Corsair AF120 RGB Elite Fan Review

Epilogue

What left a good impression on me was that the advertised/claimed specs are very close to the real ones. Corsair has bought a Longwin fan testing machine to know the actual specs of its fans, contrary to other brands that rely on the factory specs, which in most cases are super optimistic and far away from the truth.

The Corsair AF120 RGB Elite is an expensive fan with high build quality and tremendous lighting capabilities thanks to its quality LEDs and the iCUE software, which needs some time to get familiar with. Still, once you do, it provides many options to explore. I am not a big fan of iCUE. I find it too complex and too “heavy,” so I prefer not to install it on my systems. Corsair could make something simpler for each of its product categories instead of having a huge universal app that covers everything, needing, at the same time, substantial system resources.

The performance is decent but cannot follow similar-priced products in airflow and static pressure, which lack RGB lighting. A zero-fan mode is an interesting option. The major problem is the high price tag. In this range, users can get pretty good fans, including the mighty Phanteks T30-120 and the Cooler Master Mobius 120 OC, which offer far higher static pressure and airflow but lack RGB. If you are an RGB freak, you will probably exclude the abovementioned products and look at these Corsair fans. The big pain for most users is that cable management will be challenging, with the absence of a daisy chain option and the two cables per fan. If you need something with RGB lighting and a daisy chain, you should look at Lian Li’s UNI FAN AL V2, which I need to find a way to connect to my equipment and get some readings. They use a non-standard connector, including both the PWM and RGB signals.