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Review on ๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Antec PF12 Series 5-Pack: High Performance 120mm PC Case Fans with 3-pin Connector by Brian Krump

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Works great, a minor annoyance

They work well, more than quiet enough for my purposes, and it's a decent deal. The included Molex PC fan adapters are also useful, especially for projects that don't necessarily involve building your next gaming tower. My only complaint is that these fans do NOT have little indicator arrows to tell you which way the airflow is blowing! When they are there, it's really, really hidden in a weird place, the markers aren't very visible and/or they use some non-standard icons or other markers to show it. It's NOT IMPOSSIBLE to figure this out by looking at the shape of the blades or just plugging them in and watching them spin, but it's frustrating when you're just trying to make sure you just have to put something together. ONCE. It really annoys me when components don't just put industry standard icons on things. It's not about whether it's POSSIBLE to figure out how something works or how to install it, it's about wanting quiet and ease of use. I'm working on a project that already has 1000 things that could go wrong and I need to go back and double check and still doubt if something as simple as FAN is set correctly which just slows me down and overwhelms my limited skills . the ability to mentally manage all moving parts of the project. It's like you've ever cut a multi-pin cable sleeve so you can splice it or solder it to a breakout board or whatever, only to find out the manufacturer decided to use wires of the same color or just a custom one Color to use for this type of cable. Or, for example, open the battery cover to find that there is absolutely no mark for the positive and negative batteries to face each other. Of course I can take a multimeter and figure out which wires are which and then put tape or some other marker on the wires and yes you can look at the battery compartment and usually tell which way the batteries are inserted by which pages you look at. there are feathers. But the problem is, what is so stupid and frankly just lazy and cheap behavior on the part of the manufacturers just slows me down and gives me another stupid, unnecessary thing to think about and possibly be wrong about. It's frustrating. And I don't care if it's in the manual or on the box, components like that INDEVENTLY end up in the parts box and are likely to be used over and over in various projects, and that guide and box will long be gone after that first one. And telling me to tag it myself (which I did) doesn't change the fact that the manufacturer didn't. Incidentally, the fan blows sideways with the help of small plastic crossbars that hold the motor in place. If your fans have these marks, that's great. I assure you none of the ones in my box had them. Maybe it's a disadvantage. I doubt. Otherwise I am very happy with them. They are very quiet for the price. They're certainly not Noctua fans, but when everything else on the bench squeaks and whines to no end, I really just need fans that don't ADD more noise, which they do very well for the price. 4/5

Pros
  • Pleasant
Cons
  • Appearance