Corsair SP Series, SP120 RGB LED, 120mm High Performance RGB LED Fan (CO-9050060-WW)

Pros: Interesting lighting effects/colors. Despite some negative comments by other reviewers, I found the colors/effects to be pleasing . . . and I am a 71-year old geek, e.g., the white blades literally "glow" with color, and the LACK of brightness appealed to me, i.e., the colors and intensity are not garish. Usual Corsair quality and workmanship. Quiet, with very good air movement.

Cons: Poor written instructions/descriptions for a generally simple product. Will handle up to six fans, but each will require its own motherboard 3-pin power connector or Molex-to-3-pin splitter - none included.

Overall Review: The "SPEED " control DOES NOT control the speed of the fan, it controls the SPEED OF THE LIGHTING EFFECTS. This is not totally clear in the Newegg listing narrative or the instructions.

Pros: The HD140 RGB PWM series fans from corsair are well built and are really quite amazing to look at. This package included two HD 140mm rgb fans. One RGB LED 3 button controller. A 6port RGB LED hub. 8Mounting screws and a user manual. The fans themselves have a great look to them. There are 12 LED's per fan and between each fan there are roughly 6notches in the clear plastic that I believe help the blending of the light from each LED. There are rubber sound dampeners on each corner and each side of the fans. The colors are bright and for the most part I am impressed with color accuracy. The colors include white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. There are 7 unique lighting effects ranging from simple color changes to “ALL ON MODE” that runs through all the lighting effects using all the colors. Installation was not overly difficult. I started by mounting the 3button LED controller in a place that would work well for me. I chose inside the side window panel of my NZXT H440 case. Yes, it does fit under the padding on the window side panel. (For me, remove the side panel. Adjust lighting. Put the panel back on.) I think it was pretty nice that the wire for the LED controller disconnects from the LED hub. Getting the fan hub through one of the small case holes would have been a challenge. Having the ability to disconnect it made it real easy to feed the wire through a small hole. I then mounted the fan hub out of site making sure to leave enough room to plug the fans in. Its important that you plug the LED part of the fan wires in sequence. Fan 1 into port 1, Fan 2 into port 2. etc. I then plugged the fans into open ports on my motherboard. The fans are rated at 1350rpm's. I am seeing max fan speeds, 1 fan at 1490rpm and the other at 1510rpm after adjusting the fans to full speed in my bios. Pleasantly surprised to see they were faster than specs showed. I am using them to replace the 3 120mm stock fans in my case and think that the extra speed will help to push more cool air into the case. However, just like the stock fans, positive air pressure could not be achieved without removing the front panel of the H440 case. (I just think its time for a custom cutout mod) The fans are not overly loud and there is no whining.

Cons: The first con I can think of is I would have liked to have seen a fan splitter included with this package, but I understand why there wasn't one included. This 2fan kit is intended to be an introductory kit that you would add on to. Perhaps buying 2 or 3 more fans, perhaps of different sizes. After all they didn't include a 6port LED hub for nothing. A couple of the lighting effects cycles through each fan in sequence, this is why its important to plug the fans in a particular order. Imagine having 6 fans that the LED starts in the rear while all the others are off and then cycles all the way to the front. It would really be quite the sight. Another issue that I saw with the fans were that the orange looked a bit washed out, more like yellow and the violet looked very faded, more like an off white. Of course that's just opinion, my son said they looked good. Two fans are not enough. The most impressive of the lighting effects are not intended to be on a single fan and are not that well displayed on two. This kit makes me wanting more. Is that a con?

Overall Review: Overall I am really impressed with these fans. NO cons are worth me dropping any eggs for. Some user suggestions I have are not peeling the mounting tape until your absolutely positive you have the hubs setup the way you want. These fans are really best displayed where they can be seen through an open window. I have them mounted in the front of my NZXT H440 case where you can see the lights, but not the fans themselves. Seeing the fans make for a much better experience. I have every intention of cutting my front panel. I need the airflow and I need to see these fans! Another thing that I want to mention here is that upon doing some research I found that there is a corsair lighting node pro that allows you to more customize the lighting of these fans. I am speculating that the kits can work together and they work with the corsair link software. I have the corsair H100i-v2 and perhaps some day I will try it out. I would prefer to only run the colors red, white and blue and I believe this kit will allow you to do that. Great Job Corsair!

Pros: + Great air flow + Solid construction + Ridiculous amount of customization + Controller has the ability to add up to 6 fans + Long cables provide very flexible mounting options + Controller is pretty easy to use and gives you full control of all LIGHTING (only lighting!)

Cons: - The LED's in one of my fans seems to be defective, I'll go into that more in the Other section, but I will open a ticket with Corsair and I know they'll take care of it, so not docking any Eggs due to that - Can't control the actual fan speed through the controller, but all fans are PWM-ready do no big deal there - Doesn't interface with existing Corsair Link systems - that would have been really nice! - Like another reviewer said, these are thicker than your standard 140mm fans, might require some "modification" to get them to fit in stock locations - The fans are kind of loud, at least louder than my stock Corsair case fans - No way to turn the LED's off

Overall Review: I've noticed about a 3-5C drop in case temps using these fans vs. the stock 140mm fans that came with my Corsair 750D. Like another review said, I had to do some modification on the fans themselves to get them to fit with the stock screws. I had to break off the 16 black plastic tabs in the corner of each fan. I haven't noticed any loss of performance and there's really not noticeable increase in noise, vibration, or harshness in doing this. The rubber insulating tab are still on there, so no issues there. Just very surprising you need to modify a Corsair fan to fit on a Corsair case... kind of weird. Anyway, the fans themselves perform great, the RGB lighting is very cool, but like I said above the LED's in one of my fans flicker terribly and there doesn't seem to be a way to get them to settle on the same color - only literally RGB, red, green, or blue. I also can't seem to get them to settle on white (which is what I'd like to use as all the other LED's in my build are white) but I have a feeling that an issue with that single fan or the controller or cables. I plan on opening a ticket with Corsair support (who have always been absolutely amazing to me) and I'm sure it'll be corrected so I'm not docking any Eggs for that quite yet. I will definitely revisit this review once that's resolved. So these fans definitely fit a niche, one that I'm not really apart of (I prefer performance and quiet over noise and panache, granted I would have KILLED for these fans in my early 2000's builds!), but they definitely will compliment a ton of builds out there. The RGB craze doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon, so if you're looking for a completely customizable build that you can modify on the fly, scoop these fans up. You can attach up to 6 so the possibilities are pretty endless as to what you can do with them! Overall, I'm giving this fan kit 4 our of 5 Eggs - I subtracted one egg for the lack of fan speed control, and the fact you can't really turn the LED's off! EDIT: 8/28/2017 - took a little bit of time, but Corsair replaced the defective fan and everything is working as intended now.

Pros: Well packaged inside includes: 3 SP120 RGB fans 1 fan hub that can connect up to 6 of these bad boys 1 controller panel for the hub that has optional cables for external control(more on this later) Fans are quiet enough you can hear them moving but it's not loud loud by any stretch. Documentation and enough screws for all 3 fans All the wires have healthy lengths to them to ensure proper fitment in all cases and the controller panel and the hub both have double sided sticky pads to attach them anywhere you see fit.

Cons: No rubber pads on the fans to reduce vibration noise Because fans are RGB they have 2 wires coming from them, 1 of which you use to connect to the included fan hub the other plugs into a regular fan header on your motherboard for optional power gain

Overall Review: This fan hub is pretty unique. Connected to the 6 port fan hub is the controller panel, with it you can control speed, color of rgbs, and mode of the color. In addition to the controller panel, you get 3 little 2 prong wires that can attach to the controller that you can use say your power button header on your motherboard to connect it to, when you do this pressing your power button would change the mode or speed or color (whatever wire is attached) externally without having to open your case, you can also use any sort of basic wiring with a ground and power to on some sort of switch to do this as well so modders can be creative. Currently the fan modes are: Breathing, Flickering and static. Speed modes are simply high medium or low As for colors, it's RGB so any basic color there is. I enjoy this product, it was a bit extensive to plug in some fans and get them going but rgbs look good and ive mounted my controller outside my case so i can change my settings at any time.

Pros: Transparent fan blades look great RGB LEDs Reasonably quiet at 1400rpm Thin black fan wires SP fan works well on radiators Powered by SATA and not molex 2 year warranty

Cons: Only 4 hub mounted RGB LEDs No rubber dampers in the corners 2 wires per fan Controlled via 3 button wired controller not software! Fan not PWM controlled Large fan hub No 140mm matching fan No rainbow mode

Overall Review: Changing fan color when I change cases or theme is something that I have done countless times over the last few years. I have a collection of different color fans in my workshop that I keep in reserve for different builds. Having said this some fans work well as case fans and not so well sitting on radiators. My current radiator fan of choice is the plain vanilla SP120 quiet edition. My current theme is red and black and I have 120 and 140mm red LED Aerocool fans installed in my case for color. I am changing to a white and blue theme in the next few weeks and would have needed to buy new white or blue LED fans. Now I don't have to worry about buying new fans every time I change my theme or worry about low static pressure for radiator mounting as I have the Corsair SP120 RGB fans. These fans push out a static pressure of 1.45mmH2O at 1400rpm and are slightly quieter than my older SP120 QE fans that pushed out 1.29mmH2O at 1450rpm. When I opened the box, I was initially a little dismayed by the 2 small black plastic boxes (fan hub and controller) and all of the wires! Each fan gets 2 wires, one that needs to go in to the fan hub and the second wire that needs to be inserted in to a 3 pin fan header (for power). The fan hub can accept up to 6 fans and needs to be powered from a spare sata connector. Once the controller box gets plugged in to the fan hub the fun can begin. There are 3 buttons on the controller box, mode color and speed. There are 7 colors; white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, 4 modes; breathing, flicker, static, breathing and flicker and 3 speeds; high, medium and slow. Breathing and flicker modes are fun, but I found that static worked best for me and was able to cycle through all of the various colors that represented any theme that I have used or might like to use. The fans were reasonably quiet at full speed and the LED’s were nice and bright and even, the colors were powerful even in a brightly lit room. I would have liked the option of rainbow mode to match my RGB keyboard and mouse but this is only reserved for the more expensive HD120 RGB fans. Be aware that the speed button only affects the speed of the lighting animation and not the actual speed of the fan. As far as cooling was concerned I replaced the original SP120 fans on my water cooling radiators with these fans and noticed no changes in overall GPU or CPU temperatures. To my ears the fans are slightly quieter than the original SP120 fans when running at full speed. Having said this both fans are not what I would call loud at 1400 and 1450rpm respectively. The biggest issue for me with these fans is the lack of software control! Having a 3 button controller is nice in theory, but where do you mount the controller box where it is easy to get to and not ugly to look at? Either inside your case and accept that every time you want to change the color, speed or mode you have to open up your case and fiddle with the controller box, or mount the box and wires outside the case and then deal with the ugly esthetics of a controller box stuck on the outside of your case! 1 egg off for no software control. All in all, I like these fans; they work well, are quiet and look great. I don’t consider them expensive, they should last well and come with a full 2 year warranty.

Pros: This single fan without a controller is intended as an add-on to the main kit which includes two fans plus a lighting controller. Corsair HD RGB fans cater to the PC builder who is into RGB lighting with fine control and is willing to pay a premium price to get it. This HD 140 RGB seems sturdily constructed, and has thin blades plus some rubbery corner pads to reduce noise and vibration. Variable speed range allows quiet (slow r.p.m.) running, a lot of air flow, or anything in between. The lights are attractive and not too garish when I viewed them on another computer.

Cons: Price; it's way too expensive considering it doesn't include a lighting controller! Even if you buy it WITH the Corsair controller it won't control the fan's speed. Where's the "unified" controller software to handle all Corsair's products including RGB fans, RGB keyboards, RGB mice, and RGB RAM kits. Corsair Link was a good start on that path, but it needs to handle EVERYTHING not just a select few items in the Corsair line.

Overall Review: I received this fan for review by itself without a lighting controller. I have a Corsair K70 RGB backlit keyboard which can be used with or without Corsair's Utility Engine software (CUE) to control lighting options of the keyboard. What a shame that software doesn't also control these Corsair HD RGB fans. Unlike the Corsair Air series SP fans, this HD RGB fan has no lighting at all without the controller. Therefore, I can report on the fan's function but not on the variety of it's lighting. Fortunately, previous experience of some other 140mm top-mounted fans provides a basis for comparison general performance. All four 140mm top fans are run at "Standard" fan curve setting in BIOS, resulting in approx. 1080 rpm except for the Antec which is set on Low which runs at approx. 800 rpm off of a Molex connector. At these settings the cpu temperature (checked with HWMonitor utility from CPUID) was nearly identical regardless of which fan was in use. The case also has 2 x 120mm front intake fans (Corsair Air SP 120) and 1 x Antec 120mm 2-speed rear exhaust fan. Since the cooling performance was so similar, that leaves noise and reliability for me to report on. Each fan is clearly audible with PC mounted so that the top panel is at about waist level when I'm seated in my chair about 3 feet away. Fans blowing out the rear of the case are usually less audible, as i'm sure you know. Here's a rundown of how they perform: 1. Original Antec two-speed 140mm top fan supplied with the case circa 2011 - reasonably quiet at Low 800 rpm and moves air OK. 2. Cougar 140mm fan. reasonably quiet with OK airflow for about two weeks. Then fan bearings began to grumble and rattle. Replaced by Cougar, but same bearing noise occurred within a short time. When mounted vertically like a rear exhaust fan there was no audible bearing noise. Conclusion: Cougar design unsuited to horizontal mounting. 3. Arctic Cool 140mm PWM fan. Worked as quietly as the Antec even though it ran at about 1080 rpm compared to Antec at 800 rpm. Felt like it moved a little more air, too. After about 5 months it developed increasing bearing noise, sounding different than the Cougar noise, yet equally annoying. Again, the bearing design does not seem to be suited for horizontal mounting. 4. Corsair HD 140 RGB 140mm fan. Running for just a few weeks the bearings seem OK so far, no funny noises. However, it is slightly noisier in general than either the Arctic Cool PWM or the Antec 2-speed. The airflow is OK, no problem there. If the bearings become noisier over time i will report back with an update. Finally, I should note that without any top fan running, the cpu temp. was on average 3 degrees C. hotter and about 4 degrees C. hotter when gaming for an hour or more. Conclusion: it's worth having a top fan to maintain cooler temps. for a Core i7 extreme edition cpu!

Pros: Corsairs fans are typically very expensive compared to your typical case fan. However, at least you can be certain you're getting a quality product when you buy a Corsair fan. I'm determined to only use Corsair fans on my personal builds. Cooling is a bit of an obsession of mine. I have liquid cooling on my CPU and graphics cards with 3 huge radiators, 2 pumps and reservoirs and high end Corsair fans on each of my radiators. These fans are still the high quality you would expect from Corsair. But with these fans, you trade off performance for a light show. If you're building or modifying a PC and you want some decent fans that have custom lighting, then buying this 3 pack makes sense. Although, I would typically only use these fans as case fans. Opposed to radiators, high static pressure isn't as important with case fans where the air pressure in your case is equalized. If you have an intake or an exhaust fan that will have to fight positive or negative pressure then it could be useful. Ordinarily, with a well laid out cooling configuration in your case, maximum air flow with as little noise as possible is typically the desired fan profile. Which is what you'll be getting with these fans. These fans are actually very quiet, even at their maximum speed

Cons: Corsair doesn't give us the full details of this fans speed. I found that when hooked up to a fan controller, I could control the fans speed and at full speed it moved a decent amount of air. According to Corsair these fans operate at 1400 RPMs. I don't know if that's their top speed or not. I can tell you that they definitely don't operate near the same top speed as the high performance edition SP120s. I hooked up one of each side by side and the standard SP120 was moving quite a bit more air at max speed.

Overall Review: Each fan has a cable that needs to be connected to the primary controller Corsair included with this kit and you'll need a 3 pin fan header, adapter or fan controller for each fan and a single SATA power output. I was glad to see Corsair uses the SATA cable for power as I literally have every one of my Molex in use. The fan blades won't spin with power to the 3 pin connector as the SATA power input only powers the lighting feature. The controller in this kit can control up to 6 SP series RGB fans. The SP lighting controller has 3 buttons to control Effect speed, color and effect mode. The lighting controller has pass through for button headers to control the 3 options. You can hook them up to your front panel headers for use with a power or reset button on your case or buttons with a similar 2 pin connector. These fans have 7 different colors. White, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and a mix of all colors. There are 4 different modes to select from. Flicker, Breathing, breathing and flicker and static color modes. The speed button changes the speed of the lighting effects. It has nothing to do with the fans RPMs. I like the brighter colors, they give the same type of appearance as a cars rim on the highway. The way they appear to shift directions at speed while you watch, even though their speed remains constant. The only effect I really like is the breathing effect. Too bad there's not a wave effect to match my RGB keyboard and mouse. I find the flicker distracting. The color change mode where it cycles through all the colors is also nice. Especially since all 3 fans shift colors in sync with each other. SP120 RGB Fan Specs: Airflow: 52 cfm Fan Speed: 1400 RPMs @12v Noise Level: 26 db Static Pressure: 1.45 mm/h2o HD120 RGB Fan Specs: Airflow: 54 cfm Fan Speed: 800-1725 RPMs @12v Noise Level: 18-30 db Static Pressure: 2.25 mm/h2o SP120 High Performance Series Specs: Airflow: 63 cfm Fan Speed: 2350 RPMs Max @12v Noise Level: 35 db Static Pressure: 3.1 mm/h2o This 3 pack is different from the Corsair HD120 RGB fans. The HD120 RGB fans are more suited towards cooling, with the only sacrifice made being noise levels and a higher cost per fan. The HD120s also have a superior build quality with more options for lighting effects. Given that each fan has 2 cables you need to have connected at the same time, you need to plan your layout ahead of time or risk not having enough cable length to reach some places. Both the primary controller and the SP lighting controller have double sided tape on the back so you can mount them anywhere tape will stick. Corsair does give us a decent amount of cable to work with though, with 24 inches per cable. If you're looking for a high quality RGB fan to cool your radiator then I would skip these and get the HD120 RGB series fans instead. If cooling is more important to you than RGB lighting, then the High Performance Series SP120s are the better option. But above all those options the Corsair Magnetic Levitation series fans are far superior. I have 2 sets of the standard SP120 fans and 2 sets of the Magnetic Levitation fans and the Mag-Lev fans are my favorite by far. But they can get quite noisy, so you'll want a fan controller with those if that's a problem for you. I gave this fan kit 4 Eggs. The lighting effects are pretty basic, the fan performance is mediocre and they're pretty pricey. So I dropped off an Egg for that.

Pros: Transparent fan blades look great RGB LEDs Reasonably quiet at 1400rpm Thin black fan wires SP fan works well on radiators Powered by SATA and not molex 2 year warranty

Cons: Only 4 hub mounted RGB LEDs No rubber dampers in the corners 2 wires per fan Controlled via 3 button wired controller not software! Fan not PWM controlled Large fan hub No 140mm matching fan No rainbow mode

Overall Review: I recently reviewed a set of three SP120 RGB fans plus controller and wanted to add an extra 3 of the same fans for my current build, so here is the review for these as well. Changing fan color when I change cases or theme is something that I have done countless times over the last few years. I have a collection of different color fans in my workshop that I keep in reserve for different builds. Having said this some fans work well as case fans and not so well sitting on radiators. My current radiator fan of choice is the plain vanilla SP120 quiet edition. My current theme is red and black and I have 120 and 140mm red LED Aerocool fans installed in my case for color. I am changing to a white and blue theme in the next few weeks and would have needed to buy new white or blue LED fans. Now I don't have to worry about buying new fans every time I change my theme or worry about low static pressure for radiator mounting as I have the Corsair SP120 RGB fans. These fans push out a static pressure of 1.45mmH2O at 1400rpm and are slightly quieter than my older SP120 QE fans that pushed out 1.29mmH2O at 1450rpm. When I opened the box, I was initially a little dismayed by the 2 small black plastic boxes (fan hub and controller) and all of the wires! Each fan gets 2 wires, one that needs to go in to the fan hub and the second wire that needs to be inserted in to a 3 pin fan header (for power). The fan hub can accept up to 6 fans and needs to be powered from a spare sata connector. Once the controller box gets plugged in to the fan hub the fun can begin. There are 3 buttons on the controller box, mode color and speed. There are 7 colors; white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, 4 modes; breathing, flicker, static, breathing and flicker and 3 speeds; high, medium and slow. Breathing and flicker modes are fun, but I found that static worked best for me and was able to cycle through all of the various colors that represented any theme that I have used or might like to use. The fans were reasonably quiet at full speed and the LED’s were nice and bright and even, the colors were powerful even in a brightly lit room. I would have liked the option of rainbow mode to match my RGB keyboard and mouse but this is only reserved for the more expensive HD120 RGB fans. Be aware that the speed button only affects the speed of the lighting animation and not the actual speed of the fan. As far as cooling was concerned I replaced the original SP120 fans on my water cooling radiators with these fans and noticed no changes in overall GPU or CPU temperatures. To my ears the fans are slightly quieter than the original SP120 fans when running at full speed. Having said this both fans are not what I would call loud at 1400 and 1450rpm respectively. The biggest issue for me with these fans is the lack of software control! Having a 3 button controller is nice in theory, but where do you mount the controller box where it is easy to get to and not ugly to look at? Either inside your case and accept that every time you want to change the color, speed or mode you have to open up your case and fiddle with the controller box, or mount the box and wires outside the case and then deal with the ugly esthetics of a controller box stuck on the outside of your case! 1 egg off for no software control. All in all, I like these fans; they work well, are quiet and look great. I don’t consider them expensive, they should last well and come with a full 2 year warranty.