Fan splitters and motherboard headers...

[D4S]

I am currently building a system which will eventually use about 14 fans (All Noctua NF F/P12 3 pin) however my motherboard (ASRock X79 Extreme11) has only 3 fan headers. I wish to run all of the fans off these 3 headers (using splitters) so I will able to control them through the BIOS / Software.

My question is: How many fans can you safely run off a single header?

[dchen12]

It depends on the amount of watts the fan header is capable of delivering, and the amount of watts the fan uses. As long as you don't exceed the amount of watts running off the header it'll be fine. You can probably find this information in the websites of both the motherboard and fans. With that many fans I would suggest buying a fan controller instead.

[D4S]

I had originally considered a fan controller but I have yet to find one that I don't think looks ugly. I know that the fans themselves only draw 0.6w each but I can't find out the headers total power delivery, it's not mentioned anywhere in my user manual or (as far as I can tell) on the ASRock website.

Thanks for your input and if you, or anybody, can suggest a decent controller that is either internal (PWM or software controlled) or;

Matte black

NOT touchscreen

Well constructed (I've had a few cheap, flimsy ones in the past - not again)

PWM Controlled (I don't want to have a load of temperature sensor wires everywhere)

it would be much appreciated.