Thermalright Case Fans

[NightReaver]

Alright, so we all know about the Thermalright air coolers, great stuff. But what about the fans specifically?

Well my wife's PC needed a gutting for diagnosing an issue and this turned into a full out cleaning and reassessing functionality while I was at it. Inside were 5x140 fans of random makes and models that I had lying around 2 years ago so I decided alright....what does a set of decent 140s go for nowadays? I proceed to jump on Amazon and look for a set of Arctic P14s since last time I bought fans that was the budget champ. Still about $8 a pop, great...but delivery times were a week+ out. No go.

So I decided to check Thermalright. I see their argb 140s for $11 which is fine. But then I see a 3 pack for $18 and I can get 2 packs for 8am deliivery.

Score.

I did not check any online reviews for these fans before hand, I just wanted to grab something decent for a general-use PC, no heavy gaming or anything. I've not installed them yet because I'm waiting for another item before digging back into it. As for out of the box impressions? Quite impressed. Plastic frame seems thick and reinforced, very little twist/flex to it (I've bought some very cheap fans in the past that were quite flimsy). A good weight to them, rubber pads in the corners. Both power and argb cables have female leads as well for daisy chaining. All in all, much like their coolers, I'm extremely impressed with the level of quality from Thermalright for the price. Literally $6 for a solid 140mm argb fan? Waaaaaaaay back when I used to pay that for Rosewill 120s that were made out of the most brittle plastic imaginable.

Once I get them in and going I'll give some opinions about noise and whatnot.

 

[rufio]

Sounds like you found a pretty nice deal, interested to hear your findings. I recently replaced the stock front fans in my Fractal North XL with three TL-C14CW, and the noise profile dropped from borderline obnoxious, to barely audible. Already had two other TL-C14 in the case as exhaust. Average price per fan was ~$7.50. In my estimation these are about 90% of the performance/noise ratio of the 5x Noctua NF-P14s in my server case which were 2x the price (on sale).

 

[GotNoRice]

They are good fans for the price. They should last a fair number of years.

I think it just comes down to expectations. Their Fluid-Dynamic-Bearings are ultimately just another variation of fancy sleeve/rifle bearings. I would expect that you would get a solid 5 years out of them, most likely longer in most situations. But they aren't going to last 20+ years like an industrial dual-ball-bearing fan.

Also, some of their older fans had a somewhat unpleasant noise. Not that they were noisy overall in terms of pure decibels, but the type of noise that they made was just a bit off... But their newer fans are better.

 

[pendragon1]

yup, good bang-for-buck, like arctics. and i dont feel like im being bent over on price....

 

[shleepy]

Thermalright really is great for the price, typically.
From what I remember, their older fans, at least, sometimes had noise issues at lower speeds, but it depends on the model. I'm guessing the newer ones are close to being competitive with Noctua?

 

[pendragon1]

Thermalright really is great for the price, typically.
From what I remember, their older fans, at least, sometimes had noise issues at lower speeds, but it depends on the model. I'm guessing the newer ones are close to being competitive with Noctua?

perf/noise wise, yes.

 

[NightReaver]

Saw they also make an "Extreme" model for up to 3k rpm. Grabbed one and will test it against a Noctua IPPC 3k for future watercooling. TR fan was $14, Noctua was $28. PerformancePCs has some wonderful Koolance 120x38s on sale for only $12 if I want some 4k rpm, cut your fingers off action lol.

 

[GotNoRice]

Saw they also make an "Extreme" model for up to 3k rpm.

I got one to try it. It's definitely very loud at full blast. I run relatively noisy fans on a fairly aggressive fan curve, but that fan was noisy even for me. You can use a fan curve to keep a fan like that quiet most of the time, but if you don't actually need the airflow it provides at full blast, or aren't willing to live with the noise it creates at full blast, then you're probably better off just getting a less powerful fan.

It might be okay if you always use headphones that really block or cancel external noises. Other than that I'd only consider it for stuff like servers that are located in other rooms, or maybe in niche situations like cases that ONLY have one 120mm fan intake and you absolutly need as much CFM from that single fan as possible.

 

[NightReaver]

You can use a fan curve to keep a fan like that quiet most of the time, but if you don't actually need the airflow it provides at full blast, or aren't willing to live with the noise it creates at full blast, then you're probably better off just getting a less powerful fan.

I tend to go overkill on fans because of the radiators I have. I don't intend to run them at full blast, but I like having the option if I just want to rev em' up for some fun

 

[Strange bird]

I recently bought their CPU fan, it's ok, I took 2 fans out of the case but I got the same or more irritating noise again.
Maybe that thermalright is noisy, but I don't know how it would be when it doesn't even go over 1300rpm most of the time.

I moved the noctua s12b redux 1200rpm to the bottom of the case and it became terribly loud, I don't know why.
I can't seem to get good airflow in the inwin303 case, no matter what I do it's not good at all, the case is great with great quality materials but it doesn't absorb sound at all.
That sticker on the box was removed, when I checked if it was legit, it was
On the thermalright site.
I Have this thermalright fan
https://www.amazon.de/Thermalright-...2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfbXRm&psc=1

 

[NightReaver]

Alright so I hooked up both the Noctua IPPC and Thermalright "Extrem" to a 360mm HWLabs GTR radiator, known for it's air flow appetite. I did the not-so-scientific test of tape an equally sized piece of paper on the other side of the rad from the fan and see how high it gets pushed up. Honestly they were about the same, though it felt like the TR was pushing a tad more air through the rad than the Noctua. This was later confirmed after finding a proper review where it edged out the T30, which in itself was fairly close to the Noctua 3k.

I will say the one I got makes a pretty noticeable whining when going full blast, but at 3k rpm loud is loud and when backed down to the usual 2k max I use fans at it was gone. I'd say the TR is no more more noticeable than the Noctua throughout the rpm range, but I live in a hardly quiet environment and am very used to background noise so make of that what you will.

All in all half price for similar performance to the Noctua IPPC 3k is pretty sweet. I'd gladly toss some on my rads whenever I get the loop back up and running with even more rads. I'll have to test it against the horde of ML120 pros I already have lying around.

 

[chameleoneel]

NightReaver for clarity, which model fans did you buy and test on the 360 radiator?

 

[NightReaver]

NightReaver for clarity, which model fans did you buy and test on the 360 radiator?

Thermalright: TL-B12 "Extrem"

Noctua: NF-F12 IPPC 3k

Tomorrow I also have a Superflower fan arriving. I had no idea they even made fans, but after seeing their "MegaCool 120" put out some very nice performance numbers I was interested in trying one out first hand. I found a youtube channel yesterday where I discovered this fan, and I like the testing he does:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ_nY0MsJVk

Not wild about it needing the remote to use the high speed option, but we'll see. I generally like the work Superflower does.

 

[NightReaver]

Okay so I threw the Superflower onto the GTR rad and wow, that thing moves air. It is a 30mm thick fan so I'd say it's just a better Phanteks T30. I wanted to try a T30 but it's just way too far outside of what I'm willing to pay for a fan at $30+ a pop. Even at $25 (buying mutipacks on newegg), the Superflower is bit of hard buy vs the $15 thermalright.

I'm still a bit put off about needing a remote to "unlock" the 3150 rpm setting on the SF fan. At least once you do, it's still fully controllable via fan curve and I guess if you buy enough of the things you're always going to have remotes lying around. I like that they have a female connector on the power cable for daisy chaining unlike the other two. Also it's right next to the fan, and the male lead is just long enough to plug into an adjacent fan so multiples should be a pretty clean setup with just a single extension coming off the last fan. Might be the biggest selling point to be tbh. I always like the idea of Lian Li unifans...but again they're usually just far outside of what I'm willing to pay for a fan.

Oh, and they don't make a whining noise like the thermalright...but who knows, maybe a dud. Just a loud wind wooshing noise at full blast (pretty quiet for me a 2k though which is nice). Louder than the noctua, but that's the price of moving more air through a high resistance radiator.

*edit* Butchered that last sentence, damn.

*edit 2* You know, I never looked at a T30 and I swear these things really are just a cheaper, improved T30. Almost looks like an exact copy outside of not having an rpm switch and some frame design differences.