Test Setup and Methodology

Although these products are case fans, it’s hard to obtain any performance numbers when they are used as such a fan. Therefore we test them as CPU fans to get a bearing on how much air they can move and how noisy they are.

For comparison the Sharkoon SL2 was selected, as it turned out to be one the best case fans in our last 80mm fan roundup here. Officially rated at 32.4CFM at 22dBA, which is higher than the Silent Eagle fans.

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	A64 3200+ @ 2200Mhz 1.5v vcore + Thermalright XP-90
Mainboard	DFI NF3 Lanparty
Memory	1 * 256Mb PC3700 OCZ
Other	ATI R9000 Passive Cooling Silverstone 300W Passive Cooled PSU Maxtor 120GB IDE HDD

all results were taken with room temperature at ~26°C

Setup was installed in a case less environment

Noise level of each fan was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A, the sensor was placed ~5cm!! away from the HSF. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was 30 dBA

System was stressed by running K7 CPU Burn for 30min (after Thermal Compound’s burn-in); this application pushes the temperature higher then any other application or game we’ve yet encountered. Speedfan was used to log maximum obtained temperatures.

Arctic Silver kindly send us their “Lumière” thermal testing compound which has the same colour as Ceramique, but only a break in time of 30min!

The dBA meter was placed only 5cm away, at 30cm the Silent Eagle fans were no longer audible, even when running at full speed! To get some kind of measurement on the dBA meter it was placed closer by.



The SL2 is noticeably louder then the Silent Eagle 2000, the “1000” model is inaudible, you have to put your ear next to it to hear it spin. The performance of the “2000” is quite good, a ~10dBA drop in noise sees only 3°C increase in temperature!

The “1000” model should only be considered if your case does not require a large amount of air moved;



Cutting the rotation speed in half, we see that the SL2 pulls ahead slightly with a better noise/performance ratio. The Silent Eagle “1000” can not keep the CPU “cool” enough so no results here, the dBA meter measured <30dba readings, even at 5cm.


Conclusion

Sharkoon continues to expand their product line-up, their latest case fan takes a rather unique approach for trying to improve performance. The Silent Eagle line-up consist of truly silent case fans.

The performance/noise ratio is excellent and matches that of the best 80mm fans out there. Do note that the “1000” model should only be considered in places where a lot of airflow is not vital to the safe operation of your hardware.

Pros

Extremely Silent

The “2000” model offers an excellent performance/noise ratio

Complete package

Competitive price (~€7 both models)

Cons

The “1000” model does not move a whole lot of air

Questions/Comments: forum thread