When be quiet! introduced their Pure Base 500DX case we were shocked to see RGB lighting on the front panel. Well hold your horses, they've now brought out a range of ARGB fans in 120mm and 140mm sizes and we've been busy building a PC to show what they are all about.
Features
- Light Wings fans are equipped with a PWM connector and have one LED ring at the fan’s inlet and another narrow LED ring at the outlet.
- They are available in 120mm and 140mm sizes.
- Light Wing’s light rings are equipped with up to 20 individually addressable LEDs with a diffuser to spread the light in both directions. This results in a remarkably uniform illumination and impressive lighting effects.
- Light Wing triple packs additionally contain an ARGB hub to enable the synchronization of up to six ARGB components in total. The fans can also be connected to motherboards with 5V ARGB-headers and controlled by motherboard software. Light Wings fans allow daisy-chaining of its signal cables for a cleaner case interior.
Pricing
Single-Packs:
• Light Wings 120mm PWM: €22.90 / $26.90 / £22.99
• Light Wings 120mm PWM high-speed: €22.90/ $26.90 / £22.99
• Light Wings 140mm PWM: €23.90/ $29.90 / £24.99
• Light Wings 140mm PWM high-speed: €23.90/ $29.90 / £24.99
Triple-Packs (includes ARGB hub):
• Light Wings 120mm PWM Triple-Pack: €69.90/ $79.90 / £59.99
• Light Wings 120mm PWM high-speed Triple-Pack: €69.90/ $79.90 / £59.99
• Light Wings 140mm PWM Triple-Pack: €72.90/ $84.90 / £65.99
• Light Wings 140mm PWM high-speed Triple-Pack: €72.90/ $84.90 / £65.99
For this build be quiet! sent us a wide array of hardware:
- Pure Base 500DX White case reviewed HERE
- Silent Loop 2 240mm AIO cooler reviewed HERE
- Light Wings PWM 120 high-speed (for the radiator)
- Light Wings PWM 140 to replace case fans
- Dark Power 12 1000W power supply – 850W version reviewed HERE
- Power supply of accessory cables
- 1x CM-30750 cable (3x SATA, 1x PATA, 600mm)
- 1x CB-6620 cable (20+4 pin ATX)
- 1x CP-6620 cable (2x 6+2 pin PCIE)
- 1x CC-7710 (8 pin CPU)
Spec of PC:
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (16 cores/32 threads)
- CPU Cooler: be quiet! Silent Loop 2 240mm
- Radiator fans: be quiet! Light Wings PWM 120
- Motherboard: MSI MAG B550M Mortar BIOS v1.94
- Memory: GB G.Skill TridentZ Neo DDR4-3200MHz
- Graphics card: Sapphire Radeon RX6800 XT 16GB
- Case: be quiet! Pure Base 500DX
- Case fans: be quiet! Light Wings PWM 140
- Power supply: be quiet! Dark Power 12 1000W
- SSD: 500GB Sabrent Rocket 4.0 M.2 NVMe
- OS: Windows 11
Closing Thoughts
be quiet! has taken a cautious approach in delivering RGB products and we are absolutely fine with that. For example you may have noted the Pure Base 500DX case introduced RGB lighting at the front and also came with a Mesh panel which has a double function of flowing air and giving you a view inside the front of the case.
That works so much better than using tempered glass that blocks air flow and now we have matching ARGB fans we can see them in all their glory. It is a similar story with these new Light Wings fans which ignore legacy 12V lighting and move directly to 5V Addressable RGB. Furthermore they use a conventional ARGB plug that is directly compatible with the headers on your motherboard so you don't have to faff around with proprietary connectors or work with third party RGB software.
In our build we used a selection of Light wings fans in 120mm and 140mm sizes and found they were easy to install, had accurate PWM control and operated at reasonably low noise levels. The headline feature is the ARGB lighting, and we like the use of a standard ARGB connection and the way each fan has lighting on both the front and the back.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
KitGuru says: be quiet! Light Wings add ARGB lighting to a decent product stack of fans which leaves Noctua as the final RGB Heathen.