Review on Highfine 12cm 120mm 200CFM 4000RPM DC 12V 3-Pin 3-Wire CPU Cooling Fan FFC1212DE for PC Computer Case with Finger Guard Grill by Tony Andrews

VERY IMPRESSIVE! I've seen shop fans not blowing air that much. I thought I had to strap on my computer, if it had wings I definitely would! Okay, seriously, this thing makes LOTS of air AND LOTS of noise. They go hand in hand as we all know or should know. The main problem with this is that it doesn't work below 48% power, so more than 2000 rpm! So yes, you will hear it! Anything lower just won't make it spin. If you want to avoid noise as much as possible, you can end up with a fairly aggressive power curve, like 50% at around 55C or around 131F. This generally knocks it out until you really need it. Before adding this fan, I ran a P95 stress test on my computer and after about 2.5 hours my CPU got past liquid cooling and system overheat shutdown. I added this fan to push more air through the heatsink into my case and it works great! Since my curve is set fairly high and the heat built up so quickly before the fan had a chance to spin, my system hit 175° in seconds when I turned the P95 back on. But the fan brought it back up to about 155°C in about 15 seconds at full speed, and the temperature was still slowly dropping when I finished the stress test. For comparison, I have an Intel i7 4770 overclocked to 4 GHz. Rendering large 3D scenes and video editing are no problem. When rendering scenes, my system used to go from 115° idle to 145° and then slowly to about 155° max. No, it idles at about 98° and never gets above 135° unless I'm benchmarking or stress tests. I can certainly handle the noise, as well as the confidence that when my system needs air, it's available in abundance! The Asus fan controller clocks a top speed of 4337 rpm. And the power range is from 30% to 100%. When spinning, the power can be reduced by up to about 40%. But at one point, less than 48% don't start.