be quiet! BL070 Silent Wings 3 120mm PWM high-speed, cooling fan, Black

Addendum Circa 2021/22:After ~3 years one of 140mm fans developed bad imbalance/scraping noise. I think it was actually badly balanced out of factory (I've noticed rotor visible beating), which gradually got worse with time.Initially I've tried to go through beQuiet support which previous was great for me, but they ended to be not so great now - they wanted me to ship fan internationally to Germany (at my expense!) to simply "inspect" the fan and then decide whether it qualifies for replacement. I had to raise claim and obtain replacement through Amazon instead (after some back&forth proving that beQuiet actually advertised 5 year warranty on SilentWings 3).Deducting a star due to this, and now back to original review.These fans I consider the best "all-around"/universal fans available. That mean, they could be used both in airflow and static pressure applications, and have best airflow/noise ratio.Noctua fans have (very slightly) better raw performance, but they are somewhat more noisy - at least in "perceptual" sense. Noctua fans (especially in latest China-made revision) have almost smooth blades and very sharp-edged plain square hub spokes - this creates pronounced "boop tone" at certain resonant RPMs, which (at least for me) are a lot more annoying than white noise of rushing air.While Silent Wings fans have very "ridged" structure on their blades - this creates more air turbulence and while it technically makes fan to lose some small amount of performance, it also makes noise spectrum almost all white noise, which is a lot easier for our brain to filter out and stop noticing even at moderately high fan RPM. Also Silent Wings 3 fans have aerodynamic-streamlined hub spokes, removing "impeller passing noise" (caused by blades pass the hub spoke at exact frequency).The only downside that SilentWings 3 have somewhat noisy PWM circuitry - you get "coil whine" noise, especially noticeable at low RPM when rest of fan is silent. At the contrast, Noctua fans have SCD PWM driver which completely silent - sadly seems that beQuiet still haven't implemented such tech. Also PWM control lacks smoothing - fan tries to change rotation speed instantly which causes other kind of "rumble" noises on abrupt RPM changes (e.g. when temperature spikes).Note that electronics noise disappears if you control fan by voltage. The only downside of voltage control I see that lowest rotation speed becomes ~450RPM while in PWM mode its ~200RPM. But I'd say it does not really matter - since fan is already 100% silent at 450RPM. So I'd recommend getting voltage control model and save money - but PWM model is still ok since it supports both control modes.Note that I've now tested 8 (6x 120mm and 2x 140mm) fans and they all exhibit same characteristics.Addendum circa Jan 2020:After changing to X570 Gigabyte Aorus Master motherboard (Previous was Asus Prime Z270-A), I don't notice PWM noise from fans anymore. So it might be motherboard dependent and you might or might not get it. Always worth trying PWM first to see if it suits you (it also looks like the price on PWM model often actually less then on 3-pin one).Another thing worth adding that these fans actually very electrically efficient - according to beQuiet own official spec sheet, single 120mm fan draws only 120mA current. This means you can drive even 4x fans from same standard 1A motherboard header no problem - no need for complex splitters with external power.

These fans have a unique ported design and pleasing look to them. They provide good static pressure as intakes and heatsink fans and run very quiet up to 800RPM such that you won't notice them unless you really pay attention.I run 3 of them in my system, and when properly controlled via software (Corsair iCue & Commander Pro) they provide silent operation at idle to medium loads, and acceptable noise levels at higher loads. The noise audible at such a load level is a non-intrusive gentle whooshing of air, with no mechanical noise audible. This may change over time as wear and tear occurs inside the bearings.I would suggest not bothering with the high speed variant their moniker of "silence" is kind of gone above 1200ish RPM. I know that no fans are truly silent, but at the lower end of the range from 300-800 RPM if you value quiet operation these provide a noticeable improvement from cheaper fans.I could not find it mentioned anywhere by Be Quiet, but the fans offer "Zero RPM" operation, namely they will turn off completely below a certain PWM level for true silence.The fans come with all the fittings you need to mount them to your case and have interchangeable corners to fit either screws or rubber anti-vibration mounts with plastic push pins. Stupidly easy to install... just line up the holes and push the plastic pins in. The cable length is also very generous so managing the cables is easy. When using Noctua's in the past I have always had to use extensions to really get them routed the way I want.Be aware that if you want to mount them to a heatsink like I did with one of mine, you will need to purchase fan clips separately if you do not already have them.

Liked : Well packaged, well made, no bells and whistles but whisper quiet and good value.Good quality cableDisliked : Confusing corner mounts (it wasn't immediately clear why you'd choose one over the other) and cluttered multi-lingual instruction sheet.There are two sets of mounts provided. Both snap positively onto the corners of the fan, though to begin with I wasn't sure which I should use. For anyone else who's puzzled this is what I gathered : the mounts referred to as 'Anti Vibration fittings' (the less chunky set) offer better vibration damping and work well in a situation where you can fit screws into the fan from the outside of the case (or other housing). They have subtly different length ends so its important to fit all 4 the same way round. They are marked L at one end and S at the other. The 'L' end gives a 1mm clearance from the case - to further reduce vibration - whereas the 'S' end brings the fan flush with the case.The fittings referred to as 'Hard Plastic' (the chunkier ones with a tube through the middle) can be snapped onto the fan corners either way up. They offer less vibration damping but I had to use them for the front mounted case fan which was screwed into the front panel using long screws right through the fan mounts from behind (ie. not short screws through the front grill!) if that makes sense.The info you need is there, it just took me a minute or so to realise that one side of the A4 instruction sheet referred to the anti-vibration fittings and the other to the 'hard plastic' fittings. Then another minute or two to work out which to use. Maybe just getting old ;-) Perhaps there's another reason for the difference between the two types of mount, but this setup worked for me.If you do screw up and snap the wrong fittings on, or get one of the anti-vibration ones the wrong way round the instructions show how to depress the catch with (eg) a small screwdriver and slide the fitting off. Its fiddly but quick and easy.