The King of 120mm Fans: Phanteks T30 Review

Meet the Phanteks T30, the set of fans that is supposed to dethrone Noctua's NF-A12x25 and become the absolute best PC Case fan out there. Let's take a closer look at every aspect and determine once and for all, which is the better fan in an NF-A12x25 vs T30!

* After the review we did some further Tests and found that each of our T30's is spinning at 1975RPM in their '2000RPM' Performance mode, while the A12x25 are spinning at 2140RPM. Even though this 165RPM difference is still within spec, the margin seems to be big enough to have an impact on the benchmark results.

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00:00 Intro Phanteks T30
00:40 Phanteks T30 General
04:00 Installing Phanteks T30's
07:00 Phanteks T30 RPM Mode Switch
08:00 Phanteks T30 Specs
10:00 Benchmark
12:30 Phanteks T30 Performance Summary
13:37 What was good, What could be better
15:30 Phanteks T30 Summary

#phanteks #t30 #phantekst30 #best120mm

[Leka]

Some motherboards push the fans at 100% rpm on boot no matter what. So it absolutely makes sense to be able to limit a 3000 rpm monster fan to a lower max rpm.

[Torulv]

not sure if i missed it, but how are you testing these, cant find it described in the video.
no way phanteks t30 is 25C hotter than NF-A12x25 at 40db. or p12 35c hotter at certain noise levels... something is way off with your measurements.

[CntBckt]

I got a triple pack of these recently. The packaging and included accessories alone made it feel like a nex-level experience. :D

[marshall]

Glad I found your review as your the only guy to point out the extra long screws to allow the Halos to be mounted. Good job STS

[michaelnager]

I don't know what you are doing to get your numbers. This is not meant in a nasty manner as I will explain.

I swapped out the three Noctua A12x25 fans I had on my Arctic Liquid Freezer II using the offset mount on my 5950X with three Phanteks T30 fans. The first thing that I noticed was that the T30 fans, when the system was running at idle, were spinning at a lower RPM for the same amount of cooling (I used the same fan profile for both).

Limiting the T30 fans to 2000 RPM I then did testing on CineBench R20 running on a loop - where both the Noctua and the Phanteks fans would max out. Again the T30 fans kept the CPU significantly cooler.

I then let them run up to the full 3000 RPM and although louder, I wouldn't call them unbearable. I would not even call them annoying, because the sound is lower pitched than the A12x25 fans running at 2000 RPM.

[mlwg]

Your results are suspect. So...the Noctua wins by 4 degrees with both at 2kish, and blows other fans out of the water by 15 degrees+? Also the T30 is laughably bad overall when db adjusted? So from multiple other unrestricted, radiator and db adjusted tests the T30 wins...but somehow blowing through a case unless it's running at the speed no one will ever run it at...2k-3k its worse than almost any fan you could buy?

So either everyone else's results are WAY off...or your test using them in a way no one will literally ever use them shows some weird flaw with the T30s to where unrestricted = King, Heavily restricted by rad = King, but lightly restricted by case installation = Looses to waving paper.

Sorry but I have to call BS on this one.

[chopchop]

I'd love to see other companies play around with thicker fans. There are thinner fans for space-constrained applications (e.g. SFF), but oddly enough there aren't many thicker fans for the opposite scenario. It's not uncommon to see much thicker fans in servers. More comparisons between different fan dimensions (thickness and diameter) would be nice to help demonstrate the pros and cons of each.

[aaronfriedman]

Your results are contrary to what I have seen on other reviews. Noise normalized the T30 moves the most air from at least 35db and up.

[Argooh]

Slim Arctic fans silently spinning away next to me... Temperatures low... Still considering buying these because they are 'the King'.

[michaelthompson]

Impressive fans. 3k rpm …. Jet engines of all planes in an airport going at one time 🤕🤯. Interesting that the new style for fans is the 3D printer DIY look.

[NGreedia]

something seems off with the charts. no way the nf-a12x25 is 5 degrees lower than the T30 when both are running at 2000rpms. the T30 should be a step ahead.

[jonmaster]

Just a noob question, just which wind direction is this blinking phantek t30 fans? Just purchased a triple fan but NO arrow direction of wind direction. Any idea?

[Mintor]

I don't think this 5mm extra thickness isn't a problem, and it doesn't have anything to do with case price. It may be just to much in some sff cases, and in bigger ones if you consider mounting them to thicker radiators. It may be just enough to hit the mobos rads. I also have a feeling that making a fan thicker is a "cheap" way getting more performance out of it. If noctua or arctic or any other company made thicker fans without changing their design much, they'd also perform better. The fact that despite it being thiccer, made with something better than a standard plastic and still not beating NF-A12x25 when it comes to performance-noise ratio makes Noctua product even more impressive for me.

[sojirou]

It's quite interesting that your results show the T30 worse at every noise level compared to NF-A12s. Was the tests done on a heatsink instead of AIO? Based on others' tests it shouldn't be such a huge disparity. However, that said, I don't like the T30s because of their sound profile above 1400RPM and had to replace it with NF-A12s for my entire system instead.

[linndoria]

Is there a Phanteks M25-120 and the 140 with and without aRGB/d-ARGB fan review coming soon? Good on an AIO Rad and as an intake fan?

[IcyyX_]

whats the lowest rpm you would go with these fans

[JagoTFC]

T30's are about high fin rads/heatsinks. They overpower any restriction. I'm pairing this with a Alpenföhn Black Ridge and it has to intake so much air that the whole system has to be overpressure. I like overpressure.
Oh, I'm also putting this inside an NES case. Shame they only sell in triplets and a single is rare and can cost you 40€ without shipping on other shops

[luckyowl]

I think those 5mm extra thickness might make problems in some SFF chases where everything barely has enough space. That advanced mode 3000rpm is truly crazy, T30 outperforms 140mm fans, but at that price I expect a quiet fan that cools my PC, not a jet engine launching my PC into outer space like some laptops do.

[jvidia]

T30 loses to the F12x25 at 2000rpm? What?

[justinpatterson]

I want to use a couple packs to cool Hephaestus' Forge, an ITX packing a 5800X3D under a Jiushark JF13K. Cozied up to a 7900 XT and a 750W Plat grade brick.