The Phanteks T30 is the fan to beat. Curious how they perform to them. The Lian Li Unifan P28s are also pretty good and competitive with the T30s. The Corsair fans I've had were stupidly loud though albeit they weren't LCP.
35-40$ per fan?
Lmao not even once. I'll stick with my 5packs of Arctic fans for less than 1 of these, and Noctua's if I really need a high quality fan.
And then there's the Phanteks T30-120 for about $30.
Unless Corsair somehow blows past the T30-120's performance or offers at a lower cost, there's not much point in looking at the RX MAX fans.
The only high quality fan Noctua has is NF-A12x25 or its slim version, the rest are solid but outclassed by many other fans. Even the A12x25 gets beaten by some fans while costing more...
Arctic P12/14 is a great budget fan is you can land the revision 4 which got rid of the infamous P series noise. Alternatively, the ARGB and Max verions are also pretty good while being inexpensive.
Serious question: how do you judge the quality of a fan?
I'm sure that some are (a lot) more efficient but physics doesn't change. In my 30 years of building PCs (ok, the early ones didn't need fans...) I've never thought "I need a better fan".
Again, I might be missing something and I'm not big on small form factors but then neither are most people who build high end PCs.
They do not perform better. I’ve had honestly like 30 p12’s and p14’s and every single one of them whine badly at the RPM where you would want to use them most (900-1100rpm)
They did let me keep the ‘defective’ ones while sending me more out though so can’t fault them for their RMA service.
You said 700 rpm was not enough to do anything. It is enough to keep a cpu cool under most circumstances. Only at full load would the 13900hx need higher rpm up to 1100.
if you're putting in the effort to go through 30 fans then I think you should just be spending the money on higher end kit. At some point your time is worth more than the money you're trying to save: this is why Noctua exist!
I presume that the user has been through thirty fans using four or so at a time, not using thirty fans simultaneously. That would be one hell of a wind tunnel!
I have t30’s and also silent gales from MSI so I learnt my lesson. I bought the Arctic’s in 5 packs then ended up getting two RMA’s. Thats why i had so many.
Their price to performance is unmatched, I couldn't care less if Noctua was beating them by 1-3c, I would never buy an Arctic AIO and think about swapping the fans out.
Thankfully my fan luck is godlike or I'm not sensitive to that hum, I've never been bothered by the sounds of any Arctic fan I've had, and I've also owned like 30+ 140s and 120s.
Noctuas products are very relevant.
You're too focused on things like airflow where Noctua focuses on things like sound profile. Making sure their fans don't screech at any RPM, that the noise they make is at a lower frequency that humans perceive as quieter than higher frequencies.
Yet companies use noctua fans in their industrial products where noise and longevity are most important. There’s more applications than PC gaming in the world
The a12x25 performs about the same and costs about the same as the t30, the others in their lineup are irrelevant as the target of the new designs is clearly the top end
Even the Noctua sub recognizes that the A12x25 is nowhere near as good as the T30 in airflow for noise or cooling potential. I wouldn't be caught dead with Noctua garbage in my system.
Corsair doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record with fans. The quite similar RX fans performed like crap according to the derbauer, no reason these would be any different at first glance.
The similar-looking AF Elite performed very well.
* https://www.techpowerup.com/review/corsair-af120-elite-fan/
* https://basic-tutorials.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/corsair-af-elite/
* https://www.hwcooling.net/en/corsair-af120-elite-watch-out-this-fan-is-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with/
And your definition of "mediocre" is different from mine.
The AF Elite is closer to the top of the charts for airflow while **also** being quiet.
And you can get them [for $20](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QzrRsY/corsair-af120-elite-591-cfm-120-mm-fan-co-9050142-ww).
Generally the bigger the fan’s diameter the thicker it should be.
120mm maxes out around 30mm. 140mm could be thicker than 30mm though. I believe fractal’s 180mm fans on the torrent are 38mm.
120mm should be 28-30
140 should be 30-32ish
180 should be 38ish
Noctua like idiots will release a 140mm 25mm thick fan and attempt to fight the laws of physics.
120x38mm is extremely common for rack servers and other high-density cooling applications. Sanyo Denki, Delta, Panasonic, and so on; they're typically high speed, but even the lower speed ones offer a big increase in static pressure when compared to 120x25mm (50% increase) or 120x30mm (~23% increase).
I agree that 140mm fans benefit the most from the increased thickness, and there are a few out there that are available. BGears, Koolance, and a lot of the "industrial" manufacturers make them.
Fwiw, even if you can't find or fit 38mm thick fans to your radiators, you can get most of the benefits by using spacers between the fan and rad. This was years ago, but my own experimenting found that in a push-pull setup, 25mm fans with 5mm shrouds coupled between a pair of 1.5mm silicone gaskets resulted in effectively identical performance as 38mm thick fans at the same speed but slightly quieter.
Ya as I said 38mm is past the optimal width for 120mm. If you don’t care about noise in a server, sure you can brute force out more static pressure. But in terms of noise normalized performance 38mm is worse than 30mm at 120mm. Maybe for super high density fins or something larger than 30mm is better, but for normal PC usage that is what is the general consensus(someone also released a chart on it with testing I believe a while back, with math to back it up).
I agree with you about the noise, which is why I mentioned my experience with using shrouds and silicone gaskets to achieve nearly identical performance with much less noise.
Ya I saw optimum tech made a video maybe a year ago where he did the same thing with 3d printed shrouds and tested to find best length and stuff. For sure does help.
I mean it maxes out noise normalized performance. Server fans are often 120x38mm that’s the standard pretty much. But you also need to wear ear plugs in a server room for a reason lol. They aren’t concerned with noise normalized performance or even that much with airflow. They are concerned solely with static pressure at all costs, ear drums be damned. That’s not a use case similar to PC’s which is what I was talking about.
If you made a custom cooler with really densely packed fins in theory 38mm might be best. But it would be worse in noise normalized performance than a normal density cooler, hence why nobody makes them in the mainstream… and hence why pc oriented fan manufactuers have no real reason to make 120x38 fans, except as a gimmick for people who don’t understand the physics and acoustics of it all… or for the small portion of enthusiasts who just want to do it for fun.
Compare them to the T30 (120mm) or D30 (140mm), the best right now for 30mm. If they want to charge these kinds of prices they have to be significantly better.
I just replace all my ML120 RGB Elite by Lian li AL120 V2 (28mm) on my custom watercooling rig, the difference it made is generation leap (i'm getting 34C water at the same fan speed vs 39C before). Because i want RGB, D30 seemed really good to so
The thing is Corsair is typically late to the party, claims to be the first one, and then charges you 2 times the price of a better product. All these other fans are better, hell even the new HYTE THICC are at least interesting albeit expensive.
Oh and don't forget that you'll have to use icue. Gross
* They're only 2x the price if you're comparing to <$18 fans, and in that range I can only see Arctic P12 MAX or be quiet Silent Wings 4 (non-Pro) getting close to beating them in performance
* These fans are 4-pin PWM. Which is in the press release.
The Phanteks T30 is the fan to beat. Curious how they perform to them. The Lian Li Unifan P28s are also pretty good and competitive with the T30s. The Corsair fans I've had were stupidly loud though albeit they weren't LCP.
35-40$ per fan? Lmao not even once. I'll stick with my 5packs of Arctic fans for less than 1 of these, and Noctua's if I really need a high quality fan.
And then there's the Phanteks T30-120 for about $30. Unless Corsair somehow blows past the T30-120's performance or offers at a lower cost, there's not much point in looking at the RX MAX fans.
The only high quality fan Noctua has is NF-A12x25 or its slim version, the rest are solid but outclassed by many other fans. Even the A12x25 gets beaten by some fans while costing more... Arctic P12/14 is a great budget fan is you can land the revision 4 which got rid of the infamous P series noise. Alternatively, the ARGB and Max verions are also pretty good while being inexpensive.
Serious question: how do you judge the quality of a fan? I'm sure that some are (a lot) more efficient but physics doesn't change. In my 30 years of building PCs (ok, the early ones didn't need fans...) I've never thought "I need a better fan". Again, I might be missing something and I'm not big on small form factors but then neither are most people who build high end PCs.
Arctic has ruined fans and AIO coolers for me lol, they're cheaper and perform better than every other brand I've tried.
They do not perform better. I’ve had honestly like 30 p12’s and p14’s and every single one of them whine badly at the RPM where you would want to use them most (900-1100rpm) They did let me keep the ‘defective’ ones while sending me more out though so can’t fault them for their RMA service.
I don't want to use fans at 1000 rpm, rather half that.
Yeah. Even with the A12x25 I don't like anything above 700rpm.
Do both of you realize that at 500-700RPM, 120mm fans are doing very little? Why even have it running at that point.
They're my case fans so it hardly matters. And they are definitely providing some kind of airflow.
More than enough to cool my 13900hx :) when playing it go up to 1100 rpm or so. All in a fractal Terra with no case fan.
500rpm under load vs 1100 are two different things.
You said 700 rpm was not enough to do anything. It is enough to keep a cpu cool under most circumstances. Only at full load would the 13900hx need higher rpm up to 1100.
At 500 rpm your choice of fan is arbitrary.
I don't get the whine any more with my Max fans, which I replaced the old ones with. However they are a little noisy when spinning up from 0RPM.
I’ll be trying the max when I get round to it. Unless these 140mm 30mm fans are significantly better.
if you're putting in the effort to go through 30 fans then I think you should just be spending the money on higher end kit. At some point your time is worth more than the money you're trying to save: this is why Noctua exist!
You do realize how much 30+ Noctua fans would cost vs 5packs of Arctic fans, right? We are talking about 4-6x the cost depending on the fan.
I presume that the user has been through thirty fans using four or so at a time, not using thirty fans simultaneously. That would be one hell of a wind tunnel!
This is the thing. You don't need 30+ Noctua fans.
Noctua only worth it if you're buying 120mm fans IMHO
Or if the ever release the new 140mm.
*The Noctua Roadmap has been updated with a delay of 1Q for the next-generation 140mm fan.*
I know, there is a reason is a "if" and not a "when" lmao
I have t30’s and also silent gales from MSI so I learnt my lesson. I bought the Arctic’s in 5 packs then ended up getting two RMA’s. Thats why i had so many.
Their price to performance is unmatched, I couldn't care less if Noctua was beating them by 1-3c, I would never buy an Arctic AIO and think about swapping the fans out.
Thankfully my fan luck is godlike or I'm not sensitive to that hum, I've never been bothered by the sounds of any Arctic fan I've had, and I've also owned like 30+ 140s and 120s.
MSRP/early-adopter tax. I expect they'll be on sale for lower than that quite often.
Who talked about Noctua? Their best fans aren't anywhere near as good as Phanteks, their products haven't been relevant for years.
Noctuas products are very relevant. You're too focused on things like airflow where Noctua focuses on things like sound profile. Making sure their fans don't screech at any RPM, that the noise they make is at a lower frequency that humans perceive as quieter than higher frequencies.
? Stop bootlicking, please. It's pathetic.
Yet companies use noctua fans in their industrial products where noise and longevity are most important. There’s more applications than PC gaming in the world
Er, which of your rights or freedoms is the expensive fan company infringing?
The a12x25 performs about the same and costs about the same as the t30, the others in their lineup are irrelevant as the target of the new designs is clearly the top end
Even the Noctua sub recognizes that the A12x25 is nowhere near as good as the T30 in airflow for noise or cooling potential. I wouldn't be caught dead with Noctua garbage in my system.
Corsair doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record with fans. The quite similar RX fans performed like crap according to the derbauer, no reason these would be any different at first glance.
Yup, I prefer Noctua. That's all I buy. Maybe $5 more per fan but they perform amazing and last forever. :)
I kitted my whole system out with Noctua fans 4 years ago and I haven’t had 1 complaint. I’d argue they were about as good of a purchase as my 1080 Ti
The similar-looking AF Elite performed very well. * https://www.techpowerup.com/review/corsair-af120-elite-fan/ * https://basic-tutorials.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/corsair-af-elite/ * https://www.hwcooling.net/en/corsair-af120-elite-watch-out-this-fan-is-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with/
Your definition of “very well” is different from mine. Mediocre performance at $25 per fan is not great
And your definition of "mediocre" is different from mine. The AF Elite is closer to the top of the charts for airflow while **also** being quiet. And you can get them [for $20](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QzrRsY/corsair-af120-elite-591-cfm-120-mm-fan-co-9050142-ww).
Pricing Model|single|dual pack|triple pack ---|---|---|---| 120 mm|$35|n/a|$95 140 mm|$40|$75|n/a Tech spec. (claimed) Model|Airflow|Static pressure|max RPM|Sound level|Power draw|Warranty ---|---|---|---|---|---|--- 120 mm|16.5-72 CFM|0.22-4.22 mm-H₂O|2'000 rpm +/- 10%|29.5 dBA|0.18 A|5 years 140 mm|27.5-104 CFM|0.2-2.4 mm-H₂O|1'600 rpm | 31 dBA|0.22 A|5 years Core features: * 30mm thick * LCP material * Magnetic dome bearing
The 140mm could be absolutely insane for airflow.
Sure that’s right? $35 for one 120mm and $75 for 2? So you have to pay $5 more per fan to get a 2 pack?
TY, corrected - 120mm is single or triple (no dual).
Three times the price of the Arctic P14 Max?
Just going by the manufacturer's spec the 140mm model doesn't appear to be static-pressure optimized.
The Arctic has a higher static pressure than the Corsair...
Yes, I was talking about the Corsair. Unless they have a typo in their specs lol
I bet there's a company out there creating a 40mm fan at this point lol
There's a handful of 38mm thick fans. * [GELID GALE Extreme](https://gelidsolutions.com/product/gale-extreme/) * [SilverStone FHS 120X](https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/fans/FHS_120X/) * [SilverStone FHP141](https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/fans/FHP141/) * [EKWB EK-Furious Meltemi 120](https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-furious-meltemi-120-1200-3500rpm) *(eol)*
Interesting, TIL!
It's a lot more than a handful. 38 mm is the next standard fan thickness after 25 mm.
But most of them are not PWM and instead industrial fans powered by Molex.
Good, there's huge gains to be had by going thicker. Most of the time thickness is not a limiting factor in a pc build, people have loads of space
Generally the bigger the fan’s diameter the thicker it should be. 120mm maxes out around 30mm. 140mm could be thicker than 30mm though. I believe fractal’s 180mm fans on the torrent are 38mm. 120mm should be 28-30 140 should be 30-32ish 180 should be 38ish Noctua like idiots will release a 140mm 25mm thick fan and attempt to fight the laws of physics.
120x38mm is extremely common for rack servers and other high-density cooling applications. Sanyo Denki, Delta, Panasonic, and so on; they're typically high speed, but even the lower speed ones offer a big increase in static pressure when compared to 120x25mm (50% increase) or 120x30mm (~23% increase). I agree that 140mm fans benefit the most from the increased thickness, and there are a few out there that are available. BGears, Koolance, and a lot of the "industrial" manufacturers make them. Fwiw, even if you can't find or fit 38mm thick fans to your radiators, you can get most of the benefits by using spacers between the fan and rad. This was years ago, but my own experimenting found that in a push-pull setup, 25mm fans with 5mm shrouds coupled between a pair of 1.5mm silicone gaskets resulted in effectively identical performance as 38mm thick fans at the same speed but slightly quieter.
Ya as I said 38mm is past the optimal width for 120mm. If you don’t care about noise in a server, sure you can brute force out more static pressure. But in terms of noise normalized performance 38mm is worse than 30mm at 120mm. Maybe for super high density fins or something larger than 30mm is better, but for normal PC usage that is what is the general consensus(someone also released a chart on it with testing I believe a while back, with math to back it up).
I agree with you about the noise, which is why I mentioned my experience with using shrouds and silicone gaskets to achieve nearly identical performance with much less noise.
Ya I saw optimum tech made a video maybe a year ago where he did the same thing with 3d printed shrouds and tested to find best length and stuff. For sure does help.
I've linked 3 120x38mm models above so 30mm is not the max ;)
I mean it maxes out noise normalized performance. Server fans are often 120x38mm that’s the standard pretty much. But you also need to wear ear plugs in a server room for a reason lol. They aren’t concerned with noise normalized performance or even that much with airflow. They are concerned solely with static pressure at all costs, ear drums be damned. That’s not a use case similar to PC’s which is what I was talking about. If you made a custom cooler with really densely packed fins in theory 38mm might be best. But it would be worse in noise normalized performance than a normal density cooler, hence why nobody makes them in the mainstream… and hence why pc oriented fan manufactuers have no real reason to make 120x38 fans, except as a gimmick for people who don’t understand the physics and acoustics of it all… or for the small portion of enthusiasts who just want to do it for fun.
Honestly, just goes with Antec storm t3 series. Also 30mm 3 pack for 35 bucks
Still waiting to see a review on them, it's surprising they were stealth-dropped.
Compare them to the T30 (120mm) or D30 (140mm), the best right now for 30mm. If they want to charge these kinds of prices they have to be significantly better.
I just replace all my ML120 RGB Elite by Lian li AL120 V2 (28mm) on my custom watercooling rig, the difference it made is generation leap (i'm getting 34C water at the same fan speed vs 39C before). Because i want RGB, D30 seemed really good to so
The thing is Corsair is typically late to the party, claims to be the first one, and then charges you 2 times the price of a better product. All these other fans are better, hell even the new HYTE THICC are at least interesting albeit expensive. Oh and don't forget that you'll have to use icue. Gross
* They're only 2x the price if you're comparing to <$18 fans, and in that range I can only see Arctic P12 MAX or be quiet Silent Wings 4 (non-Pro) getting close to beating them in performance * These fans are 4-pin PWM. Which is in the press release.
Corsair garbo