GELID Silent Pro 14 PWM Case Fan

The last time we looked at Gelid Solutions was when we reviewed their Zentree smart dock. They have been steadily introducing a range of thermal cooling solutions to the market for over a decade now and today we take a look at their Silent Pro 14 PWM case fan.

If you’re building a new gaming PC, cooling your system is as important as the expensive hardware components you’re planning to run in it. It’s important you ensure you budget accordingly and have enough dollar to purchase adequate cooling for your system. One such accessory is case fans that would be responsible to push or pull air into your casing.

Making sure there’s good air flow through your system is extremely important for the overall stability of your rig. Without that, you most certainly will be struggling to keep your system running at its optimum condition.

Fan Specifications

*INCLUDED:	4 Fan Mounts
Air Flow (CFM/CMH):	80.6/137.02
Bearing:	Hydro Dynamic Bearing
Cable Length (mm):	500
Connector:	4 Pin
Current (A):	0.2
Dimension of Fan (mm):	140 x 140 x 25
Fan Mount Hole Distance (mm):	105 x 105
Fan Speed (RPM):	450 – 1500
Noise Level (dBA):	27.8
Safety Approvals:	CE, RoHS Compliant
Static Pressure (mmH2O):	1.86
Voltage (V):	12
Warranty (years):	5
Weight (g):	137

Closer look

When it comes to case fans, there are a few paths you can go down; namely RGB/non-RGB, 120mm/140mm/180mm and so on. The size you can opt for will of course depend on the type of case you got and your specific requirements.

The Gelid Silent Pro 14 is a non-RGB 140mm solution designed for users who want to keep a lower profile by enjoying the benefits of a good case fan without all the bling factor.

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The Silent Pro 14 comes in a well packaged box providing all important information that would be required by a user. There’s a small transparaent area on the box that lets you get a glimpse of what’s inside.

Some of the important aspects I generally look for in the specs of a fan are PWM, CFM rating and noise levels. PWM ensures the fan does not run at it’s fastest rated speed unless the system deems it’s required due to build up of heat. The Gelid Silent Pro 14 has a RPM range of 450 – 1500 and we found our unit was generally operating around the 556 RPM mark.

Silent Pro 14 Package

Opening up the box you’re offered along with the Silent Pro 14, 4 rubber fan mounts and a Gelid Solutions sticker.

The Silent Pro 14 comes with 9 fan blades and are designed for maximum air flow and high static pressure while maintaining ultra silent operation.

Some of you might not have heard of the term static pressure for cooling fans, essentially what this means is the fan being able to move more air efficiently through small crevices typically found in casings. In this case, you could either place the Silent Pro 14 as an intake fan at the front of your case or exhaust fan by placing it in the rear. In both the cases you’d find that modern casings having some form of dust filter which would obstruct the airflow, hence it’s good to have a case fan that has both good air flow (Higher CFM rating) and high static air pressure.

Rubber Fan Mounts

There are 4 rubber mounts that are offered with the Gelid Silent Pro 14. It’s great to see Gelid Solutions including rubber mounts to ensure there’s absolutely no noise created due to vibration of this fan.

If this is the first time you’re coming across rubber mounts, I’m sure you’d be puzzled on how you go about installing these. Insert the long ended rubber mount into the hole in the fan and pull until it pops in place. Once you do this for all fan mounts, it’s a matter of doing the same on the casing.

The Gelid Silent Pro 14 even though is a 140mm fan, uses the same mounting hole form factor as 120mm fans. This provides greater compatibility to match different cases in the market. We couldn’t install the Silent Pro 14 as an exhaust fan in the case we intended to use due to it hitting the motherboard backplate. Hence we ended up using it as a top mounted fan which still does the job.

The power connector is braided well to give it a neat look and long enough for us to properly cable manage it through the case.

Performance and Conclusion

In order to test the Gelid Silent Pro 14 we ran our test bench through a series of gaming and benchmark suites to build up the temperature through the system. Tests were run for 30mins and average temperature was recorded during this period.

Test System

CPU	Core I5 9600K
Motherboard	ASUS Rog Strix Z390-H
Memory	Ballistix Elite DDR 16GB
Graphics Card	HIS Radeon R9 390X

Our tests were run while keeping the CPU at its default 3600 Mhz setting and then overclocked to 4700Mhz. Prime95 was run for 15mins each time and average values were recorded.

We can clearly see the Silent Pro 14 does help in bringing the overall temperature down by at least 2-3 degrees across the platform.

It should be noted that even at 63dBA the level of sound is considered as a normal conversation.

Conclusion

With a price tag of US$12.00 Gelid Solutions are offering the Silent Pro 14 at a very competitive price point. As we mentioned in the start, the Silent Pro 14 is for users looking for a case fan that does its intended job without the fancy RGB functionality. If you’re looking for RGB options, Gelid Solutions does offer a wide selection of case fans catering to various customer demands.

As our tests show, having a good case fan does help in the overall airflow of your system and most certainly will provide overall stability. Given that modern NVMe SSDs have internal throttling when it reaches peak temperatures, having good airflow within your system will certainly help.

There isn’t anything to fault with the Silent Pro 14, it does its job as advertised silently. Even at Peak load the fan is within reasonable acoustic range. If the requirement fits, we have no hesitation in recommending the Gelid Silent Pro 14 and best of all it comes with a 5 year warranty.