Corsair LL120 RGB Fan Review 25

Corsair LL120 RGB Fan Review

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Value and Conclusion

  • The Corsair LL120 RGB triple pack costs $119.99 from the Corsair web shop for customers in the USA as of the date of this review. Individual fans cost $34.99, and these prices are the same from third-party resellers, including Amazon.com and Newegg.com.
  • Sixteen addressable RGB LEDs allow for bright, user-controllable lighting
  • Extensive lighting options with software control
  • Relatively low on noise at fan speeds past 1000 RPM
  • Good build quality
  • Triple pack includes Lighting Node PRO controller
  • Expensive relative to other case fans in general
  • Poor performance as a radiator fan
The Corsair LL120 RGB fans are expensive, and there's no getting around this. At $35 per fan and $120 for a triple pack with the lighting controller, it is really not feasible to recommend everyone buy these to deck out their PC. At the same time, this is the #1 new seller on Amazon.com right now, and the popularity of Corsair's own HD RGB fans shows that people are willing to spend the money. Who's to blame them? The sixteen addressable RGB LEDs spread across two rings create a more uniform, diffused lighting and make this absolutely fantastic for when you want to light up a computer or even an entire room - these are bright, bright fans. I had personally made a note in my review of the HD RGB fans as those I wanted an SKU for with a software-based controller included, and Corsair obliged by going even deeper down the RGB hole. As it is, these make the HD RGB fans look like a bad deal now if you are primarily looking at the lighting aspect.

The LL120 RGB is better as a case fan than a radiator fan, wherein it fails to perform compared to the existing competition. I will not sugarcoat this - the LL120 RGB is more like a pair of concentric LED strips blowing some air than a performance-oriented fan with LED lighting. It is on the quieter side of things, but only because it produces less airflow noise because of its lower performance. The included Lighting Node Pro means no longer having to work with a 3-button toggle controller, and you get a lot of lighting modes as well. Corsair LINK is still an ugly driver with a user experience that can be improved tremendously, and their own CUE makes it worse by merely existing.

Building your own computer is as much about the ability to customize components to fit your aesthetic needs as it is about performance and noise. You can get around the latter by having more fans on a larger radiator or even as case fans, and there is no denying that the lighting customization you get here is very high. By merit of offering something no other fan in my test group so far does, it gets the recommendation for those prioritizing looks.
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Dec 27th, 2024 04:44 EST change timezone

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