Phobya Nano-2G 12 Bionic 120mm Fan Reviews

Currently the Phobya Nano-2G 12 PWM costs £12.70, the Phobya G-Silent 12 Slim Edition costs £8.15 and the Phobya NB-eLoop Bionic costs £13.61.

Phobya Nano-2G 12 PWM

This Phobya fan is what you might call “style over substance”. It looks fantastic and the Red LEDs give it a really attractive design, yet its cooling performance is poor and so is its acoustic performance. If you aren’t worried too much about cooling performance and are just going for aesthetics then these could be good for your system, especially if you are using a red themed build but other than that particular scenario I would advise staying away from this particular fan. It is poor value for money and is outperformed by the majority of the competition. Its only “win” compared to the other two Phobya fans is it has PWM and they do not.

eTeknix says: Phobya need to go back to the drawing board with the Nano-2G fan design because it is a poor performing fan with below average acoustics. Its only redeeming feature is that it looks great and the red LEDs would work a treat in red themed builds.

Phobya G-Silent 12 Slim Edition

This Phobya fan is a real winner. It offers competent levels of performance, decent acoustics and the overall design is pretty simple. Its main win is that it is just 15mm thick and can allow you to do push-pull in places where you might of only been able to do push or pull before. I’d also strongly consider this as a CPU heatsink fan or case fan because it is really versatile. That said Phobya are also offering a really competitive price and i’d say this is worth every penny. My only minor quibble is that it lacks PWM support so you need either a fan controller, or a motherboard that supports 3 pin fan adjustment (most modern motherboards do). Even so, you will not be able to control the speed of this fan if you use your CPU fan headers and that is a bit of a down side.

eTeknix says: Despite a lack of PWM support this is still a very good fan if you are short on space but don’t want to compromise on performance. That’s why we think this is worthy of our innovation award. There aren’t many slim sized fans on the market and this is certainly one of the better ones.

Phobya NB-eLoop Bionic

There isn’t much else to say about the NB-eLoop other than wow. I saw another reviewer (Lauren from TastyPC) raving about how good this fan was and I didn’t really believe it. However, after testing I can only say that this fan is epic! The performance is second to none and the acoustic performance is exemplary. The design is great and it just oozes quality with integrated anti-vibration pads to prevent vibrations. The NB-eLoop is a clear winner as a fan for all usage scenarios, I haven’t tested every 120mm fan on the market so I cannot say it is the best, but of the ones I have tested it really is the best. If you are thinking about kitting your rig out with the best fans on the market then it has got to be a close call between these and the Noctua NF-F12s – these are better fans but lack PWM which is a downside if you wanted to use these with your CPU heatsink and CPU fan headers.

eTeknix says: The Phobya NB-eLoop is an amazing fan in every way and it will certainly do anyone’s system proud. That’s why I am happy to award it the Editor’s Choice award. Fans do not come much better than this.

I would like to give a special thanks to Aquatuning UK for providing these review samples.