Cooler Master MasterFan MF120 Halo Review 9

Cooler Master MasterFan MF120 Halo Review

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Value and Conclusion

  • The Cooler Master MasterFan MF120 Halo is available as an individual fan for $21.99 or a triple pack for $65 from the Cooler Master Amazon store and other retailers for customers in the USA, as of the date of this article.
  • Good value for money when buying the triple pack
  • Integrated RGB lighting with 24 addressable LEDs per fan
  • RGB lighting is compatible with motherboard onboard control and a standalone LED controller included with the triple pack
  • Clean cabling of multiple fans via included adapter cables and cable covers
  • Decent build quality
  • Performance as a radiator fan is quite poor
  • The individual fans are priced higher than the contemporary solutions from others
Well, that price point certainly changed things, didn't it? Up until now, I went from interested with the unboxing experience to moderately disappointed with the fan design and sighing audibly with the performance results, but Cooler Master managed to turn my frown upside down with that $65 number for the triple pack of the MF120 Halo fans. This is their take on the dual-loop addressable RGB LED fan, which costs over twice as much for the CORSAIR version. As a direct comparison, the MF120 Halo has fewer LEDs (24 vs. 36), uses motherboard-compatible LED control vs. CORSAIR's near-proprietary iCUE solution, and has the light loops better integrated into the frame to allow for longer rotor blades compared to the CORSAIR QL fans that are basically two LED strips wrapped around a small fan. Performance is thus also slightly better because of the longer blades and subtle changes in the fan design, despite the rounded frame employed here.

As an individual fan, you can do better than the MF120 Halo, including from Cooler Master themselves. I do wish the company would have used the more static pressure-optimized design from the Silencio FP or even MasterFan Air Pressure/Balance, but as an RGB light show that also happens to blow some air through your case, these will do for the money they are asking for the triple pack. Do me and yourself a favor, however, and use them for case ventilation and not watercooling on radiators. As another entrant to the form over function case-fan market in 2020, you can do worse, especially for the money.
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Jul 22nd, 2024 10:12 EDT change timezone

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