For the last 2 years I had been trying to contact SilverStone for one sample that I can touch, review and test just to check this unique performance and of course add the model to the 120 mm catalogue. After so much time the guys from the company decided to provide me with a test sample. For my great pleasure the test sample I got is with green backlight.
As I already said, SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121L is a fan with a few very interesting features offering unique performance. For this article I will do one more test just to check if this fan can really channel the air in a big distance.
So, let’s get started.
AP121-GL arrived in a stylish black carton box with a see through plastic cut, through which you can see the fan structure, with some basic information on the front and the a sticker showing the colour of the backlight.
On the back side of the box there is detailed information with pictures describing the idea of this fan in different languages.
In this review I will describe every single feature one by one.
So, after I opened the box I got this:
The original Air Penetrator SST-AP121 is made of black frame and semi-transparent UV reactive propeller, later SilverStone released a second Air Penetrator SST-AP121L model offering silver frame with transparent propeller with different backlights:
- SST-AP121-BL – blue backlight
- SST-AP121-RL – red backlight
- SST-AP121-GL – green backlight
- SST-AP121-WL – white backlight
So, let’s check the structure:
SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL is made of two very interesting parts:
- 120mm plastic frame in silver which looks like every standard frame on the front but on the back side it’s designed to channel the air by focusing it like a column.
- transparent plastic propeller with 7 very wide with very low angle and almost horizontal blades especially designed for reducing the air resistance. If you watch the fan from top you will see that there is so little space that is not covered by the propeller’s blades.
Both features combined like this provide a unique performance in which the air can reach an effective distance to 1meter by passing the various obstacles and cool the hot pc parts. According to the official technical details, SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL rotates with 1500 revolutions per minute with airflow level of 35.36CFM, static pressure 1.71mmH2O at noise level of 22.4 dB(A).
Someone may say: “Oh, it’s so low”.
Yes the airflow level is not big, but the idea of this model is not to provide 100 + CFM, it’s to install it on a front fan slot and cool the hard disk drives and the video card together with only one fan working at low noise level.
Powering and regulating the fan is done by a long sleeved in black cable with 3 pin connector, which can be installed everywhere inside the case.
As you can see on the picture above SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL comes with the following accessories:
- Four metal screws
- Four rubber screws
- 4 pin molex cable splitter with 3 x 3 pin fan connector powering the fan with: 5V, 7V, 12V.
The tests will be conducted in my standard way. I will mount the sample and test it at 5V/7V/9V/12V and my goal will be to check the authenticity of the technical characteristics given by the manufacturer. The product will be tested under close-to-perfect conditions, not taking into account any external factors. The results achieved during the test can in no way be the same if the fan is mounted on a cooler or on the case fan hole of any modern computer case. I will measure the amount of air going through the fan for one hour and its speed. For this I use a fan controller, a voltage meter, an anemometer and a stand made specifically for this purpose.
Here I will add 2 pictures, because when I used the camera flash the backlight is almost invisible:
The test results are shown in the following charts:
Airflow through the fan at 5V, 7V, 9V, 12V
Propeller rpm during the tests at 5V, 7V, 9V, 12V.
The anemometer showed the following air speed:
After mounting the fan to the stand and leaving it to run for about 30 minutes at maximum speed, it was time for the tests to begin.
As with my other tests, again I started with a gradual increase of the voltage through the Lamptron FCT starting at 0V and the SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL made one full revolution at 4.5V, but the backlight fired up at only 3.5V. Yes, the light was not stable but was still running. In order to conduct the first test I had to increase the voltage to 5V.
Test at 5V:
To conduct the first test I had to leave the fan to run for a while at 5V. The fan reached 720 rpm and 28.32 cubic metres per hour. SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL was absolutely silent.
Test at 7V:
At 7V test the model reached 44.16 cubic metres per hour at 990 revolutions per minute. At this test AP121-GL was still silent.
Test at 9V:
The third test was conducted at 9V and at this voltage AP121-GL reached 1245 revolutions per minute and airflow level of 57.12 cubic metres per hour. For my surprise, at this speed the model was still silent.
Test at 12V:
Last test was conducted at 12V and the model reached its top performance of 72.96 cubic metres per hour at 1575 revolutions per minute. At this speed there was a low noise coming from the air passing through the propeller but only at a small distance.
TEST COOLERMASTER HYPER 212 EVO
As I said at the start of this article I will do one more test just to check if SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL’s channelling technology really works and provide what SilverStone is claiming. For this test I will use my computer:
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 620 at standard frequency of 2611 MHz.
Motherboard: GigaByte 790X-UD3P
Video card: Sapphire 5830 Extreme 1GB DDR5 256bit
Memory: 2 x 2GB Apacer 800 MHz
Hard drive: Kingston SSD SV100S264G
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
Power supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro 600
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Thermal paste: Gelid GC-Supreme
Fansr: Cooler Master XtraFlo 120 EU version( 600 – 1,600 RPM (PWM) ± 10%) and SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL
The tests were conducted in a open system with:
- 230mm fan on the front panel putting fresh air in and spinning at about 700 rpm
- Room temperature of about 20 degrees.
Testing procedure:
I will install Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO in vertical position and do tests at default frequency 2611 mHz using Cooler Master XtraFlo 120 EU version( 600 – 1,600 RPM (PWM) ± 10%) and SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL in two type of tests:
- Fan attached to the CPU cooler
- Fan at 300mm away from the CPU cooler in straight line
So, let’s see the results:
The results from the tests with Cooler Master XtraFlo 120 EU version( 600 – 1,600 RPM (PWM) ± 10%):
Cooler Master XtraFlo 120 attached to the CPU cooler
Cooler Master XtraFlo 120 not attached to the cpu cooler:
The results from the tests with SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL:
SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL attached to the CPU cooler
SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL not attached to the CPU cooler
The test results have been summed up in the following charts:
And the fan speed during the tests:
It is time for me to express my own conclusions about the results, the appearence and the structure of SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL.
- Performance: This is interesting… Actually, SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL offers very low airflow performance with average static pressure, but why is that? This model is high-technology fan made to provide nice and steady airflow at big distance to the hardware installed inside the case. After I’ve finished all of the tests all I can say is: AP121-GL is a case fan and case fan only. Yes, it can cool a CPU cooler directly attached or from distance but still I don’t think it can handle cooling a cooler mounted on clocked or extreme clocked processor, just because the airflow level is not so high.
- Noise level: All I can say is that I was surprised of the noise level. Even on ~1500 revolutions per minute I don’t think anybody can hear it from a distance bigger than 10-20cm.
- Apperance: The visual effect that this model can provide inside a case is great. The green light is one very nice feature even if it’s not so bright as I was expecting. As you probably all saw the flash of my camera was killing the green light.
Before I continue with the reward I want to say a few words.
SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL is a unique high-tech 120mm fan supposed to be installed on any front case fan slot to provide a column of fresh air for all of the hardware inside the case. I believe best scenario for this model is to be installed as a HDD fan that will cool the VGA too or as a main cooling unit for a machine inside HTPC cases like SST-SG05 just because the channelling technology is really working. And I can say with hand on my heart that it’s possible to feel the airflow at one meter away from the fan.
The only disadvantage of this fan is the lack of PWM regulation, but after I saw it’s performance I can say it’s not needed.
Anyway I wonder, what will happens if SilverStone design and manufacture a model with same features but with bigger airflow level. Will it be able to cool the entire pc system with only 1-2-3 120mm fans installed in front of the case? Probably yes.
Just one video to see the real performance of SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL:
SilverStone Air Penetrator SST-AP121-GL have been added to the 120mm fans catalogue.
Official price (MSRP): 14.38 euro
I thank Silverstone for the test sample.
You heard of SilveStone for first time?
They are on the market for years offering very innovative and unique products.
Whaoo what a beauty and look at that performance, isn’t that nice. As a matter of fact I hear this brand “Silverstone” for first time, but definetely will follow its’ product line. The only thing I would like to change is led colours to suite my bluish style of the case, but maybe it will be fun to have one greener fellow. 10x for the review, definitely nicely surpriced 🙂