SilenX iXtrema 40mm Silent Fans
Review by: Steve
Edited by: Ji4m
Provided by: SilenX
Price: $18 Canadian per fan

Introduction:
SilenX is a company well known for their ultra-silent computer hardware and accessories. When it comes to making some of the quietest products on the market, SilenX does it very well. We saw this a little while back in our review of their Luxurae Hard Drive Silencing Solution. Today, they have sent us two of their silent iXtrema 40mm fans. These fans have a wide variety of uses such as providing extra cooling to the Luxurae or silent chipset cooling. Read on to see the testing results from some of those uses as well as to find out just how great these fans are!

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In The Box:
(1) 40mm Fan
(4) Mounting Screws
(4) Silent Silicone-composite Mounts
(1) 3 to 4 pin adapter

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Specs:
Size: 40x40x10mm
RPM: 3200+15%
dBA: 14
Volts: 12
Amps: 0.04
Watts: 0.48
Bearings: Hybrid

Features:
The main feature of the iXtrema line of fans, as is for any SilenX product, is that they are some of the quietest fans on the market today. That feature is kept alive with the 40mm iXtrema fan from them as well, running at near 14dBA the fan is next to inaudible when used in a computer system!

As we've seen with past manufacturers, when fans are made quiet they usually have significantly less airflow than standard fans, however these 40mm fans have an airflow of 5CFM. I decided to do a little specification research on a large number of 40mm fans and found that the majority of non-silent fans have an airflow from about 3-7CFM. With this fan being an ultra-silent fan there is definitely not a loss of airflow which I am VERY happy to see!

Little fans are always handy to have although some people may not see the use in them due to their small size and not having a large airflow. I feel that 40mm fans can actually have TONS of uses around your case! A few ideas are cooling the chipset, cooling a hard drive, mounting them on the Luxurae from SilenX to provide better cooling to your silenced hard drive, etc. If you're a handy man then you could also fabricate mounts to use them for such things as providing additional cooling to your memory sticks or video cards that have heat sinks but no fans. The uses for small and silent fans are nearly endless.

Installation:
When installing the fan you have the option of using either of the two included mounting options, steel screws or silicone-composite mounts which can absorb noise made from vibrations. When using screws you simply have to screw into any given or home-made mounting holes in your case or wherever you chose to mount the fans. When using the silicone-composite mounts you must pop them through four standard size mounting holes. There is a little ring at the larger end which holds the mount firmly in the hole. Once that is done then you slide one of the mounts into each hole on the fan and it is held securely in place.

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When installing the iXtrema 40mm fans you also have the option of using the stock 3 pin fan connector which fits easily into any motherboard or fan controller plug. If you would prefer to plug the fan into a molex connector SilenX includes a pass-through adapter which is molex male at one end, female at the other end with a wire going off to a 3 pin plug for the fan. I like the compact design of this adapter and how everything is all in one plug. Many other manufacturers do this with two actual molex connectors with a length of wire between the 2 plugs. This plug is so much smaller and nicer to work with.

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Testing:
The two main areas I will be testing these fans in is cooling a motherboard chipset chip (mounted on the heat sink) and cooling a silenced hard drive in the SilenX Luxurae

Testing System:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939)
Motherboard: Biostar NF4UL-A9
Memory: 512mb Dual-Channel OCZ Premiere Series
HDD: Western Digital 160gb PATA
Video: XFX GeForce 6600GT PCI Express
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

I will first show the results from testing one fan on my chipset heat sink. The iXtrema fan took the place of the StarTech fan I previously had on the chipset. All temperatures were recorded with a temperature probe placed right in the middle of the heat sink which reported the temperatures on my Hardcano 13 Bay bus.

Idle Temperatures:
SilenX iXtrema: 36
StarTech Fan: 33

Load Temperatures:
SilenX iXtrema: 40
StarTech Fan: 37.3

As you can see, when using the SilenX iXtrema fan as a chipset fan you will experience slightly higher temperatures overall in both idle and load situations. There averaged a 3 degree Celsius increase in temperature in both idle and load. Now, although it did get hotter, for those wanting a silent machine this is definitely not a "dangerous" three degree increase and is very tolerable for the chipset. The goal of using this fan is noise reduction, and as with other silencing products you sometimes have slightly higher operating temperatures which are still quite within a safe operating range.

The next test will be using the fans on the SilenX Luxurae Hard Drive Silencing Solution to achieve an added amount of silent cooling for the hard drive. Results will be compared against no cooling, stock Luxurae and cooled Luxurae.

Idle Temperatures:
Stock: 32
Luxurae: 32
Luxurae w/ iXtrema Fans: 28

Load Temperatures:
Stock: 38
Luxurae: 47
Luxurae w/ iXtrema Fans: 43

As you can see, the iXtrema 40mm fans did provide a slightly cooler hard drive when enclosed in the Luxurae HDSS. These results may be both better or worse for you depending on the many variables that change from PC to PC. I would definitely recommend one or two of these fans if you buy the Luxurae. The Luxurae will keep the hard drive absolutely silent but at the expense of a little added heat, but now you can easily get rid of some of that heat by mounting two silent inaudible iXtrema fans on the Luxurae! This is not a requirement of course because the hard drive is still operating well within it's temperature range, but if you would feel a little more comfortable with having a bit of cooling on the Luxurae then these fans are a great choice.

Keep in mind, there are a large variety of other uses for these fans other than those tested by us today. For someone that has power tools handy you could easily mount these fans anywhere in your case for some added silent cooling.

Conclusion:
Overall the iXtrema 40mm fans from SilenX would be an excellent investment for anyone looking to provide some extra cooling but don't want the loud noise of traditional 40mm fans.

Pros:
Silent
Fancy wire looming
Included 3 to 4 pin adapter
Includes both screws and Silicone-composite mounts

Cons:
None! An excellent product!

Rating: 10/10

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