I will compare the Coolink SWiF 1201 to a selection of fans from other competing manufacturers that i’ve tested before.

These comprise of:

Akasa Amber AK-183-L2B
Akasa (grey smoked) DFS122515L
Thermaltake TT-1225
Vantec Stealth SF12025L
GELID Silent 12
GELID Wing 12

To test i will use the sound pressure level meter below to test the db rating of the SWiF 1201 at both 12v and 7v.


The sound meter used for testing.

Due to the sound level meter only registering a db rating of 50db+ i will have to adjust the sampling distance to allow the fan to register on the meter (after a few test runs it was decided to test the fan at each rated voltage at a distance of 2cm).

The 'damping of sound level with distance' calculator will then be used to calculate the db rating at a greater listening distance. This will give a clearer understanding of the actual volume of the SWiF 1201.

The test will use a PC comprised of the following hardware:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Motherboard: Gigabyte G33 motherboard
Memory: 4GB GeIL ULL PC6400 DDR2
PSU: Hiper Type-R 580W PSU