SilenX IXP-76-18 Case Fan

The Silenx IXP-76-18 is just what you would expect from a think 120mm fan. It pushes TONS of air. It pushes more air than any other fan I have seen, but at a price. It is extremely loud at full speed.



The specs listed on the box



Accessories



The fan itself




The IXP-76-18 is able to push the amount of air that it does because of 2 things. The first being that it is obviously a thick fan. The second is a little bit hard to notice. The motor is much smaller than other fans. This allows the fan blades to be bigger which pushes more air.

Being thick, the fan has some compatibility limitations.

It will not fit on most heatsinks that use clamps. However, it should fit on heatsinks that use screws. I wont take any points off for this because the fan is designed to be thick, and you should know what you are buying.

Another big problem with the fan is the noise. It is by far the loudest component in my computer. It is much louder than the advertised 18 dBA. It is more like 2 or 3 times that at full speed. This is a problem as in order to get the sound down, you have to lower the RPM, which also lowers the CFM. This makes the fan like any other fan.
In an effort to lower the noise, SilenX has included some rubber mounting hardware

This helps, but does not remove the problem.

The fan offered a 2-3 degree performance increase when at full speed. When the speed was turned down to an acceptable level, the performance was identical to the stock fan.


I would recommend this fan to air cooling enthusiasts who do not care that much about acoustics.

I give this fan a 4/5 with the breakdown as follows
Performance 5/5
Noise 3/5

I have four of these fans in my CM Storm trooper case (2x front intake, 2x side intake) and I'm very pleased with them. I have them hooked up to a sunbeam fan controller and at half power they still move decent air but are incredibly quiet.

At full power, they are definitely loud... to my ear they sound more like 30 dba than 18. However, they're not so-loud-it's-unbearable... they're just loud enough that you should make sure you either have a fan controller or a low noise adapter; you would not want to run these things 24/7 at full power. Definitely nowhere near the headache inducing levels of some of the noisier fans out there though (Scythe Ultra Kaze / Delta fans / Tornado fans).

I was looking for other 38mm thick fans to replace some Scythe Ultra Kaze fans that I was not pleased with (those Scythe fans are clicky, too loud, and don't move that much more air than these). Have now had these silenX fans for a month and they're not clicky at all - definitely recommended if you have a fan controller/low-noise adapter and want a 38mm thick case fan that has a very good CFM to noise ratio or if you want to turn your case into a wind tunnel without giving yourself an instant headache.

Would be 5/5 if they could actually hit their target noise level. They lose 1/5 points for deceptive marketing... these are not 18 DB fans. They're also a tiny bit expensive but they are nicer than the Ultra Kaze fans that were slightly cheaper.