Reeven ColdWing 12 Fan Series Review

We tested the acoustic performance of these Reeven fans precisely 10cm away from the fan, facing the direction of the airflow. The results were recorded with our decibel meter which has a 1 decibel margin of error. The fans were pulled as far from the main test system as possible using their cables to minimise background noise. We used Delta Noise levels (Recorded noise level minus ambient noise level), the background noise level was 37 dBA and this was as low as we could get it without turning the system off which would obviously make testing impossible.

The results are good but obviously its hard to make too many judgements because we don’t have any fans to compare these to.

Firstly, the Silent 3 pin fan in my opinion makes an ideal case fan as it shifts a decent amount of air but remains very quiet indeed – totally inaudible if you put these in your case under your desk.

The two PWM fans are interesting because the Silent Performance PWM fan is essentially the same as the Performance PWM fan with the low switch enabled.

With the Performance 3 pin and Performance PWM fans at 2000 RPM, they aren’t quiet by any stretch of the imagination. However, they produce immense amounts of air which is precisely what they have been designed for – in fact one of them fell over on my desk from producing so much air!

From our particular testing scenario, less than 10 Delta dBA was inaudible, less than 17 Delta dBA would be mostly inaudible inside a case and 18 to 24 dBA is noticeable even in a chassis.

The reason we have not done any temperature testing is because the results vary too much based on the type heat sink or radiator you are using and the type of hardware you are trying to cool. Every user will have drastically different results depending on their configurations so it is sensible to think whether these fans would be relevant to your particular needs.