Today I figured why not take a look at
another Thermaltake product, this time it’s a fan, while it might not
be as exciting as the BlacX I looked at yesterday, it’s still a good
product. The fan is a new design by Thermaltake, they took cues from
other companies and basically re-designed this fan from the ground
up. It’s called the ISGC 12, and it features a unique fan blade
design to keep things quiet but yet promotes good airflow, it also
features an in-line speed controller and comes with silicone
fasteners to further keep things quiet. I’ve put the ISGC up against
three other fans I’ve got on hand for comparison, so read on to see
how the Thermaltake stacks up…

Product
Name: Thermaltake
ISGC Fan 12 120MM Fan

Author: Kristofer
Brozio

Sponsor: Thermaltake

Tech
Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

Thermaltake
ISGC Fan 12 120MM Fan

USD : $19.99

P/N: AF0018

THE No-compromise Silent &
Hydro Dynamic Bearing Case Fan

Features:

Innovative Silent Fan with
Advanced Technology

Unique ISGC Fan Blade

Hydro Dynamic Bearing (HDB)

Specs:

Fan Dimension: 120 x 120 x 25
mm

Fan Speed: 800 ~ 1300 RPM

Fan Speed Control: Adjustable
Manual Fan Speed Control

Bearing Type: Hydro Dynamic
Bearing

Noise Level: 16 dBA

Max. Air Flow: 58.3 CFM

Max. Air Pressure: 1.42 mm H2O

Power Connector: 3-pin

Rated Voltage: 12 V

Started Voltage: 7 V

Rated Current: 0.10 A (Max.
0.33 A)

Power Input: 1.20 W (Max. 3.96
W)

MTBF: 50000 Hrs @ 25?

Weight: 157 g

A
Better Look at Things:

As expected the ISGC 12 Fan comes
in a nice box, on it you’ll find quite a bit of information about the
fan.

Inside we find another box, a
plastic one, with compartments, along with a user manual. Unpacking
everything we find the fan itself, silicone fasteners, regular fan
screws and a Molex 3-pin power connector. The ISGC features an
in-line speed control dial as well.

The ISGC 12 fan resembles a
flower, it’s blades has small ‘chips’ in them that supposedly help
keep things quiet, but yet still allow for good airflow. The blades
are white and the frame is black, can’t go wrong with black and white
coloring scheme…

Installation,
Testing and Comparison:

For comparison I put the ISGC up
against three other fans:

Gelid Wing12 1500Rpms

Nanoxia FX-12 1250Rpms

Noctua NF-S12 1200Rpms

For my testing I use the fans to
cool my CPU, this way I feel I can get a good idea of how well they
are able to cool.

I’ve
got an Intel C2Q9650 CPU and I’m using a Thermalright
Ultra 120 Extreme CPU Cooler.

Ambient Room temperature during
testing was 26.8C (+/- .3C)

To get load on the CPU I used two
instances of Orthos Stress Prime.

I used CoreTemp64 to record/log
the temperatures of my CPU at Idle and under Load, then averaged them
out to get one temperature to use for the chart below.

For testing, since the Thermaltake
ISGC 12 has a speed control dial, I used the lowest setting and the
highest settings only, or running at 800Rpms and 1300Rpms.

You may have noticed one of the
fans I used for the comparison was running at 1500RPMs, so as
expected that fan did a bit better at cooling. We see the ISGC12 Fan
coming in just below that while running at 1300RPMs, and when running
at 800RPMs it comes in last as expected.

Th ISGC 12 Fan is silent running
on low speed and virtually silent running at high speed or 1300RPMs.
I like my case to be as quiet as possible and it’s more than bearable
to me, running at any speed.

There is one problem with the ISGC
12 Fan, and it’s the power cable, it’s much shorter than the others I
used for testing, I had to stretch things around a bit in my case to
get the fan connected. For example the Noctua has a 16 inch power
cable, and the Thermaltake has only a 10.5 inch cable. This isn’t
that big of a deal, but you’ll need to watch where you put the fan in
your case to make sure the power reaches where you need it to.

Summary
and Comments:

The Thermaltake ISGC 12 Fan is a
well designed fan that works well at keeping things cool.

The ISGC 12 does feature a fan
speed controller in-line, but you’ll need to open up your case to
change the speeds. The fan is also very quiet running at either high
or low speeds which is a good thing overall.

It’s a decent fan, and Thermaltake
did a good job at designing it, I’m sure it will work well for most
any type of cooling situation.

DragonSteelMods gives the ISGC 12
a 4.5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well

Pros:

+Adjustable speeds

+Well made

+Nice design

+Quiet on low of high speeds

Cons:

-Short cable

I
would like to thank Thermaltake for the chance to review the ISGC
12 Fan and for their continued support of DSM.

review# 585