The NZXT brand has a host of great looking and well-functioning products that, when used together with other NZXT products, can really make a special computer. The Enthusiast Fans continue that tradition by being great looking and highly functional, though it isn’t without its problems.
The Enthusiast Fan series comes in two flavors: 120mm and 140mm. Both fans are pretty standard fare in terms of actual design, with a black matte case and basic fan structure. The blades are not black themselves, however, and instead are white which actually looks very nice in just about any case. Other than size, the only real difference in design between the 120mm and 140mm is the number of blades on the fans at seven and nine respectively. There are no LEDs anywhere on either fan, though I noticed four holes located alone the rims of each case where LEDs could be inserted. Each fan also has two cables already neatly fed through one of the case “fins” to keep them out of the way and letting you focus on installation rather than fiddling with wires. One of the cables is for power while the other is a three-speed manual switch, which I’ll get into shortly.
Both fans come with four rubber mounting pins and four case screws. The pins are a little too short for the case and a bit annoying to actually get through without the use of tweezers and a flashlight. Also, none of the holes are threaded meaning screwing it into the case is a bit more difficult than it really should be. I understand that having threaded holes may make it more difficult to mount the fans using the pins, but seeing as how screwing it in is a much more secure way anyway means there is no reason to not thread the holes. One of the other issues I had with actually installing the fans is the speed switch. The cable is very short rendering it pretty much useless once you close the case. Both fans can still be installed at the very least, so this is more of an annoyance.
The speed switch allows you to manually adjust the speed of the fans to your liking, though quite frankly all three speeds push a pretty high volume of air into or out of your computer. The lowest speed runs at around 1000 rpm give or take 10% and pushes around 36 cfm in the 120mm fan and 49 cfm in the 140mm. Luckily, both fans are extremely quiet at this setting and will likely be the one you use most unless you are constantly taxing your system. Crank the speed up to medium and you’re looking at 1800 rpm for the 120mm and 1500 rpm for the 140mm (again give or take 10%) and about 65 cfm in the 120mm and 74 cfm in the 140mm. At this speed, both fans produce a quiet hum that may or may not be noticeable depending on the noise your own system already makes. At the highest fan setting however, the noise is noticeable regardless but at 2600 rpm for the 120mm and 2000 rpm for the 140mm (+/- 10%) it is bound to be. The amount of air moved through is also very good, at 96 cfm for the 120mm and 98 cfm for the 140mm.
These aren’t exactly premium fans, but they work just as well as any of them. That is what makes them highly recommendable, even with the questionable installation and short speed modifier cable length. They are, for the most part, very quiet and pump a large amount of air into the case. I would recommend either fan for your rig.
