UNBOXING: Cooler Master Sickle Flow and Fractal Design Silent Series

I'm just going to start with an apology because this was supposed to come out in May but I forgot to press publish :D derp... -[blank]

So I have decided to upgrade the airflow on one of my desktops so I turned to the Cooler Master Sickle Flow 120 and the Fractal Design Silent Series. These are both 120 mm case fans. The Cooler Master runs at 2000 RPM while the Fractal runs at 1000 RPM. To tell the truth, I decided to upgrade because of the price of these fans (and they were on sale!).

Cooler Master Sickle Flow 120

I decided to get two Cooler Masters and one Fractal. I mounted one of the Cooler Master's on the top of my case and one at the front. I installed the Fractal on the bottom of the case, beside the PSU. 

Fractal Design Silent Series

The Cooler Master fans came in the standard Cooler Master box. It also has a blue tab that indicates the LED colour. The Fractal fan came in the standard Fractal box. The Fractal had the specifications more prominently displayed on the box while the Cooler Master has a smaller specs chart.

When I opened the Cooler Master box, I found the standard silver screws, a molex to 3 pin 12V connector, a warranty sheet, and of course the fan itself. Inside the Fractal box, I found rubber fan mounts AND black screws (which matched my case), and of course the fan.

Just to test them out and to get some pictures, I hooked it up to an old PSU and they all ran at about the same volume, around 19 dBA, while the Fractal was slightly quieter. The Cooler Master fans look really cool because of the LEDs that would light up my case pretty well. One side of the Cooler Master fan is surely better looking than the other side so I decided to point that side out, just for looks.

Cooler Master Sickle Flow 120

After installing into my computer, effectively reduced my temperatures by about 5 degrees. There is also less dust build up in the case now.

With all the LEDs in the fans (which are extremely bright), this computer glows under my desk and if i drop a pencil or something, the case fans provide enough light to find it! That's just an added bonus.

If you were to follow in my footsteps and install this many fans in a case, GET A FAN CONTROLLER!!! With a fan controller, it makes your computer front panel look more high tech and it also lets your fans run at lower speeds when you are just using Word. Also, fan controllers ussually come with a temperature sensor so you have an additional data point for your computer's temperature.

If you want to just check your computer's temperatures from the sensors in your CPU, HDD, Chipset , etc. you can download HWMonitor, freeware that allows you to access the data from those sensors easily with an intuitive GUI.

These fans look like they will last a long time because of the good build quality and the Long Life Sleeve bearing. I promise that if they ever break, I will update this article! More pictures of the fans below!

Cooler Master

Fractal