be quiet! Silent Wings 3 in the test – the neutral case fan for all cases

The be quiet! Silent Wings 3 have been on the market for almost 5 years now, so it’s time to test this case fan as well. No RGB or other gamer trimmings, but a decent motor, decoupling of the attachment – various awards from colleagues are reason enough to test this model in more detail before it is possible to replace it. After all, we also want to feed our database and there is no getting around this tried and tested fan.

With street prices starting at just over 18 euros, you position yourself in the upper middle class and have felt really at home there for a long time. But what can the now somewhat grayed-out bolide still do from today’s perspective? That’s exactly what we want to find out now, because these fans are still often built into housings today if you want it to be cool and quiet. And we were always fascinated by the extremely low starting speed of the 6-pole motor of only 150 rpm, let’s see what else is possible.

Here, too, the black frame is rather simple, but has a noticeable and very effective decoupling and, for the optics, slightly corrugated rotor blades and a slightly hinted honeycomb shape instead of a round opening. The rotor is neutral black and also not illuminated, so there is no RGB. And that’s just as well. The fan relies on a hydrodynamic slide bearing (FDB) that is common in this price range, which you can expect in this form and which made a good impression. I will have examples later of the slight engine noises at full speed, which occur independently of the bearing. But it’s not something to fear.

The weight of at least 137 grams is almost low, but that certainly doesn’t affect the durability. With the stated 3 year guarantee you are in the middle of the field, but that is not really much in view of the stated MTBF of 300,000 hours.

On the next page you can see how and what we test and why. Understanding the details is extremely important in order to be able to classify the results objectively later. The differences between many models are more in the details and the best fan for all situations can hardly exist. There is a certain optimum in every situation and of course there are also good all-rounders. But they usually have their price. If you are planning specifically with 60 mm radiators, for example, you can perhaps save money by choosing the best model for your application, which might not do so well as a case fan. And vise versa, of course.

For your curiosity, I also have the original data sheet at hand as a PDF:

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