Xigmatek XAF Series F1255 120mm Fan Review

Xigmatek aren't a brand known that well for their fans but they do actually delve quite a lot into the cooling market making a wide variety of CPU coolers and fans. Xigmatek are more well known for their cases of which we have tested many including recently the Asgard 381, Midgard II and Elysium. Cases aside though, today we have a fan with us from Xigmatek's XAF series - The F1255. You can get all the specifications, images and other information from that link, but in case you are too lazy to go and investigate we have included the specifications below: The Xigmatek XAF F1255 comes packaged in some tight fitting plastic which gives you a good look at the product. The back contains some detailed specifications and information. Apologies for making you turn your head! The front of the Xigmatek XAF F1255 is styled very nicely. The choice of black as the main colour is a safe move and the "wave-style" of the fan blades actually looks very pleasing. From the side we can see the fan uses a standard 25mm width that we find on most 120mm fans. The back of the fan unfortunately features non-blackened cables that really stand out like a sore thumb. It wouldn't of been that difficult for Xigmatek to use entirely black cabling for the sake of keeping aesthetics clean. Included with the Xigmatek XAF F1255 is a set of four silver screws for securing the fan to a case and a molex to 3 pin adapter to power the fan at maximum speed. If you use the 4 pin you do get PWM functionality. Test System ASUS P8Z77-V Intel Core i5 3570K at 4.5GHz (1.3v) with Gelid GC Extreme Thermal Paste (the best thermal paste we have ever tested) 16GB Kingston HyperX 1866MHz DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 5870 128GB Kingston SSDnow V100 (Boot Drive) and Samsung F3 1TB (storage) Antec High Current Gamer 620W Cooler Master Test Bench v1.0 Testing Methodology All fans were individually tested on the Cooler Master TPC 800 CPU cooler heatsink to determine cooling performance. We understand using a CPU heatsink performance can only ever be a proxy for performance/airflow, and that the performance figures will vary between different types of heatsinks, BUT this is the best method we are able to conduct. Temperatures were taken at a consistent room temperature of 20 degrees Delta temperatures have been used to account for small fluctuations in room temperature Prime 95 was run for 15 minutes and the average maximum CPU temperature was recorded as noted by CPUID HW Monitor The acoustic measurements were taken 2 inches/ 5cm away from the tested fans with the power supply fan and GPU fan isolated/turned off The ambient noise level as recorded by our sound meter was 37 dBA and delta noise levels have been used in our graphs There is approximately a 1 degree celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software There is approximately a 1dBA margin of error with our decibel meter Software Used CPUID HWMonitor Prime 95 We can see that the Xigmatek XAF F1255 delivered very pleasing cooling performance, offering the joint best cooling performance out of the selection of fans we tested. Unfortunately the Xigmatek was also very loud by quite a margin over some other fans. This means that the noise to performance ratio isn't as good as we expected although at 1000RPM it offered a good balance of noise to performance, it was only once you start ramping up to those higher RPMs in advance of 1200RPM that the noise really starts to take off and become uncompetitive. Xigmatek's XAF series F1255 120mm fan is currently retailing at $12.99 in North America, €11.90 in Europe and around £10 in the United Kingdom. Although we could only find the LED version of this fan in the UK for £13.99 on Overclockers UK. At the price of $13/€12/£10 the Xigmatek F1255 120mm fan offers a reasonable balance of price to performance. Though what is important to consider is that the Xigmatek F1255 series fan isn't the quietest fan we have tested however at the price point this is to be expected and the fact it supports PWM functionality means you can force the fan to operate at lower speeds should you find noise an issue. The F1255 has an aggressive styling that I think some people will like and others won't. I find it very attractive, with the only exception being that multi-coloured cabling on that back that really stands out from the rest of the fan which is entirely black. As we saw on the previous page the performance is very good but the acoustics are a bit on the high side, although inside a case you will find that it is a lot quieter and less noticeable. The included accessory package was quite basic and it would of probably been nice to see a fan speed reducer cable in addition to the molex adapter and set of case screws. Overall the Xigmatek XAF series F1255 120mm case fan is a well priced fan that offers up a reasonable balance between performance and noise. The build quality and styling is on the whole very good and this is another solid product as we have come to expect from Xigmatek. We would like to thank Overclockers UK and Caseking for providing this sample.