Introduction

be quiet! has been one of the companies to watch throughout the last decade, and I will lie if typing "be quiet!" and chuckling due to my premature sense of humor had nothing to do with it for me personally. As per the preferences of the European market, the German company has always prioritized noise, which soon became the norm for watercooling until only recently with more power-hungry and thus also thermally challenging hardware. I can't speak for the company's latest generation of CPU coolers myself, but was quite happy with the Dark Rock Pro 3 for when I needed a good air cooler to quickly test hardware before going down the DIY-cooling route. Installation was of course a challenge, but the newer Dark Rock Pro 4 was also made better by the Silent Wings 3 fans it came with. Those fans, which I reviewed before elsewhere, were excellent as case and radiator fans alike on a performance/noise basis.


However, things have changed a lot in the years since, as the likes of Noctua, Thermaltake, and Phanteks have gone with LCP frames and excellent bearings and motors in their quest for high-performance PC DIY fans. None of those three offerings have any RGB lighting, which was traditionally how be quiet! operated too. It's a surprise then that the company has now put out its first ever LED fans, the Light Wings released today. There is a lot to unpack here, and the teaser image above shows a very interesting detail you might have caught. Let's just say there's a reason I am testing the high-speed version of the Light Wings 120 mm fans despite the regular version also exceeding my fan-RPM testing regime. Thanks to be quiet! for providing TechPowerUp review samples!

Specifications