Introduction

Spectrum UV Fans

Fans fans fan... what would modding be without them eh? These air-pushing devices has been the staple modding stuff for every modder. Even if there's no blowhole in the case, you'd still find one somewhere in it! Over the years, the fans' function has not changed and that's to help cool your CPU or your GPU or anything else that needs cooling in your PC. But the world got tired of the boring black plastic that it came with so a variety of new fans was born. Clear fans, coloured fans, LED Fans, Cathode fans, UV fans, etc. are some of the most popular and the ones that you'd likely to find at a respectable online modding store. You'll find a myriad of them from different vendors and manufacturers and one of them is Vantec. They recently launched their own brand of UV Reactive Fans called The Spectrum. Vantec has produced some of the most popular products from heatsinks to thermal control devices and the Spectrum is their latest line of modding kits. Let's take a closer look shall we?

Packaging

The package

Vantec has always impressed me with their packaging and their UV Fan has done well too. Not that packaging plays a big part in performance but it helps projects the dedication and professionalism in the company. The packaging looks ready for the retail outlet I'll tell you that! Their UV Fans are available in 4 different colours... Blue, Orange, Green and Clear. Now these colours are the colours of the plastic casing that the fans were moulded in and they are also UV Reactive, meaning they'll glow under a UV lightsource, such as a UV neon or cathode light.

The package

Rear of package

Close up on specs

The Fan & Accessories

There really isn't much within the package really... just the fan, a pack of screws and a 3-pin to Molex connector for those wanting to plug the fan directly to their PSUs. The fans are well built though with material consistency in the outer fan cage and the blades. Vantec stickers hides the motor in the fan and the other thing that's cool is the silver braided cables of the fans. Most fans nowadays comes with the normal red/black/yellow cables but Vantec took the extra effort to nicely bundle the cable up. Thumbs up there! The fan is the standard 12VDC fan and currently, they're only available in 80mm versions. Maybe Vantec will add 92mm and 120mm versions later or even 60mm ones since they are also a manufacturer of heatsink+fan combos. ;o)

The fan + accessories

Close up on fan

The 3pin to Molex connector

Silver braided cables.

Power it and light 'em up!

All 4 samples from Vantec works fine out of the package and churns out a respectable 39CFM at a mere 34dB(A). It's quite but at the same time good enough for your everyday cooling needs. Anyway, it's all about silence nowadays without them 7000RPM screaming Deltas! To test the UV glow, I used a UV CC Kit from Sunbeam since Vantec do not have their own Spectrum UV Cathode Kit available yet for the review, but I'm sure by the time you read this, it's already up there on their website.

Fans on...

Fan with UV CC

With the UV CC turned on, the UV Reactive dye in the fan comes alive as you can see from the two pictures below. The UV CC kit was placed behind the fans so as not to obstruct the view and blur the camera lens. You can clearly see that the Clear case/blade fan turns purplish under the UV light. Not that I am dissapointed or anything, I just thought that it'll be glowing bright white. That would be nice wouldn't it? :O)

A little ambient light

Lights off

Here's a single shot of each fan under the UV light and in total darkness. Gotta thank Dice for that money-shot camera trick! :O) Just for your eyes so you can decide which one will look good for your mod project! Heheh! I'm just curious as to why there's no Red ones available.... Vantec? I gotta say, they all look might pimpy under the UV light, don't they?

Blue = Blue

Clear = Purplish

Orange - Orange

Green = Green

Conclusion

There you have it! Another quick look at the humble 'ol fan, although it's not so humble here! It has gone from boring black spinning things to extravagant modding must-have for the modders out there! I don't see modding dying out anytime soon and as long as there's gonna be modding, the fan would definitely be in it. But while you're cooling your hardware, wouldn't it be nice to have the fan lights up as well? And the Spectrum UV Fan from Vantec is one that you should consider. 4 different colours for you to choose from although if you're going for the case-from-hell theme for your mod project, you'll be dissapointed that they do not have a Red coloured one. The silver braided cablings are also a nice touch and don't forget the effort taken to pack all that in a professional looking packaging... all that at a price tag of US$7.99 for each fan but I've seen them as low as US$4.99 around the Net somewhere.

So if you're looking at adding some UV fans for your next modding project, put the Vantec Spectrum UV Reactive Fan in your list! Big thanks goes out to Clare of VantecUSA for the sample units. Thanks to you peeps too for reading and enjoy the site! Over and out!

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