These Fans do EVERYTHING - Phanteks D30 Review

The Phanteks D30 review is finally here. Are these the best 120mm fans you can buy right now if you're looking for RGB fans or are there airflow issues due to the design?

Buy items in this video from Amazon at the links below:

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Where the D30-120 Hits
0:46 - D30 vs Lian Li AL120 V2
1:08 - SO MANY Parts
3:58 - Regular vs Reverse D30
5:21 - INSANE RGB!
6:31 - Sponsor Spot
7:01 - Control Limitations
7:50 - Airflow Sacrifices
8:40 - D30 Regular Sound Samples
9:22 - D30 Reverse Sound Samples
10:15 - Unrestricted Airflow Testing
12:28 - Restricted Airflow Testing (Radiator)
14:29 - AIO Temperatures
15:15 - Air Cooler Temperatures
16:02 - The Ultimate RGB Fans or a Failure?

Review unit provided free of charge by Phanteks. This video is sponsored by Antec. As per Hardware Canucks guidelines, no review direction was received from manufacturer. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

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[bonanzabrandon]

Fan review videos like this might not be the most exciting, but I think a lot of PC enthusiasts like me will find it to be quite interesting and very informative. Keep up the good work guys.

[rikachiu]

The NV7 case took my breath away and so the D30s were a must. The overall aesthetics with the case and fans is just stunning and worth the extra noise levels which aren't even that bad since I have 12 fans and the airflow of the case is so good.

[_silversoul_]

You guys are always a lifesaver with these fan reviews! Helping myself and others save money, keep things quite, and choose the right fans for our use case. It is much appreciated and thank you! Keep up the hard work that goes into these videos. You guys rock!

[JacobMartin-lf]

Wow, excellent job, Phanteks! I'm actually impressed by the thought that has gone into these fans, particularly the reverse model is a beautiful little detail.

[Erniebern]

I am still so happy with my trio of thermalright TL-C12C-S from your last video. They are great on my my front mounted radiator. They still look so good on these charts too. I accidently screwed through the wire on one during installation and it frayed it. Just easily bought another without worry. They are so inexpensive and quiet.

You're the king of fans. I love your breakdowns. Might consider one of these for exhaust just for looks.

[EPiQ_cR]

I have 12 D30s in my new NV7 build (6 reg, 6 reverse)...they were amazing to work with. You can't see even an inch of a single fan cable, and I literally was able to just return the fan controller I'd ordered. They're cooling a 13900K on a phanteks 360 AIO, in a case with a 4090. So far with custom fan ramps setup in Fan Control the only thing that has made them audible is when the CPU is working hard on a Steam game install.

General gaming temps for the 13900K CPU are around 50-55C.

[hefequarkstriezel]

I have ten of these and I absolutely love them.

What I don’t quite agree with is that LianLi has an advantage with RGB effects. Their software is horrible, like pretty much every manufacturer‘s software. But the ARGB connection of the D30 lets me use SignalRGB or OpenRGB instead, which easily beats every manufacturer software I used so far.

[SneakyFoxxxy]

I ordered the NV7, and the fans as a bundle. I can agree with pretty much everything said. I had a clip break because I dont feel that the instructions did a super good job of explaining the specific orientations of the end clips with the power cables. I didnt notice the notches. My error but also at the time there wasnt extensive content out or any thorough reviews I could find. This video is great so that people dont break a plastic tab like I did xp... I do love these fans though, but I think to truly take advantage of them, you would need an NV7 case with the built in controller. So until they release dedicated software, if you dont have an NV7, maybe consider other options unless you love the look. Asthetically, they are pretty amazing ^-^ thanks HC for a good review!

[CasualGamerPlays]

This is worth the money and with their new cases, these new fans will look amazing and should work well. Thanks for the review

[_Wake_Up_If_U_Can]

Had no idea Noctua fell behind in fan technology! Nice video, thank you. I use Noctua in all my builds. Now I will have to reconsider spending more on the alternatives depending on the build...

[apolinocaballo]

I think Phanteks still need to improve these new D30's. I have the T30's and those things are AWESOME. The T30's move air like a house fan.

[stcg]

Thanks Michael for the in depth video! 🤗I bought the T30 Reverse about 2 weeks ago for a 240 AIO, and watching the beginning of the charts made me worry I made a very very bad purchase.
Thank god the reverse fans seems to have good performance on a radiator and heatsink. I have watched every fan and cooler review from Michael and I will never get bored, great work! 😊

For those who wants more RGB control, I may have some solutions for you.
- I've got a 5v 3 pin ARGB to Corsair 4 pin cable to wire up the T30s to Corsair Commander Core XT. With that, I can control the individual LEDs and even the fan speed via ICUE
- Use the SignalRGB software (Some features are free, while others like fan speed control is a paid feature)

[joojoo]

Fitted these to a couple of NV7 builds, 7 rev pulling in 5 standard pushing out with a 360 aio so the lower airflow on the rev ones is negated and gives positive pressure, great review but I did notice the whine that pitches up in the noise demo sounds like it's oscillating on the desk, mine have no whine just air noise when ramped up, temps are great and never needed full speed but it will depend on case choice etc. None of my fittings broke but if you find any are tight just reposition them and make sure you're not heavy handed, plus plenty of spares in the box.

[shadesofskittles]

I'm not overly concerned about the metrics. I'm all about the eye candy! Thanks for the review!

[Pleiades-Gu]

Anyone looking to buy these, be aware, the Power Connector's little tab at the end breaks VERY Easily. This is due to uneven casting of the two fan shells. If you look within the groove, they're often uneven. You can file down the uneven spots to allow the Tab to fit inside the fan and pivot without breaking.

[daj]

CONGRATS on ur new bundle of joy bro! Everyone is leaving me and my wife behind maybe it's time to start a family! Love ur content keep it up!

[TheFlow]

Thanks for the review and thanks for including noise samples this time!

Still, I have some (hopefully constructive) criticism to make your reviews better in the future. Having noise normalized tests is obviously the most important part of reviews to be able to compare different fans, but without any rpm number the dB numbers seem arbitrary. On your P12 Max review you included a table that showed the rpm and the corresponding dBA values which was very helpful in understanding how loud certain dB values are, as they are highly dependent on how noise is measured and noise itself is highly subjective.

On your P12 Max review the lowest rpm tested was 1710rpm, which is already very much at the higher side of the rpm range, and I would like to claim that most people don’t ever run their fans this fast. I would guess that most 120mm fans will be run at speeds up to 1500rpm (unless you use an sfx build where you crammed an unlimited i9 13900K into it and need some way to keep it below 100°C). I personally do run my fans even slower. Having used different 120mm fans so far, my maximum acceptable noise level would be around 1200rpm on an A12x25 and I am pretty sure there are quite a number of water-cooling enthusiasts out there that will run their fans at even lower rpm. Maybe it would be the best idea to do a community poll and ask the community at which speeds they do run their fans and then adjust your test setup to allow possibly way lower rpm to be tested as well. I do know that is a lot of work for retesting every fan, but if you ever decide to rework the way you test fans, please keep this in mind.

My last request would be to include a few sentences about unwanted noises a fan might produce, if present on your samples. Examples for this would be humming, bearing noises and motor noises of which certain fan brands/models suffer more than others and which, in my opinion, should be included in a review to paint the whole picture.

Sorry for this lengthy comment, I am not sure if you will ever read this, but if you do, thanks for reading it!

[flyinhawaiian]

Nice to see a manufacturer that makes fans innovate and try new things. It took them 30 years to surpass the Gentle Typhoon and the only fan that is near the GT in performance, yet still remains relatively quiet AND inexpensive is the Arctic. Thanks for another solidly thorough review!

[vinvin]

I hope these companies pay you well, because the quality of the information you provide is amazing. There's no way I would be forking out this kind of cash of RGB fans if I didn't understand how they worked.

[GamingxGadgetry]

love the noise-speed-temp comparisons, charts were easy to read and compare!