Silence is key in today’s working environments, with telephones ringing, people talking around you, and continuous background noise, having a loud PC just adds to your end of day migraines. Manufacturers have heard your call and are all over it like a fat kid on cake. There is a huge market of silent fans out there right now all of them perform well, but really what is most important? The ability too cool, their silence, and last but not least esthetics. (For those of you that can actually see the inside of your case). Thermaltake has been hyping up their latest addition to the silent fan market: the Thermaltake ISGC Fan 12. Today we will find out if there stab at the silent fan market was worth their while:

Price: Projected at $24.99

Closer Look:

The overall packaging design is simple, clean, and informative. Simple specs are found right on the front package along with the product window to see what you get before you buy it. On the back you find a plethora of information on the unique and some what eccentric features this fan offers over others.

Included with the fan is a manual, rubber mounts, screws, and a feature I am fond of: a molex converter. I have seen too many fans forget that last feature and it was to there detriment. If I am going to buy a fan I don’t want to have to mod it every time I need it to do a different job. Seeing as how these fans are intended for many hours of use I don’t supposed what I need it for when I buy it will be the same as what I need it for a year from now.

Two features the Thermaltake ISGC Fan 12 Case fan is going to be noted for, in my opinion, are the unique blade design and the bonus of an inline fan controller. They are both very functional additions to an already seemingly well made fan. The unique design of the blades pushes 15% more air and cut noise by 3% which everyone can appreciate.

The fan itself is the most prominent point over all. I used to be a big fan of blues and blacks in my cases, LED’s and fan combos but white on black case mods are starting to gain popularity and I must say the asian fusion style coming out in a lot of the In Win products lately looks awesome. Thermaltake is heading the pack in design meets function with the ISGC Fan 12, you may mock me (I know I would) for liking a flower based case fan but it is very striking in appearance and doesn’t look like anything else I have seen to date.

 Lets get to the specs and testing:

Features:

Innovative Silent Fan with Advanced Technology   Unique ISGC Fan Blade   Hydro Dynamic Bearing (HDB)

Testing Setup:

• Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q9450 With Noctual Cooler
  
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6
• Memory: Patriot Viper Series 1066 5-5-5-15 2 x 2GB
• Video Card: Asus EAH 4830
  
• Power Supply: In Win 850W Commander Series
  
• Hard Drive: Seagate 750GB SATA
• Optical Drive: LG DVD
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
• Thermaltake armor

Testing:

For testing this fan as I do with most of our fan tests I will be using it as an exhaust fan and recording the ambient case temp and cpu temps for both idle and load speeds. I will be putting the Thermaltake ISGC Fan 12 up against the Noise Blocker Multiframe S-Series which is another well known Silent fan manufacturer. The test will be done in a regulated 22 degrees C room to ensure even testing. Load temps will be achieved by using prime 95.

The temps were pretty neck and neck Thermaltake winning by 1 degree on the load cpu test but both fans performed very well considering they are silent graded fans. The Thermaltake squeaks out a win over the NB because of the molex converter. Let’s see the final thoughts.

Overall the Thermaltake ISGC Fan 12 120mm Case Fan was very well thought out with lots of great features at an affordable price. The cooling ability and low noise this fan offered it is surly a great choice for a home theater PC or a workstation. Don’t discount this fan as a great gaming fan just because it is silent. The CFM’s it is able to produce are more then impressive for any gamer rig.

Would I recommend this fan? Yes it is great for anyone looking for a great silent fan on a budget it has all the features that make for a great fan. The features adaptability makes its usefulness life span much larger over cheaper fans.

Pros:

• Price
• Style
• Silent 
• Great Cooling
• Molex Converter

• None

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