This past July Be Quiet! introduced their new Silent Wings 4 fans which as the name implies is the replacement of their popular and great performing Silent Wing 3 fans. The new lineup includes a variety of options including standard, PWM, and high-speed fans in 120mm and 140mm and Silent Wings Pro 4 options as well in both sizes. I’ve been excited to check the new lineup out after I saw them and Be Quiet! has done a few unique things to their new fans which I haven’t seen in the past. Today I have a few of the basic Silent Wings 4 140mm and the Silent Wings Pro 4 in the 120mm option that will let us see what the basic option has to offer as well as the higher-end pro model. So let's check them out!

Product Name: Be Quiet Silent Wings 4

Review Sample Provided by: Be Quiet!

Written By: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

SILENT WINGS 4 140mm Photos and Features

Be Quiet! sent over two of their Silent Wings 4 140mm fans which are the base model of the Silent Wings 4 lineup but they are far from a base model when compared to other fans. Be Quiet even has the high-end designation on the left of the front of the packaging. Beyond that, they have that signature black theme and a large picture of the fan in the center. The Be Quiet! logo is up in the top right corner and is the only color on the front of the packaging. Under the fan picture, they have the Silent Wings 4 branding in the largest font and below that, you get the fan size. The back of the box doesn’t have much at all going on with a short description about the be quiet brand and then a specification listing.

When you open the box up on the Silent Wings 4 a lot of the information on what makes the fans special as well as the closeup pictures are all on the underside of the box. I’m surprised some of this wasn’t put on the back of the box where it could be seen when shopping but either way it is nice to see. Then down in the box, the fan itself is covered up by cardboard with a line drawing of the fan and the Silent Wings 4 branding again and above that all of the accessories have a matching black box with accessories written on top.

The Silent Wings 4 has its documentation tucked up under everything so when you pull the fan out you will find it. You get an information guide and then a legal paper with warnings on it. It’s the accessories though that stand out. Most fans come with just one or two things but even with this being the lower-end Silent Wings 4 model it is loaded with things. You get a small baggie with four normal black mounting screws then there is a second baggie that has rubber washers and four anti-vibration mounts similar to what a Noctua would come with. There is a SATA power adapter that has three different fan speed options for 5-volt, 7-volt, and 12-volt outputs so you can slow the fan down if you would prefer. Then there is a tray that comes with four anti-vibration corners for the fan that can be swapped out, something I’ve never seen any other fan come with before. 

The Silent Wings 4 design has lowered the tolerance between its fan blades and the housing which is a big contributor to getting good static pressure. It has a 7-blade design and each blade has a twist to them as well as the ribs that past Silent Wing fans have had as well. Then in the center, the all-black fan has a black sticker with the Be Quiet branding printed on with a gloss black. This design gets the Silent Wings 4 140mm 51.3 CFM and .92 mm H2O for static pressure while running at 13.6 decibels according to Be Quiet. This model runs at 1100 RPM unless you are using the included voltage drop adapter

The side profile of the Silent Wing 4 is interesting because even though this fan has a lot of weight to it the side edges are relatively thin compared to the 25 mm thickness of the fan itself. Only the mounts rach up to match the height of the housing around the fan blades but they do have two supports on each side to add to that stability as well which is needed when there is a low tip clearance like on these fans. Two of the fan sides have the Be Quiet branding but what is interesting to me is on the other two sides they have arrows which point to the direction of airflow and the direction that the blade spins.

The back of the Silent Wings 4 has its motor mount held in place by four supports which have a slight twist in their shape and an angle to them as well to help line up with the airflow coming off of the fan blades. The center has a sticker with the model number, power, amps, and RPM as well as all of the normal certification logos. Below that where the Pro model has an RPM switch has been filled in with an insert that has the Silent Wings 4 name on it. The three fan wires are black to match the housing and run along the one support that doesn’t have an angle to it. All of the Silent Wings 4 fans have a 6 pole motor design and a fluid-dynamic bearing which keeps vibrations down and keeps things running smoothly and also contributes to the 300,000-hour lifespan.

The fan cable for this model which is a non-PWM model has a standard black-sleeved cable with the black cabling inside and the 3-pin plug at the end. It is a preference, but I know for me I would prefer to not have the sleeving simply because it makes it easier to hide the wiring but the sleeving does look good otherwise.

I think the coolest thing about the Silent Wings 4 design is the detachable corners which let you swap between the two included mounting styles. One is the plastic mounting setup and the other is the rubber mounting setup. The plastic works combined with the rubber pull-through mounts for installation in a case to offer the lower amount of noise transfer. But that won't work with radiators and heatsinks so they give you a more traditional rubber mount for use with screws in those situations. They come off by pinching on both sides and swap out easily.

SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM Photos and Features

Be Quiet also sent over a bundle of four of their higher-end Silent Wings Pro 4 120 mm PWM fans. The packaging for this design is almost exactly the same as the standard Silent Wings 4 only with an updated picture on the front and the model name has Pro in it of course. I’m surprised that the high-end designation on the left doesn’t set the standard and pro models apart. That said they have the same black background with the only color being the orange in the be quiet logo up in the top right corner. I like that they have a picture of the fan shown and that the model name is in the biggest font and is easy to see in the white. The back has a specification listing but beyond that, they still aren’t using this space to show off any of the features.

When you open the box up they have all of that extra information that I had hoped to see on the back with pictures of each feature and descriptions to go with each picture all printed on the underside of the top. With so much information they could really use a front flap like how Noctua uses which could also give a window inside to see the fan itself. But with this setup, a window wouldn’t show anything because the fan has cardboard over it and the accessories are all in their own box.

For accessories, the Pro model comes with less than the regular model. You get a try with two different mount variations on it and then two small baggies. One has normal black mounting screws and the other has rubber washers and the pull-through mounts.

The SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM cranks the fan blade density up with 9 blades in total from the 7 we saw on the Silent Wings 4 140 mm. They are closer together which combined with the 3000 RPM puts the fan at 83.9 CFM, more than 30 over the regular 140 mm. The center section has the dark grey sticker and the black be quiet logo printed on it which goes well with the blacked-out fan.

Like on the standard Silent Wings 4 the sides on the SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM have the airflow direction arrow and the arrow showing the fan spinning direction on two of the sides and be quiet branding on the other two. The side profile looks like the Pro has a completely different housing but the base fan housing is the same but the third mounting option included with the SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM fills in all of the gaps here making the side profile look much thicker. They are still removable with the same squeeze clips and you can switch back to the other two designs that come with it which are the plastic and rubber mounts found on the standard model. The preinstalled larger mounts are designed for radiators with its wider mounting pads.

The back view of the SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM looks significantly different from the base Silent Wings 4. Namely in the shape of the housing around the fan blade here which is round in the center but moves into a more squared-off shape towards the back. This goes well with the pre-installed wider radiator mounts and helps especially with radiator airflow by spreading it out to get better coverage. The SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM is radiator focused and you can especially see it when you start looking at its specifications. Where the base 140mm Silent Wings 4 has a static pressure of .95 mm the SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM pushes the H2O 5.31 mm. It has the same 6 pole 3 phase motor and fluid dynamic bearings but can spin up to 3000 RPM. The center section which has the model information sticker in the center has similar mounting only this design has thicker mounts and they have a different angle as well to go with the higher CFM. Where the plug was on the 140 the Pro has a three-way switch where you can change the fan speed down from 3000 RPM on the “ultra high speed” mode. It also has a high-speed mode which would be the medium setting, and a medium speed setting which would be the lowest setting. For a lot of people, the features and fan speed of the SILENT WINGS PRO 4 120mm PWM may not be needed, but I love that you have the option to run this at different speeds with a switch. Obviously, radiator use is the target but with that option SFF builds would also be a good use, you can run at the lower speeds but have the option to turn things up if you need more cooling. Exactly what I used to do with 3000 RPM Noctua fans in some of our LAN builds.

While the cable on the Pro model is sleeved with black sleeving just like the regular Silent Wings 4 there is a clear difference in the sleeving which has a might tighter weave and is more flexible. Then the cable plug on the Pro drops the black heat shrink for a Be Quiet branded addition to the plug. This new end looks nicer but because it is longer you may have to work around it a little more when wiring and trying to hide your cables.

Performance

For performance testing of both of the Silent Wings 4 models that Be Quiet sent over, we don’t have the capabilities of testing the static pressure and airflow but I did want to at least get a look at the noise levels that each fan runs at because noise is a big concern for me in any build in the office. Our readings won’t match up with the specifications or anyone else's because everyone has different ambient noise levels but for comparing from fan to fan it should give us an idea of things and my expectations are high given the Be Quiet reputation and the pricing as well. I set up our meter 18 inches away and ran both fans with the PC outputting 100 fan speed and for the Silent Wings 4 pro 120mm PWM I also tested at all three of the fan speed settings using the switch on the back. I tested with a standard A weighting on the meter and then again with C weighting. With A weighting it cuts out some of the higher and lower frequencies similar to how your ear would, this page right HERE explains it more with graphs showing the range.

My initial impression even before looking at the numbers was just how quiet the base 140mm was with it running at just 1100 RPM, I didn’t really hear it at all with the ambient noise in the office. To add to that, that model comes with an adapter to slow the fan speed down even more. The pro 120mm, on the other hand, came by default on the medium fan speed setting where it runs at 1600 RPM and while the decibel difference is small I could hear it slightly. Once I turned it up to the second setting which they call high-speed mode at 2500 RPM it was much louder and at 3000 RPM it was even higher with both of those modes having more of a high-pitched sound. They were quieter than any other 3000 RPM fan I have tested, but no matter how quiet you go at that fan speed there is still going to be some noise. But this is also what I like about the Pro model, you can run at the low setting most of the time and it will be quiet but you do still have the option to crank things up if needed.

Overall

With a name like Be Quiet, they couldn’t very well bring out products that didn’t have good noise performance, and the new Silent Wings 4 fans were no exception. In my testing the low RPM base 140mm fan was especially quiet with its 1100 RPM fan speed but the high-end Silent Wings 4 Pro 120mm PWM which at its lowest setting runs at 1600 RPM was impressive too given its higher RPM and while not silent when I cranked it up to 2500 and 300 RPM it was still a lot quieter than I expected it to be. The Pro model is the go-to when you really need the static pressure with 5.31 H2O and equally impressive is the 83.9 CFM rating they have given it as well. Overall though for most situations the base Silent Wings 4 models will do the job and they do have a few high-speed options in the non-pro model as well but as someone who loves SFF builds the pro having the built-in fan speed switch is a nice backup if you are concerned that things might get a little too hot.

All of the Silent Wings 4 models have a unique design where the mounting corners are all removable and can be swapped out with different mounting options depending on how you plan on using the fan. Specifically for normal case mounting you have a different mount than if you are using a radiator or mounting onto a cooler and the versatility that offers is great. As always all of these are completely blacked out which keeps the fans from being the main focus in your build and looks good in just about any build.

As for downsides, I didn’t have any with either of the fans physically. The only con for me would be the pricing, but that is to be expected when it comes to higher-end fans especially once you add in the different accessories that both come with. The base Silent Wings 4 140mm will run you $24.90 and then the high-end Silent Wings Pro 4 120mm PWM goes up to $31.90. Both are in line with the competition (Noctua) but the Pro model does run a little more than the Noctua iPPC 3000 RPM model with that being $27.95 on Amazon. Having the fan speed switch is most likely part of that at least. Overall though, they are great fans and I’m impressed that Be Quiet has found new ways to innovate with the new Silent Wings 4’s.

Live Pricing: HERE

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.