Gelid Silent 12 Quiet Fans

[rjkoneill]

Gelid Silent 12 Quiet Fans

Today I will be reviewing the fans that have I have got for my latest build


***progress of this project can be viewed here***

The fans I have are the Gelid Silent 12 models

Gelid are fairly new to the scene, as a systems technician I spend a lot of time around new products and very few products catch my eye
the company I work for used the Gelid Silent Spirit CPU cooler a while back which drummed up a lot of interest in my department


I was impressed by the performance of the cooler and its compatibility with multiple sockets, however it was the range of cooling solutions that Gelid made that attracted me to the silent fans


After using the expensive and impressive Noctua NF-P12 fans on my radiators for some time, I was used to great performance and silence
no other fans I have seen perform on this level except for some larger 38mm thick fans

FIRST IMPRESSIONS







Outside the box is a distinctive packaging, the silent range is given a cool looking outer box along with detailed specs on the rear of the pack
as well as details of performance and a note of a 5 year Warranty - something a lot of fans I have seen before have lacked

It seems Gelid are confident in the product and this may sway some buyers
there are three types of fans available in the Gelid silent range

• silent 12 - which are the ones I am reviewing with just a standard 3 pin fan connector
  
• TC - which have a thermal control sensor to control the speed of the fans
  
• PWM- which have the 4 pin connector commonly found on CPU fan headers

Inside the box is the fan, also there are 4 rubber fan mounts included as well as a Gelid case badge

TESTING

The Gelid fans certainly look the part - the white blades fit in well with most colour schemes and certainly look different to the standard black fans you see as stock in most cases
the fan cable is braided in a black braid with a black connector - I am really impressed by the quality of the braid, a feature lacking on the majority of fans in this price range

COOLING
the Best way I found to test the fans with consistency is to see results from air and water-cooling setups
All stress testing was carried out using Prime95 blend test and used RealTemp3 to measure temperatures

Air Cooling Test Rig
I7 920 - 4GHz @ 1.28v - Gigabyte UD5 - Patriot Viper - WD Velociraptor - Corsair 850w
Prolimatech Megahalems CPU cooler with fan on test in push config

the testing started with the cooler being fitted with some MX-2 thermal Material, I made good contact and ran 'Prime95 Blend Test' for three hours to test for stability using a generic fan
the generic fan managed to keep the CPU at 90'c or lower under load

on all testing the fan was run from a Molex to three pin adapter at 12v with no noise adapters

I then tested with the Noctua NF-P12 for 1 hour exactly using Prime95 Blend
the fan managed to keep the CPU at 82'c or lower under load

after this I used the Noctua NF-S12 for 1 hour exactly using Prime95 Blend
the fan managed to keep the CPU at 89'c or lower under load

the final test used the Gelid Silent 12 for 1 hour exactly using Prime95 Blend
the fan managed to keep the CPU at 85'c or lower under load

So, as you can see - there was little to no difference with one fan in air-cooling

perhaps two fans would have been more beneficial but the range speaks for itself
the Gelid is right between the two Noctua models


Water-cooling Test Rig
I7 920 - 4.2GHz @ 1.28v - Biostar Tpower X58 - OCZ BLADE - Seagate RAID 0 - Corsair 850w - EK Supreme water block, 10v DDC
Thermochill PA120.3 Radiator with fans on test in push config [nb. radiator was outside the case]



this test setup is my own personal system and I have ran the Noctua NF-P12 fans on the radiator for around a month

the radiator has the three test fans in push configuration - here is a breakdown of results

3X Noctua NF-P12 after 1 hour of prime95 the CPU temperatures hit 68'C
3X Noctua NF-S12 after 1 hour of prime95 the CPU temperatures hit 73'C
3X Gelid Silent 12 after 1 hour of prime95 the CPU temperatures hit 69'C

Once again the Gelid has come in between the high performance and silent Noctua solutions

QUIETNESS

Compared to the much more expensive Noctua NF-P12 and Noctua NF-S12-1200, the Gelid has a CFM rating of 37 compared to the 54cfm and 35CFM of the respective Noctua models

However I found the Noctua NF-P12 to be quite loud without its low noise adapters and did not feel that the extra speed benefited the cooling enough to warrant the extra noise.

The Gelid on the other hand is quiet out of the box - whilst pushing an acceptable amount of air it remained silent which was great news as I didn't have to put it onto a low noise adapter to get the best out of it.

When pitted against the Noctua NF-P12 and Noctua NF-S12 the Gelid was the quietest by a long margin. Not a bad feat for a fan with a retail price roughly a third of the cost of the Noctua models



SUMMARY

It is hard to reccomend a fan, most people either want performance, quietness or looks
The Gelid Silent 12 looks the part, it has a good finish and is made of sturdy material, the cable braid on the fan is great and something I didnt expect to see.
It is a rare at this price point to see fans with braided cables [and done to a high quality] so kudos to Gelid for that.
the sticker on the front of the fan was a little much, it could have been simpler - but is easily removed for modding projects etc

I compared the fan to the Noctua performance and silence models to see if a fan with a MSRP of $7 can keep up the pace with the most expensive fans on the market

In many respects it can keep up and bearing the price in mind it is great value for money.

in a market where performance reigns supreme, these quiet little fans manage to keep up with the well established manufactures quite amicably


My Rating: 8/10


Many thanks to all at Gelid for supplying the fans for this review

go to http://www.gelidsolutions.com/ for further information on the company and products