BitFenix Spectre Fans Non-LED review (Picture heavy)

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Bitfenix were kind enough to run a little competition last month where three forum members would have a chance to test out some of their Spectre range of fans in their system and compare with their current setup. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of those three.

This is what was in the box. Not quite sure why Bitfenix thought of including some german gaming magazines but the Haribo (not pictured) were welcome.

A close up of one of the 120mm fans labels showing the current draw of 0.1A

The wiring, all black. Would have preferred braided but these are lowish end fans so that's fine I guess.

According to the box these do push a fair amount of air.

Here's a 120mm fan up close and personal. Nice and clean and a matt finish.

140mm sitting next to a 120mm fan. There are no 120mm fittings on the 140mm fan, something which I wasn't aware of when I asked for it as it won't fit my graphics card. Oh well.

Forever the LED fanatic I checked out the light penetration in the LED holes that were on this non LED 140mm fan. It's clearly cheaper to use the same mould for non LED and LED fans but these holes are only on the 140mm fan. This makes sense as 140mm is still not the standard sized fan these days.

The fans come with 4 standard fan screws

And now onto the comparison.

This is my case a few moments before swapping the fans over. Shiny bright Orange LEDs on red bladed fans.

And without lights.

Internal shots.

And now after I swapped the fans out for the Bitfenix Spectre non LED white.

The front looks nice and clean.

I think the fan looks quite nice on the heatsink.

The fans are not really suitable for the heatsink I'm using at the moment. The Alpenfoehn Broken which I also won for a review has these silicone rubber grommets that must be pulled from the other side of the fan hole, something which is tricky when the fan hole goes all the way across.

Sadly the fans are also not compatible with rubber grommets due to the solid nature of the fan screw hole. I use grommets throughout my case so having to use screws seems like a step back for me. I find it strange that silent fans are made like this. It's only a small thing and I doubt that these grommets make much difference at 1000rpm.

Not even my age old scabby Zalman grommets would work.

Rotational speeds of the CPU fan are remarkeably similar to the Noctua I had in there before (605rpm vs 640rpm). Temps are the same too, as you'd expect really.

Conclusion:

I do like the clean white look of the fans and they are certainly more eye catching then the other fans I had installed in the case.

I like the fan shape and the texture is good for a fan. It shouldn't suffer with resonance like some smooth LED type fans.

The noise the fans produce seems a little quieter than the existing setup and while a low hum could be heard if I stuck my head in the case externally you'd be hard pressed to notice any difference. I run a very quiet system with fans typically around the 700 rpm level so I wasn't really expecting a big difference. I heard no ticking noise even at low speed, which is good.

I have no way to test airflow but these fans do seem to move a fair bit of air.

The fans were able to start up at the ridiculously low voltage I ran my front Xilence fans at so that's definitely a good thing considering they are 500rpm slower.

I'm dissapointed I can't use rubber grommets with these fans, unless I go at them with a dremel that's unlikely to change. The fact that my heatsink rather depends on grommeting makes these tricky to use on my heatsink. I could swap back to my Noctua heatsink but that's just going to be a chore.

I don't really like the all black cable very much but as stated above these are at the lower end of the cost bracket for fans so this is acceptable. Maybe Bitfenix should go all white cables, that might be better. I will braid them up later if I want.

So would I buy the fans? Probably. But I'd want to braid them and remove the screw hole obstruction.

I've actually removed the heatsink and rear mounted fans as the one on the heatsink wont stay on properly and the rear one doesn't have a proper control method at the moment. I'm going to add 16 LEDs to both these fans and work out how to get them working on my heatsink. I do hope the LED effect is good when I use loads of LEDs. I will update when I get around to that.

 

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It is a strange design and probably something that can be easily solved with a junior hacksaw and perhaps a pair of pliers to shnap them off. If I am to use them I will have to modify them that's for sure. Will have a look at this and post back.

Not quite sure the reason behind the solid screw hole but food for thought to Bitfenix to a possible design change.

 

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So I went down the shed and used one of these..

..to cut a groove either side of the main fan frame.

I also cut a groove down the middle to make it weaker as it was resisting breaking.

After a little bit of force with my pliers I got this..

Now it doesn't look awesome and the rust and dirt off my coping saw can be seen on the fan but it will now work with the grommets and my heatsink. When I do the other ones I will probably use a nice clean blade for the saw and use some sandpaper afterwards to smooth stuff out.

 

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also i have to point out the epic hdmi splitter to the left of the case, nice work lol

It is pretty epic.I tried a simpler setup it just wouldn't work without the repeater, for which I needed to add the coupler and the power cord, which is wired to my PC's USB.

That's what I need to do, the freshly exposed side of the screw hole that you show in the picture is where the Noctua clip needs to fit to secure the fan to the heatsink. Hacksaw it is then!

If you notice there's another cavity further down the shaft of extra material. Not quite sure what it's for as there's no accompanying hole through the fan itself but it does give some weakness to allow easier breaking. I tried just going down just beyond the first hole but feared that I might rip the fan to bits doing so.

 

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Don't suppose the cavity lines up for 120mm holes?

Hah that would be great, and actually food for thought on the 140mm, but this is on one of the 120mm fans.

Actually I just noticed that the hole appears on one side but not on the other. I don't often look on the ugly side of the fan so overlooked this before.

The hole pitch is 94mm between centres so can't imagine it's to fit any other size fan hole and that it's just there for some other strange reason.


So went and grabbed the 140mm hopeful that they engineered a hidden 120mm hole into it but was a little sad to see that they've done the hole differently. They've still engineered it that it can't be used with grommets, or certain heatsinks without modification, but the material around the solid hole tapers in to just a few millimetres after the hole.

Still these are really small niggles on an otherwise great looking quiet fan.

 

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And here's one with some LED goodness added..

 

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Good review but it's a shame you didn't compare the idle and load temperatures before swopping the fans to see if they improved or not.

I don't go all anal on temperatures like some but did notice that the temperatures were about the same as with my previous fans at idle, given that the fan speeds were more or less the same it came as no great surprise. In addition because the white fan didn't fit on my heatsink properly I didn't feel it best to analyse to much as a fan that basically hangs off the heatsink is never going to be as good as one which is pulled tight against the heatsink array.

The purpose of the review was really about silence (and appearance for me) anyway and I have to say the fans are pretty quiet so they pass, and indeed I have installed two of them in the front of my system, with perhaps a total of 3 or 4 possible if I ever sort out a PWM to analog converter.