Arctic P12 PWM PST Fan Review – The best budget (and not only) fan!

The Arctic P12 PWM PST is a highly affordable 120mm fan. The single fan package goes for 9 dollars while the 5-pack package is at $30. No wonder why this fan is so popular, especially if you take into account that it uses PWM signal and it is equiped with a fluid dynamic bearing

In this review, I will evaluate one of the most popular fans, usually used for chassis cooling, the Arctic P12 PWM PST. Despite the PWM control, the decent claimed performance, and the fluid dynamic bearing, this product has a below 10 dollar price, while the five-pack costs $30, giving a super tough time to the competition that can cost double as much. The craziest part is that Arctic offers a six-year warranty, even longer than fans costing 3x more! Arctic’s people must be super confident about this product and don’t have a problem stating that you can use it at up to 40°C ambient, which is the upper limit for most FDB fans. Lastly, the model I have in my hands has a cable splitter, meaning that you can daisy chain several fans together. However, the distance to the corresponding connector is increased so that cable management won’t be as easy.

The fan’s speed is PWM controlled from 200 to 1800 RPM, according to Arctic, and there is also a zero RPM mode activated with <5% PWM signals. The maximum claimed performance is 56.3 CFM for airflow and 2.2 mmH2O for static pressure. Both values are decent, to say the least, for a fan costing less than ten dollars. I will soon find out how close they are to the actual performance data once I finish all tests on the Longwin apparatus.