Closer Examination

At first glance the Bitspower Njord Dual Fin is a typical 120 x 120 x 25 mm fan with a square frame, but there is more upon taking a closer look. I have the black rotor version here, but even so either version has opaque, thick rotor blades for what is still an RGB fan. The frame is also quite thick and substantial and has no cable coming out anywhere. There is a metal Bitspower logo sticker on the front hub, and befitting the name, the rotor has two sets of blades, or fins. Each set has seven blades, with the outer blades of the more typical type with a leading edge curved towards the frame and striations along the surface for static pressure, and Bitspower put smaller fins in between to supposedly help push more air through the fan when up against airflow impedance. There have been variations of such implementations in the past to different degrees of success, and most of those designs have ceased to exist. So we will see how this version fares. The corners are closed, as is the entirety of the frame, with vibration dampening rubber pads on the corners as well. Answering the lack of cables is our view of the side with labeled In and Out ports of eight pins to go with the provided cables that only fit one way, thus providing power and control to the LEDs and the fan motor separately.


Each fan motor is rated for 0.15 A (1.8 W) on the 12 VDC rail, which corresponds to the peak draw with startup boost and is surprisingly absent from the fan label on the back. I noticed a maximum operating current draw of 0.102 A (1.2 W on the 12 V rail), so you should be able to operate a good number of fans off a single 1 A header if start-up boost can be accounted for. Alternatively, you can also use the provided fan hub and leave nothing to chance by powering the fans directly through the PSU. Bitspower is also rating the LEDs, which are powered separately off another connector as seen above, for 0.4 A off the 5 VDC rail, which corresponds to 2 W—both values are lower than for the Touchaqua Njord that is rated for 2000 RPM as opposed to the 1800 RPM here.

The fans use hydrodynamic bearings, which should work well in reducing bearing noise. Their higher reliability compared to a typical sleeve bearing also results in a comparatively higher lifetime. The fans have daisy-chained connector/cable configurations in combination with the provided cables, which results in neater cable management, but you need to be more careful about how many fans are daisy-chained off a single connector. For the triple pack, it works fine with the provided cables which eventually terminate in a standard 4-pin connector for PWM control and a 3-pin connector for either the 3-pin dRGB LED header on your motherboard or the provided RGB multifunction controller as a hub/controller for more fans.


Here is a look at the fan LEDs in action with the provided multifunction controller, be it static or dynamic. They are neatly hidden when off and result in concentric lighting rings when in motion, which, as seen above, make for an impressive light show. I continue to appreciate Bitspower going with a more standard solution for onboard control from various mainstream motherboard makers rather than a more proprietary solution, and providing a controller/hub with the triple pack gives people a last ditch means for control if they do not have a compatible motherboard. An issue with this cable implementation is that the LEDs on the fans are treated to be in series when daisy-chained, so syncing the lighting effects is a nontrivial matter. It will come down to how customizable the control mechanism is, with the provided controller only capable of cycling through some preset options.