Bluegears B-Flexi Fan Review - Testing and Conclusion
(Page 5 of 5 )
No review of fans would be complete without some sort of testing. At this point, I chose to pull out my Viper II case from MGE.
This case came with an 80mm and a 120mm fan pre-installed. Leaving it run, under load, the temp gauge on the front of the case sits at approximately 37 degrees Celsius all the time. I decided to test the stock fans that came with the Viper versus the b-flexi fans from Bluegears. How did I do this? For starters, I have no actual “fan” testing equipment.
So improvise it is.
I cut a rectangle of paper, approximately four inches long. I took this paper and laid it against the 120mm fan first, then the 80mm fan, drawing a line on the paper marking where to hold it so the bottom of the paper was even with the center of the fan. Then I held it at this length in front of all four fans while they were running, and measured how far the fan would push the paper away from itself.
I had no way to take a picture of this in action, because I don’t have that many hands, but here is a crude representation of my test.
In the above picture, the red box is the fan. The blue line is the paper being affected by the airflow of the fan. For the 80mm fans, the stock MGE fan sustained the paper approximately ¾ of an inch from the fan itself. The b-flexi 80mm fan, however, kept the paper steadily at almost two inches from the fan. This showed that the b-flexi was much more efficient at displacing air than the stock fan that came with the case.
For the 120mm fans, the MGE fan kept the paper at a little over an inch from the fan, while the b-flexi was pushed the paper almost three inches from the fan. Again, this fan delivered much more air displacement than the MGE stock fan.
As far as noise, the MGE fans were already pretty quiet, but the b-flexi fans were even quieter. As a matter of fact, during my testing, I had turned off the lights on the fans and actually reached down to pick one of them up, not even remembering that it was on. I felt the airflow before I grabbed it, but was impressed that I could not even discern any noise at all from the fans. Once I installed them into the case, I was also greeted by noiseless operation of both fans, both front and back.
As a final test, I let the machine run for an hour under a constant load, then checked the on-board heat sensors to check the temperature. As I mentioned earlier, the stock fans kept the rig at approx 37 degrees Celsius. The b-flexi fans, now in place, keep the case at approx 32 degrees Celsius. While its not a HUGE drop, its significant enough to show the value in these fans.
Now, as always, here are the pros and cons for the b-flexi 80mm and 120mm fans.
Pros:
- Excellent cooling ability
- Can switch to multiple colors
- Can monitor RPMs
- Excellent pricing ($13 for the 80mm, $19 for the 120mm at the time of this writing)
- Long wires allow for flexible installations
Cons:
- If installing more than one, one slot cover for each fan’s switch becomes inconvenient.
Given the above information, and the performance of the Bluegears b-flexi fans in my computer system, I have decided that they fully deserve a rating of 10 out of 10, and Dev Hardware’s Platinum Award. If you want to cool your case in style, these fans from Bluegears are not only more than capable, but quite affordable as well.
I’d like to thank Bluegears for sending us the b-flexi fans for review. If you would like any additional information about these fans, feel free to visit Bluegears’ website at http://www.bluegears.com/b-flexi.html.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
| Recommended by Dev Hardware |
|---|
|
