans that come with CPU coolers.
Ambient temperature was approximately 24C during testing with both coolers. I let the system sit for 30 minutes running nothing but Windows services and recorded the temperature for idle, to get load temps I ran Orthos Stress Prime for the same amount of time. Both CPU coolers were installed for one week to insure proper thermal setting of the compound.
The CPU is an Intel P4X 955 Extreme Edition Dual Core, and the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-G33m-DS2R/S2 micro-ATX form factor motherboard with 2gigs of OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper Ram.
The first tests I ran was on the Scythe Ninja Mini CPU cooler, swapping out the fan is easy to do, and there’s not much involved with it. Since the Scythe Ninjas Mini uses an 80mm fan, we’ll be testing the SilenX 80mm fan with it.
As you can see from the test results there is a nice improvement over the stock Scythe 80mm fan when replacing it with the SilenX 80mm fan, both fans are virtually silent so there was no difference in the noise levels.
To test the SilenX 120mm Fan I had to swap out the CPU cooler for my Coolink Silenator, which involved removing the motherboard as well. The Coolink 120mm fan is made to be silent as well, so there wasn’t much of a noise difference here either.
I already knew the Coolink Fan was silent and cooled well, and as we can see by my testing results there really is not much of a difference between the two fans, only one degree lower by using the SilenX 120mm fan, still though one degree is one degree right? So I guess it could be called a small victory for the SilenX fan, both the Coolink and the SilenX are equally very quiet fans, so as I said noise is not an issue.
For my use I’ll be leaving the 80mm SilenX fan on the Scythe Ninja Mini CPU cooler as I think it is worth it, but the Coolink will be going back onto its’ cooler as for me there really wasn’t much of a difference to warrant the swap. Though I will be happily replacing one of my noisy 120mm case fans with the SilenX 120mm fan, I don’t like noise and the SilenX fan is virtually silent, something I can appreciate.
I put the SilenX fans up against two already known to be silent fans so there wasn’t any competition there, but I’m sure all of you out there have a fan or three that are loud and could easily be replaced with these quiet fans.
Summary:
The SilenX fans are a great product that I can easily recommend to anyone looking for a good balance of silence and performance. They perform admirably well against other top performing silent fans out there, and even push a bit more air to help cool things off better.
I can honestly say that they live up to their claim that they have the ultimate in airflow to noise ratio of any fans out there.
DragonSteelMods gives the iXtrema Pro Fans a 5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Silent
-Good airflow
-Easy installation
-Nice extras included
-Good cooling perfromance
Cons:
-None really
I would like to thank SilenX for the chance to review the iXtrema Pro Fans and for their support of DSM.
review# 298