Fans

A good quality chassis fan will not only make your PC cooler, but will significantly reduce its noise output too. We round up 55 fans to see which deserve to be spinning away in your PC.

Akasa

Manufacturer:	Price:
Akasa	£3.45 inc VAT
Reviewer:	Review Date:
James Gorbold	Aug 2006

	OVERALL RATING

SCORE

4/6

Akasa manufactures a huge range of cooling hardware, from chassis and CPU HSFs through to fan controllers and, of course, fans. The Amber range is billed as Akasa's ultra-quiet range, with each fan's noise level claiming to be in the low teens or early twenties on the dBA scale.

The 120mm Amber fan spins at 1,400rpm and scored 55cfm in our 'black bag' test, which is more than 10cfm more than Akasa's claimed figure of 44.8cfm. However, it was one of the noisier fans on test, emitting 32.1dBA, which is definitely audible. Worse still, the motor of the 120mm Amber broadcasts a noticeable buzz. With so many 120mm fans on the market that produce greater airflow at lower noise levels, it makes little sense to buy a 120mm Amber fan.

Although Akasa produces a 60mm Amber fan, the 80mm Amber was the smallest model we tested. Akasa claims that this fan produces 25.4cfm at 20dBA at its fixed speed of 1,800rpm. These are fairly respectable claims, as our tests showed that the 80mm Amber fan produced 22cfm at 24.1dBA. The 80mm Amber isn't particularly noisy or annoying, but there are substantially quieter 80mm fans available, such as the awesome Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 80mm.

We also tested the 92mm Akasa Amber fan, which is purported to move 29cfm of air at 18dBA at its fixed speed of 1,400rpm. In our tests, the 92mm Amber produced a respectable 24.1dBA of noise and 25cfm of airflow, which makes it one of the most efficient 92mm fans available, and definitely worth checking out.

Click here to see full reviews report.

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