Thermaltake SWAFAN GT12 PC Cooling Fan Premium Edition Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The Thermaltake 12/0mm SWAFAN GT12 PWM Case Fans with 3 Changeable Blades are available now with an MSRP of £26.99, which is quite expensive for “one fan” but while you can only use one configuration at a time, this is quite literally capable of being three different kinds of fans. If you change your PC a lot, or like to tinker with many system build projects, having a premium fan that can fit any requirement certainly has some appeal to it. There are 140mm versions available too, which are priced at £29.99.

Overview

These fans clearly aren’t for everyone, you have to be a pretty dedicated PC enthusiast to even consider spending this much money on a single fan. You also need a big pile of money too, as if you were doing a full PC build with, let’s say, two 360mm radiators, and perhaps three more fans for various intakes and exhausts, you’ll not get much change from £250 just for the fans. This seems especially expensive when you see that my all-time favourite fans (and the ones I use myself), the Toughfan 12, are literally half that price.

These fans are both created for very specific use-cases, but also for any use-case, which is kinda strange. They work anywhere you need them to due to their modifiable nature. However, unless you are actually planning to use them to their fully-modular potential, it could be a bit of a waste of money. I suspect the best way to use these fans is in combination with Toughfan 12, and throw in a few Swafans in the parts of your build that require more flexibility and most importantly, those reverse blades, which exhaust air, but still maintain the aesthetic of a forward-facing fan.

When it comes to build quality, Thermaltake scores top marks here, with some of the most durable and best-looking fans on the market right now. Being able to pull them apart to clean them, lubricate them and reassemble them also increases their life span and makes them more practical to live with. The daisy chain cable design makes for easy cable routing too.

Should I Buy Them?

Unless you really need them and all of the features they offer, then it’s a bit of a hard sell. The fixed blade design of the Toughfan 12 is but half the price of the SWAFAN, and much better value for most enthusiast PC builder’s needs. However, the added flexibility, modularity, easy maintenance and aesthetics that the SWAFAN offers cannot be ignored. These are some of the most interesting and unique fans on the market right now.