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Recommended Fan controllers?

Joemoma
By Joemoma
in Cooling
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Hey everyone, My current PC tower has a built in fan controller (front, side 1, side 2, rear, top) and i am looking at upgrading to a different case that will not have this built in.. i like being able to control each area individiaully; So i was wondering what y'alls recommendations were in this area!

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I love the NZXT Sentry 3. Its touch screen is incredibly responsive and adds a very sleek but flashy look to the case. It powers all five of my fans and I couldn't be happier with the design. Here's an amazon link. 

PC: Ryzen 2600X, EVGA 1080 DT, Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 5 WiFi, Corsair 2x8GB DDR4 3000Mhz, EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold, Phanteks  Enthoo EVOLV ATX

Peripherals: Logitech G502 HERO, Cooler Master ML510, Corsair K68 Cherry MX Red, Dell S2417DG YNY1D 24" 165HZ G-Sync 1440p, Acer XF251Q, 

Audio: AKG K7XX, JBL SLR308 MKI, Scarlett 2i4 (2nd Gen), Sony MDR-7506, Shure SE-215, Audio-Technica AT2020
Server: Dell Poweredge T420 running ESXi, Hosting Plex and Automation services and misc. game servers; 2x Xeon E5-2400, 32GB ECC Memory, ~40TB Storage (Mix of SSDs and HDDs)
Network: Asus RT-AC3100 (Current), Supermicro running pfsense, 10/100/1000/10000 Netgear Switch
 

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Another vote for the Sentry 3.  

 

My only complaint involves the temperature probe - there is no way to calibrate it, and since you can only mount it on the edge of the CPU, or on the heat sink/heat pipes it reads temps lower than the actual cores.  Because of this I do not use it for the CPU fans - instead leave those on the MB, and instead use it for the chassis fans.

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Another vote for the Sentry 3.  

 

My only complaint involves the temperature probe - there is no way to calibrate it, and since you can only mount it on the edge of the CPU, or on the heat sink/heat pipes it reads temps lower than the actual cores.  Because of this I do not use it for the CPU fans - instead leave those on the MB, and instead use it for the chassis fans.

The probes aren't meant to measure the heat of the components, rather the temperature of the air moving around the case. NZXT released software after releasing the Sentry 3, which will tell you the temps of hardware. You can find the software here. 

PC: Ryzen 2600X, EVGA 1080 DT, Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 5 WiFi, Corsair 2x8GB DDR4 3000Mhz, EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold, Phanteks  Enthoo EVOLV ATX

Peripherals: Logitech G502 HERO, Cooler Master ML510, Corsair K68 Cherry MX Red, Dell S2417DG YNY1D 24" 165HZ G-Sync 1440p, Acer XF251Q, 

Audio: AKG K7XX, JBL SLR308 MKI, Scarlett 2i4 (2nd Gen), Sony MDR-7506, Shure SE-215, Audio-Technica AT2020
Server: Dell Poweredge T420 running ESXi, Hosting Plex and Automation services and misc. game servers; 2x Xeon E5-2400, 32GB ECC Memory, ~40TB Storage (Mix of SSDs and HDDs)
Network: Asus RT-AC3100 (Current), Supermicro running pfsense, 10/100/1000/10000 Netgear Switch
 

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The probes aren't meant to measure the heat of the components, rather the temperature of the air moving around the case. NZXT released software after releasing the Sentry 3, which will tell you the temps of hardware. You can find the software here. 

Thanks for the reply.  But the product documentation included with my Sentry 3 actually has a graphic indicating where to mount the sensor on the CPU, and text that advises if that is not feasible to tape it to a heat pipe.  Maybe they have changed their tune since mine was shipped out.

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Thanks for the reply.  But the product documentation included with my Sentry 3 actually has a graphic indicating where to mount the sensor on the CPU, and text that advises if that is not feasible to tape it to a heat pipe.  Maybe they have changed their tune since mine was shipped out.

They haven't changed it to my knowledge, but the only way to measure the actual hardware would to put the probes on the CPU, which you can see why that'd cause a problem. My guess is that the probes are meant to measure the heat of the air moving around the components. I'd definitely like to see the next model with a CAM sync feature, where you could set the fan curves according to the actual temperature of the component, rather what the probe is sensing. 

PC: Ryzen 2600X, EVGA 1080 DT, Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 5 WiFi, Corsair 2x8GB DDR4 3000Mhz, EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold, Phanteks  Enthoo EVOLV ATX

Peripherals: Logitech G502 HERO, Cooler Master ML510, Corsair K68 Cherry MX Red, Dell S2417DG YNY1D 24" 165HZ G-Sync 1440p, Acer XF251Q, 

Audio: AKG K7XX, JBL SLR308 MKI, Scarlett 2i4 (2nd Gen), Sony MDR-7506, Shure SE-215, Audio-Technica AT2020
Server: Dell Poweredge T420 running ESXi, Hosting Plex and Automation services and misc. game servers; 2x Xeon E5-2400, 32GB ECC Memory, ~40TB Storage (Mix of SSDs and HDDs)
Network: Asus RT-AC3100 (Current), Supermicro running pfsense, 10/100/1000/10000 Netgear Switch
 

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They haven't changed it to my knowledge, but the only way to measure the actual hardware would to put the probes on the CPU, which you can see why that'd cause a problem. My guess is that the probes are meant to measure the heat of the air moving around the components. I'd definitely like to see the next model with a CAM sync feature, where you could set the fan curves according to the actual temperature of the component, rather what the probe is sensing. 

Yeah, what the graphic shows is putting the sensor on the edge of the CPU lid.  You do get a reading, but at least on my G3258 it reports temps about 4-6 degrees low at idle, and about 10 degrees low under full stress as compared to the temps reported in AIDA64.  

 

If the temps were consistently off they'd still be useful, and if you could then calibrate the device it would be perfect.

 

Taping it to a heat pipe (an 212 Evo ) was even less reliable.

 

That PC is only running a 7790 so GPU temps are not much of an issue.  But if I was running something like a 290x then I would probably put the sensor on a heat pipe, just to get an idea of how much heat the GPU was throwing into the case.  Maybe even run the case fans off that reading.

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Hey everyone, My current PC tower has a built in fan controller (front, side 1, side 2, rear, top) and i am looking at upgrading to a different case that will not have this built in.. i like being able to control each area individiaully; So i was wondering what y'alls recommendations were in this area!

I've heard some pretty positive reviews about the Aerocool touch 2100. It's an LED display duel drive bay fan controller.

I'm going to punch your face- IN THE FACE.

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Thank you all for the input! hopefully i'll see one of these on sale!

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