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Reviews | Coolermaster LED 80mm case fan
Review By: Steve Score: 8/10 Product Link 5,912 Views Added 04/22/2004 1 Comment PermaLink

Coolermaster

  • Product: Neon LED TLF-R82
  • Manufacturer: Coolermaster: http://www.coolermaster.com
  • Supplier: Overclockers.co.uk: http://www.overclockers.co.uk
  • What you get:
    • 1 x Neon LED TLF-R82 80mm Fan
    • 1 x 3 to 4 pin converter cable
    • Screws
  • The Official word:
      • Improved Transparent Case Fan with 4 LEDs, now brighter than ever, for different taste of colors.
        3 pin connector for mainboard speed detection
        No additional wires required
        Best choice for show case

There is nothing like customising your computer a little when you spend so much time using it. Lights are one of the first choices of someone wishing to modify their case or just personalise or improve how their system looks. Combining fans with lights offers a practical and great looking addition to anyone's computer.

Collermaster make a nice range of LED fans including blue, green, yellow, red and neon colours. I currently have two of the blue LED fans. Packaging is simple and contains the fan and a converter cable so you can connect the fan to a power supply molex instead of a 3 pin motherboard connecter.

The packaging has enough information about specifications to keep you busy for a few minutes. The Specifications of the fan are:

Fan Dimension - 80x80x25 mm
Fan Speed - 2500 rpm
Fan Airflow - 32.11 CFM
Fan Life Expectance - 50,000 hrs
Bearing Type - Rifle bearing
Voltage Rating -12V
Input Current - 0.15A
Input Power - 1.80W
Noise Level - 25.0 dBA
Connector - 3 Pin
LED Color - Blue
Weight - 75g

If you were to purchace a case fan always check that you have the right size. The most common case fan size is 80mm which the Coolermaster one here is. The airflow if pretty decent at 32.11 CFM, which is usually determined by the speed of the fan i.e. 2500rpm in this case.

The 2500 makes the fan produce a noice level of 25dBA. Now Coolermaster says this is silent in their website but personally <20 is more like silent, however 25 is not noisy and slower means you sacrifice airflow. Yes it's a vicious circle.

The rifle bearings help keep the noise down, if you want an explanation about rifle bearings look it up on http://www.google.com or on the Coolermaster website here.

The first thing you will notice is that although the fan says blue LED, it is actually clear!:

But this beauty comes to life when the lights are dimmed:

Just take a look at that, very nice. There is one very bright blue LED in each corner and the effect that these have when the fan is switched on is simply stunning. Here is a pic of the front of my case, you can see my fan controller at the top and the two case fans at the bottom:

And a closer pic:

There is not really a lot you can say about case fans, they are not exactly feature packed, but these Coolermaster fans do stand out from the crowd quite literally. Fairly quiet with good airflow and great looks, definatley a worthy purchace if you need to add some extra cooling combined with something abit different.

cool in more way than one