|
|
Advertisement:
|
|
Antec Blue and Tri-Colour LED Fans |
|
Join the community - in the OCAU Forums!
|
Funky Fans in Action!
A quick note on bearings - trying to find out whether these fans use sleeve or ball bearings is an exercise in futility. However, the fact that the manufacturer doesn't scream "ball bearing!" and from looking at as much of the motor/spindle as I can see.. leads me to believe they are sleeve bearings. This will have some purists wringing their hands and wailing, but realistically, there's nothing horrible about sleeve-bearing fans. The only drama with them is if the lubricant in the sleeves dries out, which generally only happens when the fan motor is allowed to get too hot. In most case-cooling applications that won't be a problem. There is a positive side also - sleeve-bearing fans are generally quieter than ball-bearing ones.
Here's a few shots of the fans in action. Photographing objects that are themselves emitting light is always an interesting exercise. Suffice to say, none of the photographs in this review really capture how bright and impressive-looking these fans are. Here's the blue one in a normally-lit room and then a dark room (call it a Simulated LAN-Party Environment if you wish.)
 
Here's the tri-colour one, in the same conditions:
 
Here is my fairly unexciting fulltower case. It's an AOpen HX08 and currently sports a pair of Sunon 80mm fans in the rear fan mounts. These serve to keep air flowing through the case but specifically draw air across the two 7200RPM hard drives mounted in the drive cage directly in front of them. They do the job well, but they look pretty average when doing it:
Here's how it looks with funky fans!
 
According to Antec's spec sheet, the fans spin at 2600rpm, making 30dbA of noise and pushing 34 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air. It's tricky to measure CFM and mostly meaningless to compare it to a static rated value, but I measured the RPM's at closer to 2700rpm using the Gigabyte GA-7DXR's fan headers. No doubt this is due to the vagaries of the monitoring chip and is close enough to spec. In terms of noise they fare well, I can hear the butchered 60mm fan on my video card easily over the two LED fans when standing behind the PC. They move plenty of air for use as a blow-hole or other exhaust fan, which is no doubt where most of them will spend their lives.
Price-wise they're obviously more expensive than a conventional fan (AUD30-45 at the usual suspects), but well below the range of many other case-lighting options. Overall, consider these fans recommended - if you're into brightly-coloured things. My personal preference is for the blue one and, even as a fan of boring beige boxes, I'll admit I think it looks great. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm sure I've got some gold fan grilles around here somewhere..
Review units kindly provided by Altech Computers, a distributor with offices in Brisbane and Sydney. End-users should look for these fans at their favourite case-mods or PC hardware shops.
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
Interested in advertising on OCAU? Contact us for info.
|
|
