be quiet! Announces Silent Wings 4 and Silent Wings Pro 4 Fans

[btarunr]

be quiet!, the German manufacturer for premium PC components, proudly introduces the Silent Wings 4 and Silent Wings Pro 4 fan series. These high-end fans are built for maximum performance in cases, on heat sinks, and on radiators, delivering not just great airflow but also impressive static pressure. The fans also feature a new mechanism for the mounting corners, making it easier than ever to adapt the fans to different situations, and some visual design improvements. And with the Silent Wings Pro 4, be quiet! has turbo-charged its fans to reach extremely high rotational speeds yet offering consumers a choice to configure these fans for low noise, a noise/performance balanced mode, or maximum performance.

With the new Silent Wings 4 series, be quiet! has focused on improving static pressure, which is of vital importance when mounting fans to heat sinks or liquid cooled radiators. Compared to the award-winning Silent Wings 3 series, the fan blades have a different shape and feature a lower tip clearance (1.0 mm for all Silent Wings 4 models versus 1.2 mm for Silent Wings 3), while the funnel-shaped air intake is replaced with a funnel-shaped air outlet, dispersing the air over a greater area. These changes have made a drastic improvement in static pressure, therefore making Silent Wings 4 a top choice for heat sinks or radiators, while keeping its noise levels impressively low.



Easier mounting and visual improvements
Silent Wings 4 comes with two different mounting corners: vibration-free rubber push-pin corners and traditional hard-plastic screw-type corners. Thanks to a reworked mounting system it is easier than ever to exchange these corners, without the need for tools. Visually, the fans now feature a sleek black-on-black manufacturer logo. Silent Wings 4 comes in two sizes (120 mm/140 mm) and three different models: 3-pin, PWM, and PWM high-speed. The regular models are best suited as case fans with their maximum speeds of 1600 rpm (120 mm) and 1100 rpm (140 mm), while the high-speed versions are specifically tailored to heat sinks and radiators thanks to their higher speeds of 2500 rpm and 1900 rpm respectively. All Silent Wings 4 fans rely on a proven combination of a 6-pole fan motor with three phases and fluid-dynamic bearings for a long lifespan of 300.000 hours.
Going Pro for maximum performance

For consumers who really want no holds barred, be quiet! is introducing Silent Wings Pro 4. While these fans offer the same improvements as the Silent Wings 4, the rotational speed has been turbo-charged to 3000 rpm for the 120 mm version, and 2400 rpm for the 140 mm version. A speed switch on the back makes it easy for customers who don't want to deal with PWM fan curves to set the maximum speed based on their preferred usage: Medium for silence-optimized operation, High Speed for a noise/performance-balanced mode, and Ultra High Speed for maximum performance. Silent Wings Pro 4 includes one additional corner type, specifically created for radiators. These radiator corners form a tight fit on the fan to prevent air leakage and to ensure maximum static pressure. The fans also feature a high-grade mesh sleeve cable and easy-to-use motherboard connector.



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[Chaitanya]

Power consumption on some fans is quite high.

 

[RH92]

Well since they are aming to be a top choice for heatsink/rad fans the target to beat is the NF-A12x25 , im keen to see how do these compare .

​

 

[gdp77]

What's their CFM ?

 

[BoredErica]

@VSG
Can we get a review pretty please?

 

[mechtech]

Are they actually a manufacturer?? I have purchased be quiet products. They typically say designed in Germany and made in ……

 

[Chrispy_]

Both with Noctua and BeQuiet, the fancy rubber corner things are kinda unnecessary and useless because these are two manufacturers who make fans with high-quality bearings and balance their blades for smooth, vibration-free running. All they do is add to the amount of effort, wasted parts, and packaging required to assemble a PC using them - not a big deal for one fan, but try installing 7 of them per case when you're knocking out 8 PC's a day...

If you need vibration-damping pads at all, you have an imbalanced fan and at €24-33 per fan you should just send them back as "faulty". You're paying for precision, balance, and silence. If you don't need any of those things you can just pick up a 5-pack of Arctic P12 PWM daisy-chainable fans for €20. They're adequate-quality, rifle-bearing fans with good performance, low noise, good reviews and they are one-sixth the price.

I really like BeQuiet fans, but my preference is to use the much cheaper Pure Wings fans that don't have all the fancy frame and rubberised crap and cost about 1/3rd what these cost.

 

[Rx771]

lol, one more Gentle Typhoon

 

[pat-roner]

Hoping for a review @VSG

 

[VSG]

Hoping for a review @VSG

Once I get back from vacation.

 

[maxfly]

More options from bequiet! are always welcome. I will definitely be giving a couple of the pwm versions a try this year.

Both with Noctua and BeQuiet, the fancy rubber corner things are kinda unnecessary and useless because these are two manufacturers who make fans with high-quality bearings and balance their blades for smooth, vibration-free running. All they do is add to the amount of effort, wasted parts, and packaging required to assemble a PC using them - not a big deal for one fan, but try installing 7 of them per case when you're knocking out 8 PC's a day...

If you need vibration-damping pads at all, you have an imbalanced fan and at €24-33 per fan you should just send them back as "faulty". You're paying for precision, balance, and silence. If you don't need any of those things you can just pick up a 5-pack of Arctic P12 PWM daisy-chainable fans for €20. They're adequate-quality, rifle-bearing fans with good performance, low noise, good reviews and they are one-sixth the price.

I really like BeQuiet fans, but my preference is to use the much cheaper Pure Wings fans that don't have all the fancy frame and rubberised crap and cost about 1/3rd what these cost.

They are all I use on client builds for those very reasons great bang for the buck and Newegg almost always has sales on them.

 

[EatingDirt]

Both with Noctua and BeQuiet, the fancy rubber corner things are kinda unnecessary and useless because these are two manufacturers who make fans with high-quality bearings and balance their blades for smooth, vibration-free running. All they do is add to the amount of effort, wasted parts, and packaging required to assemble a PC using them - not a big deal for one fan, but try installing 7 of them per case when you're knocking out 8 PC's a day...

If you need vibration-damping pads at all, you have an imbalanced fan and at €24-33 per fan you should just send them back as "faulty". You're paying for precision, balance, and silence. If you don't need any of those things you can just pick up a 5-pack of Arctic P12 PWM daisy-chainable fans for €20. They're adequate-quality, rifle-bearing fans with good performance, low noise, good reviews and they are one-sixth the price.

I really like BeQuiet fans, but my preference is to use the much cheaper Pure Wings fans that don't have all the fancy frame and rubberised crap and cost about 1/3rd what these cost.

All electric motors, regardless of their quality, will vibrate/hum. Depending on the PC chassis, it can be quite obnoxious because of resonation. I couldn't handle using fans without rubber mounts on my previous case, a Phanteks Ethoo Evolv, because without them the entire case would literally hum/buzz.

 

[Assimilator]

Both with Noctua and BeQuiet, the fancy rubber corner things are kinda unnecessary and useless because these are two manufacturers who make fans with high-quality bearings and balance their blades for smooth, vibration-free running. All they do is add to the amount of effort, wasted parts, and packaging required to assemble a PC using them - not a big deal for one fan, but try installing 7 of them per case when you're knocking out 8 PC's a day...

If you need vibration-damping pads at all, you have an imbalanced fan and at €24-33 per fan you should just send them back as "faulty". You're paying for precision, balance, and silence. If you don't need any of those things you can just pick up a 5-pack of Arctic P12 PWM daisy-chainable fans for €20. They're adequate-quality, rifle-bearing fans with good performance, low noise, good reviews and they are one-sixth the price.

I really like BeQuiet fans, but my preference is to use the much cheaper Pure Wings fans that don't have all the fancy frame and rubberised crap and cost about 1/3rd what these cost.

Arctic P- and F-series fans have annoying resonant properties at certain RPM levels. That's the reason they're so cheap - they're not very good.

 

[Chrispy_]

Arctic P- and F-series fans have annoying resonant properties at certain RPM levels. That's the reason they're so cheap - they're not very good.

Source? All fans have resonant frequencies, it's those pesky laws of physics. I can't say I've noticed it with the 120mm 5-blade 1800RPM models I so often build with but that's only one particular model variant and the number of hours I spend sat next to those builds is far lower than my home desktop. The office workshop also has a higher noise floor so it's possible I miss it.

Also, which fan, exactly? There are two sizes with different blade counts, two blade material choices, three RPM options, ARBLED variants. The Amazon UK listing isn't the exhausting list of options but for just the P12 model there are 15 variants with unique physical differences and still 11 if you treat different colours as the same item. Whether those different colours use the same exact plastic with the same density, stiffness, and resonant frequencies is an unknown, but I'd suggest "probably not" until proven otherwise. This is all just the P12 model. There's a similar range for the F12, and guess what - there are the same two ranges and permutations for 140mm fans too!

For what it's worth, the three Noctua fans for my top radiator resonate in my NZXT H440NE case at about 1200rpm. I'm pretty sure that if I mounted them to a different radiator, or to the same radiator in a different case that I'd get a different result.

 

[Jokii]

Arctic P- and F-series fans have annoying resonant properties at certain RPM levels. That's the reason they're so cheap - they're not very good.

Yep. I'm still pissed off because once I bought several of them and every single one of them ended up being noisy at certain RPMs.
Plus they shake like crazy, because they're not centered properly. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting them on a CPU cooler. I've never seen such low quality fans in my life and I've used some very cheap fans too.
They're useless for a quiet setup, unless you find a non-problematic RPM value and keep them running at only that speed forever (and that's still not a guarantee that they won't develop problems at some point, plus RPM can drift over time).

Source?

Here's a video of a P14 where this problem happens, see at around 7:30:

In my case it was the F12 fans, the non-LED PWM models with the integrated splitter.
My buddy bought the same fans and he also complained about the same problem, even though he's not nearly as sensitive about noise as I am.
It could be that not all are that bad, though, maybe some batches are fine, IDK.
FWIW, I also have a different 9cm Arctic fan that I use on my video card (horizontally) and that one is fine.
So I can't say that it's definitely all Arctic fans that have this problem, but I think many of them do.

All fans have resonant frequencies

That is probably true. Even one of my Noctuas has some very faint noise at certain RPMs, but it's orders of magnitude lower. I need to put my ear next to it to hear it. With the Arctics I can easily hear it 3 meters away, and that's at like 500-600 RPM, where they should be inaudible. Note that this has nothing to do with airflow or rattling of the case, it's noise coming directly from the fans themselves.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

Are they actually a manufacturer?? I have purchased be quiet products. They typically say designed in Germany and made in ……

Very few people actually manufacture their own stuff anymore.

Most people are ODMs now and contract things out to 3rd parties to make them in high volume.

 

[Mussels]

These have me curious, SW fans have always had super quiet options and increasing pressure with that noise profile could be an awesome combination

That is probably true. Even one of my Noctuas has some very faint noise at certain RPMs, but it's orders of magnitude lower. I need to put my ear next to it to hear it. With the Arctics I can easily hear it 3 meters away, and that's at like 500-600 RPM, where they should be inaudible. Note that this has nothing to do with airflow or rattling of the case, it's noise coming directly from the fans themselves.

Yeah, ironically i've found my noctuas have the most hum of any of my fans - at low RPM they're the easiest to hear as the noise simply echoes.

But at higher RPM that hum goes away entirely and only the fan noise is left which the side panels to the case covers up - acoustics are weird and complicated

 

[AusWolf]

They're a bit expensive, but as a happy user of Silent Wings 3 fans myself, I'm curious what these can do.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yep. I'm still pissed off because once I bought several of them and every single one of them ended up being noisy at certain RPMs.
Plus they shake like crazy, because they're not centered properly. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting them on a CPU cooler. I've never seen such low quality fans in my life and I've used some very cheap fans too.
They're useless for a quiet setup, unless you find a non-problematic RPM value and keep them running at only that speed forever (and that's still not a guarantee that they won't develop problems at some point, plus RPM can drift over time).


Here's a video of a P14 where this problem happens, see at around 7:30:

In my case it was the F12 fans, the non-LED PWM models with the integrated splitter.
My buddy bought the same fans and he also complained about the same problem, even though he's not nearly as sensitive about noise as I am.
It could be that not all are that bad, though, maybe some batches are fine, IDK.
FWIW, I also have a different 9cm Arctic fan that I use on my video card (horizontally) and that one is fine.
So I can't say that it's definitely all Arctic fans that have this problem, but I think many of them do.

Interesting, I did a new build at home yesterday using two of them, and the P12s I used were very quiet - couldn't detect motor noise - all I could hear was airflow.

One thing I noticed in that video is that the guy is using PWM fans but he talks about adjusting the voltage (like, NO - that's absolutely not how PWM is supposed to work!) Perhaps the motors make noise when they're fed the wrong voltage?

I've also never encountered a wobbly/imbalanced one. Sure, they're not as high-precision as the far more expensive Noctua/BeQuiet etc but they're very much what I'd call good quality for cheap fans. You get what you pay for but at $5 a fan they're way higher quality than many other $5 fans.

 

[Mussels]

Interesting, I did a new build at home yesterday using two of them, and the P12s I used were very quiet - couldn't detect motor noise - all I could hear was airflow.

One thing I noticed in that video is that the guy is using PWM fans but he talks about adjusting the voltage (like, NO - that's absolutely not how PWM is supposed to work!) Perhaps the motors make noise when they're fed the wrong voltage?

I've also never encountered a wobbly/imbalanced one. Sure, they're not as high-precision as the far more expensive Noctua/BeQuiet etc but they're very much what I'd call good quality for cheap fans. You get what you pay for but at $5 a fan they're way higher quality than many other $5 fans.

Yes!

That's why i think they're different for various users as well, some fan controllers and PSU's simply run higher or lower voltage even in the single digit % range, and that can change a fans noise levels.
I've got a PWM hub I don't use that runs at 11V for some reason, and some fans hum on it.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yes!

That's why i think they're different for various users as well, some fan controllers and PSU's simply run higher or lower voltage even in the single digit % range, and that can change a fans noise levels.
I've got a PWM hub I don't use that runs at 11V for some reason, and some fans hum on it.

I wonder how many cases of noisy fans are just shit hubs and bad firmware undervolting 12V PWM headers? The fans clearly state on them "12V".

You wouldn't expect a 19.5V laptop to run properly on 12.5V now, would you?!

It's clearly not a one-off occurrence if enough people talk about it and there are threads/YT videos about it.

 

[trsttte]

If your fan can't tolerate the small variation on the 12V or the PSU is producing enough of a difference for it to matter either the fans are crap or you need a new PSU before the current one fries the pc

 

[Mussels]

If your fan can't tolerate the small variation on the 12V or the PSU is producing enough of a difference for it to matter either the fans are crap or you need a new PSU before the current one fries the pc

That's not what we mean

One PSU might run 11.8V while another at 12.2V, and that's enough to alter how fans sound

You get 11.8 and then add in a fan hub or splitter with its own droop and you could be 11.5V or lower, and thats when things go weird - let alone when people use plain old splitters and run 2/3/4 fans off a single header

 

[Chrispy_]

If your fan can't tolerate the small variation on the 12V or the PSU is producing enough of a difference for it to matter either the fans are crap or you need a new PSU before the current one fries the pc

Dude in the video you linked clearly says "9 Volts" though.

9 Volts out of 12 isn't a small variation on the 12V line!

 

[Minxie]

Finally, something to surpass my beloved Silent Wings 3 fans. I know what I'm getting for my next build.