NZXT 140mm & 120mm FX Enthusiast Fan Review

Yup, this isn’t a press release or a tease… this is the only review on the new NZXT FX Enthusiast Fan series that I know of on the Internets at the time of this writing.

If you’re familiar with the NZXT brand, then you’re probably a loyal customer and not only have a few of their cases, but some of their matching case accessories like their Sentry line of fan controllers.  NZXT does a great job with getting all of their stuff to match and look great, so having an NZXT-only rig will certainly get some attention from the ladies… or at least the only girl at the LAN party… who is probably only there because her boyfriend drug her along and she plays Bejeweled or Facebook games all day to pass the time.  Well, now is the time to woo her with your extraordinary taste in PC couture!

	NZXT FX 120mm			NZXT FX 140mm
Size	120 x 120 x 25mm			140 x 140 x 25mm
Bearing	Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB)			Fluid Dynamic Bearing( FDB)
Life	35,000 hours			35,000 hours
Settings	Low	Medium	High	Low	Medium	High
Current	0.08A	0.15A	0.30A	0.13A	0.25A	0.55A
Input	0.96W	1.8W	3.6W	1.56W	3W	6.6W
Speed (±10%)	1000RPM	1800RPM	2600RPM	1000RPM	1500RPM	2000RPM
Air Flow	35.8CFM	64.5CFM	96CFM	49.1CFM	73.8CFM	98.3CFM
Air Pressure	0.75mm-H2O	2.4mm-H2O	4.9mm-H2O	0.56mm-H2O	1.3mm-H2O	2.2mm-H2O
Noise	22dBA	32.8dBA	36.5dBA	22.1dBA	30.8dBA	37dBA

The NZXT FX Enthusiast line of case fans come in two sizes: 140mm and 120mm.  They draw between 0.13 and 0.55 Amps and have an input between 1.56 and 6.6 Watts.  Depending on their set speed, they rotate between 1,000 and 2,000 RPM (give or take 10%), and have an impressive airflow rating of 49.1 to 98.3 cubic feet per minute!  They also have a moderately low noise ratio of 22.1 to 37 dBA, and use fluid dynamic bearings to make sure the fan has a Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of 35,000 hours.

Now that we have that out of the way we can look at the fans themselves on the next page…

The fans have a classic look about them, as the housing is matte black, but the 9-bladed (7 on the 120mm) fan assembly is made of matte white plastic.  In each corner of the fan assembly are holes for what I can only assume are for optional LEDs, but none are installed.

Coming off one of the corners are two cables.  On is a long fan lead, which has been adorned with black nylon sleeving and ends in a black 3-pin fan header.  The other cable is thin and flat, and ends in a small 3-position switch, which controls the fan’s rotation speed.  On the controller are three letters for each position: L, M, and H, which stand for Low, Medium and High respectively.

The fan also comes with a few extra goodies.  In separate small plastic bags are four black case screws, four double-sided rubber mounts, and a black four-pin Molex to 3-pin fan power adapter.  It is great to see that all of the accessories are black; if there’s one thing I hate more than Molex adapters is a white Molex adapter.

On the next page we install the fans and see how they perform…

The rubber mounting pins are double-sided, leaving a little extra tab to pull on from the opposite side you’ve installed.  The problem is that the longest side of the pin is 20mm and the fan is 25mm thick… so you cannot grab the pins with your fingers, and they certainly are not accessible to pull from outside the case.  Unless you want to grab a flashlight and some strong tweezers then these pins are practically useless.  I recommend using a rubber gasket and and case screws anyway to make things extra secure.

One thing to consider when using these fans is the integrated speed switch.  Since the switch is attached to the fan then it really isn’t feasible to switch the speeds on-the-fly.  Additionally, the extra wiring can look a little messy, even if you do wrap it around the fan housing and secure it.  If you don’t want to deal with fan buses but still want a silence-able fan then this method is the way to go.

Once the fans were installed, we set the switch to the lowest setting and turned them on.  We measured the noise of the fan using our trusty Radio Shack noise level meter, and tested several other fans from previous reviews at the same distance using the same settings.  We then tested each fan at Low, Medium, and High settings and recorded the results.  We only tested 120mm fans, as we had no other 140mm fans in the lineup to test against.

Although the NZXT FX fan is not loud by any means, it did produce the most noise in this lineup.  At full blast (12 volts), the FX fan produced 33 decibels, 28 dBA at half (7 volt) speed, and a completely silent 23 at the lowest (5 volt) speed.

Other fans in the roundup fared better, which really indicates that you will probably be happy with any of the fans in this lineup.  The NZXT FX line has the advantage of a built-in silencer (we had to install an inline silencer for others in this roundup), and it was certainly inexpensive at $14.99.

The NZXT FX Line of PC case fans some with some nice features, such as braided cables and integrated 3-speed silencer, and a non-objectionable color scheme.  It may not be the quietest fan, but still is practically silent, and it is cheaper than “premium” fans, such as those offered by Noctua.

As mentioned before, you may want to go with a more basic fan depending on your situation.  If you intend to use these fans with an integrated fanbus, then you may not want to deal with the extra wires from the 3-speed silencer.  The included silencer also has a disadvantage when it comes to adjusting noise from outside your case.  Overall, the NZXT FX Enthusiast 140 and 120mm fans will do well in just about any modern case, and do it within a modest budget.