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Thermaltake Releases SWAFAN RGB Radiator Fan Series with Easy Reversible Airflow Design

btarunr

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Thermaltake today introduced the SWAFAN 120 RGB and SWAFAN 140 RGB case fans optimized for used in liquid-cooling radiators. These fans come with easily-swappable impellers, and include two sets of them, each with a different airflow direction. You could just flip a case fan around to reverse its airflow direction, but that would expose the ugly reverse side of the fan hub with its regulatory markings and wiring sticking out, not to mention the pillars of the frame that hold the hub in place. This approach ensures you have just the impeller and its pretty RGB setup facing you. This is especially useful when you have the radiator sandwiched between two sets of fans in a push-pull configuration. The swappable nature of the impeller also makes it easy to clean these fans.

Both the SWAFAN 120 RGB and SWAFAN 140 RGB come in black and white color variants, and in packs of three fans that include an RGB controller. The fans feature hydraulic bearings rated for 40,000 hours. The fans each take in a 9-pin connection that resembles the USB 2.0 headers on the motherboard, which it uses for both power (main function) and RGB control. The included lighting controller is hence essentially a USB 2.0 hub that interfaces with the motherboard over a USB 2.0 header, and takes in a 4-pin Molex for additional power.



Thermaltake designates the two impellers included with these fans as "black labeled" and "silver labeled." The black-labeled impeller is the "standard" one that pushes air through the frame and out the back of the fan; whereas the silver-labeled one is the "reverse" impeller that pulls air through the frame. The SWAFAN 120 RGB turns at speeds ranging between 500 to 2,000 RPM. For this fan, the standard impeller offers up to 53.02 CFM of airflow at 2.58 mm H₂O static-pressure, and 30.5 dBA noise output. The reverse impeller offers up to 54.85 CFM of airflow at 2.19 mm H₂O static-pressure, and 36.5 dBA noise output.

The SWAFAN 140 RGB offers the same 500 to 2,000 RPM speed-range as its smaller sibling. Its standard impeller pushes up to 77.6 CFM of airflow at 3.12 mm H₂O static pressure, and 34.5 dBA noise output; while its reverse impeller does up to 71.3 CFM of airflow at 2.59 mm H₂O static pressure, and 40.5 dBA noise output. The standard and reverse impellers of both fan models offer vastly different specs because they feature a different fan-blade design.

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That's cool and all, been able to swap out the impellers for a reverse flow, but that decibel increase of 6.. from a low hummm, to a literally TURBINE.
 

Hxx

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proprietary connector, black cables for white fans, molex power on the usb controller wow, additional software required i take that the connectivity aspect was completely ignored and recycled from 2015.
 

btarunr

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proprietary connector, black cables for white fans, molex power on the usb controller wow, additional software required i take that the connectivity aspect was completely ignored and recycled from 2015.
The connector is not proprietary. You can plug it into the 9-pin USB 2.0 header of your motherboard.
 
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Meaning you’re locked into their drivers and/or software?

PR forgot that they’re Alexa compatible :p
 

Hxx

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The connector is not proprietary. You can plug it into the 9-pin USB 2.0 header of your motherboard.
"The fans each take in a 9-pin connection that resembles the USB 2.0 headers on the motherboard, which it uses for both power (main function) and RGB control"

That my friend is called proprietary :). I get what youre saying that the control box connector is not proprietary. Generally that is the case because it needs to be hooked up to a motherboard so its typically a usb 2.0 type thing plus sata/molex power. But the connection from the controller box to the fans is proprietary meaning you can't just plug the fans into a 4pin pwm and 3pin argb connector on your motherboard (unless TT sells some adapter) so you have to use the controller box and TT software no matter what if you want to use the fans.

My experience with other companies, corsair nzxt phanteks lian li - they have separate cables for data and argb and either have pwm and/or regular argb connectors or at the very least they provide an easy way to adapt to motherboard standards so you wont have to use some controller box and some bloatware for lights.
 
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But the connection from the controller box to the fans is proprietary meaning you can't just plug the fans into a 4pin pwm and 3pin argb connector on your motherboard (unless TT sells some adapter)
The fans can be connected with USB 2 as well. Not that you're wrong, just saying. TT has been pushing this garbage for years while everyone else is moving on to traditional pwm + argb headers.


Edit: My bad, you are correct, the individual fans don't match the USB pin-out
 
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