Coolink SWiF 1201 Fan Review

Coolink have provided their SWiF 1201 speed controlled fan for review. Let’s see how it performs.

Product on Review: Coolink SWiF 1201
Manufacturer and Sponsor: Coolink
MSRP: €13.90

Coolink are a well known and highly regarded high end cooling company. They produce all sorts of cooling hardware ranging from basic fans to full heatsinks and thermal compounds to laptop coolers.

Up for review today we have one of Coolink’s most acclaimed products. The SWiF 1201 (Silent Whisper Fan) is almost a legendary product that has been very highly regarded by both air and watercooling gurus.

Coolink is a brand of the Kolink International Corporation and stands for an effective conjunction of no-frills performance, excellent quality and attractive pricing. Coolink – the direct link to affordable high-end cooling!

Kolink International Corporation is a cooling specialist established in 1996 and well known among industry insiders. Throughout the years, Kolink designed and manufactured many top-performing heat-sinks under various brand names that succeeded in international markets. An experienced R&D team and ultra-modern production plants in Taiwan ensure continuous progress, efficient manufacturing conditions and strict quality standards.

Kolink’s retail brand Coolink stands for an effective conjunction of no-frills performance, excellent quality and attractive pricing. While Coolink held a strong presence in the Asian market ever since the late 90ies, it was not until 2005 that the brand was introduced to the European market on a large scale. After the launch of Coolink-Europe.com in late 2005, Coolink quickly became a well recognized brand for high-quality cooling components in Europe too.

Specifications

The numbers for the SWiF 1201 look good. It will be interesting to see how it actually performs when we put it through its paces in the test phase.

Lets take a look at it…

Packaging

The SWiF 1201 comes packaged in an attractive and vibrantly coloured box. The front shows an image of the spinning transparent blades of the fan as well as containing a window to allow the purchaser to view part of the actual fan itself.

Colourful box front.

The rear is a much simpler layout being primarily black and contains all the specification data you might need including the mention of the fans 36 month warranty which offers nice peace of mind.

Box back contains spec information.

Upon opening we find the fan along with a molex to 3 pin convertor and a variable voltage controller with PCI plate and knob.

Front of the SWiF 1201 with bundled parts.

Rear of the SWiF 1201.

The fan is a fairly standard looking 7 blade unit in an attractive transparent blue colour. Its cable is neatly braided and as it uses a dual ball bearing drive system it should be quiet in operation and last a long time too.

Testing

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

Results

Running @ 12v and recorded @ 2cm
Coolink SWiF 1201 – 67 db

After conversion the results @ 2m are as follows
Coolink SWiF 1201 – 27 db

12v performance.

Running @ 7v and recorded @ 2cm
Coolink SWiF 1201 – 60 db

After conversion the results @ 2m are as follows
Coolink SWiF 1201 – 20 db

7v performance.

Summary of fan performance
The Coolink SWiF 1201 is a nice performing fan. 12v performance was pretty good. Not too loud and produced very good levels of back pressure. However, i would say that there was a little too much fan whine at this voltage – depending on the user this might not be too intrusive but in a set up aiming for silence it could be an issue.

It’s a different story at 7v as i found it was very quiet while still producing acceptable levels of back pressure – not a great deal but justifiable given the low volume level. There was no fan whine and no clicking from running undervolted. It also span up quite easily at this voltage too.

Conclusion

The Coolink SWiF 1201 offers decent performance and was certainly one of the top dogs when it was originally released.

However, with the advent of new manufacturers improving technologies and reducing prices in this sector, things have changed to knock the wind out of the SWiF 1201’s sails a little.

Don’t get me wrong it’s a good fan but the absence of rubber fan mounts and a price of around £12 it’s not priced aggressively enough to compete directly. At this price point other manufacturers offerings might draw more interest from potential purchasers.

I will say though that i do prefer the SWiF’s external PCI control knob system to other solutions – that in my honest opinion does drag some kudos back in Coolink’s direction.

Pros
+ Quiet overall
+ Well presented
+ Nice fan speed control system
+ Good back pressure at all useable voltages
+ Starts up @ 7v

Cons
– A touch pricy
– Fan whine @ 12v
– No rubber mount system

Overall i would be happy to recommend the SWiF 1201 to someone wanting a quiet, speed controlled system fan. It’s a nicely presented package and performs well overall so i choose to give it our Silver Award.