Escape from darkness – BeQuiet! Light Wings White (BL101)

Cooling, Extra tests, Fans | | Ľubomír Samák

BeQuiet! Light Wings White (BL101) in detail

There are only a few white fans with ARGB. Still, BeQuiet’s Light Wings models have some rather unique features as this rare commodity. That’s true visually as well. But they also have high performance or airflow to noise ratio. For our tests this time, out of the two options, we chose the high-speed design, which has its “own” blade geometry. But it also handles very low speeds to boot.

The Light Wings White fans came out some time after the black variant as an alternative. This contrasting design is clearly recognisable even at night, where the white surface reflects quite a lot of light. Instead of a glowing circle (black Light Wings fans), the blades or frame are also quite striking.

The light on the blades diminishes towards the centre, which in combination with BeQuiet’s typical grooved structure creates an impressive effect. The light then hits the frame at points that are below the level of the light-guiding strip, and the latter takes on a cross-shaped appearance due to the protruding corners.

Across formats there are two fan variants and this also applies to the tested 120mm fans. The difference is not only in the speed range, but also in the shape of the blades. The faster Light Wings White (BL101) fans with a maximum speed of 2500 rpm have longer blades. In the slower BL100 models (up to 1700 rpm) they are shorter, you already know from the tests of the black Light Wings BL072 fans.

It’s a bit strange that BeQuiet conceived of it in a way that faster fans have longer blades, because usually it’s done the other way around, and as the speed increases the blades usually get shorter to keep them from getting out of control in terms of vibration. The longer the blades, the greater the flexibility, the greater the risk of hitting unwanted tonal peaks somewhere in the operating spectrum. Certainly, these annoyances can be suppressed by various techniques, and we see them in this case as well. Here it’s using a greater thickness of material – the blade tips exceed 3 mm and yet the blades are not that long. Compared to the DeepCool FC120, the leading edges of the blades of these high-speed Light Wings fans in 120 mm format are 23% shorter. They are still “only” 40 mm.

Warning: With nylon dust filters that don’t have some sort of reinforced mesh, this fan can get into a collision. The height difference between the frame and the rotor structure is too small and there is a risk of mutual contact resulting in excessive, extremely unpleasant noise.

It should also be noted that the rotor cross-section is below average for its format. With a 102mm rotor diameter, it’s a hair (about 1mm) below the Arctic BioniX P120 A-RGB. For comparison, the aforementioned DeepCool fan is about 12 mm wider in diameter, which makes a big difference in terms of overall cross-section. It’s a certain toll for the ring light guide, which only fits at the expense of a smaller rotor.

   

And the smaller the rotor, the worse the conditions for achieving comparable airflow, which the fan has to make up for with higher speed at higher noise. But according to our findings, it’s not as bad as BeQuiet states in the specs (where the airflow is only 88.86 m3/h next to the high 2500 rpm for 120 mm fans).

So, since it has to work with a smaller rotor cross-section, BeQuiet has at least ensured that the highest possible static pressure is achieved. This means that the airflow is reduced as little as possible due to obstacle pressure. This effort can be seen in the narrower blade gaps.

Those interested in only one or two fans will be disappointed by the exclusive distribution in triple-packs. These fans are not sold separately. This policy is based on the fact that most users buy multiple fans at once for their radiators or cases, and this way you already get a SATA hub for six fans or other devices with ARGB LEDs in the package. But beware, this one is only used to connect the lighting, you have to connect the motors in another way.

However, you don’t have to worry that this is some new trend where BeQuiet is abandoning the separate sale of fans. We’ve asked them about that, and there are no plans for anything like that, at least for now. So this is probably just an experiment.

Note: Specifications chart, which used to be in the following place, is now on the second page of the article. We have reserved a separate chapter for it because of its growing size and already relatively large height. This separation should thus contribute to better user control, especially on mobile devices with smaller displays.

And one more thing: To navigate through the result graphs as easily as possible, you can sort the bars according to different criteria (via the button on the bottom left). By (non)presence of lighting, profile thickness, brand, bearings, price or value (with the option to change the sorting to descending or ascending). In the default settings, there is a preset “format” criterion that separates 120mm fans from 140mm fans.


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