Fan controller commander pro or an alternative?

[fritzo]

Hi all after some advise from anyone using a commander pro as a fan hub in terms of experiences, reliability etc or suggestions for an alternative

currently I have a phanteks evolve x and I’m having issues with the cpu overheating (thread else where) need to do some more testing but in preparation I’m considering swapping cases to sort air flow

currently I have a d5 plugged into my msi x99 krait cpu fan header 1 and the phanteks Case fan hub with 5x sp 120’s and 1x af140 plugged into cpu header 2

fan and pump control is via bios and it’s all worked fine to date

I’m now thinking about getting a Lian li o11 xl and running 3x fans in the bottom as intake, 3x fans in the side as Intake and a 360rad with 3 x fans in top as an exhaust

cpu will be cooled via the 360rad and d5 and the 6800xt is using the air cooler

obviously lian li has no fan hub and so Need something

I have no rbg and im not fussed enough to spend 300quid for 9 Corsair rbg fans, I do use a Corsair keyboard and mouse with Icue hence the commander pro was the first thought

Im happy with a basic fan hub / controller and looking for options as long as it’s reliable and will work with no fuss as spending time and money on issues is getting old

in terms of fans I need 9 number, I have 5 white led Corsair sp120’s ideally I’d like 9 red fans to go with the rest of the theme is worth sticking with sp120’s or is there a better alternatives

thanks
Fritzo

 

[fritzo]

Thanks for the reply’s

looked at the octo and seems decent

to be fair the commander pro was looking like the first choice as I’ve already got a few Corsair products, never really had an issue with Icue and made sense to stay in the same eco system.

was ready to junk the water cooling and go with a Corsair AIO was just the price and availability of the fans that was an issue

So like most things having made my mind up and started planning out my revised build in my head, my last attempt to sort the temperature and freezing issues seems to have worked

so guess I’ll be sticking with what I’ve got for a while yet unless I can’t think of a better way to blow 500quid on new shiny stuff...

 

[fritzo]

So despite me saying I wasn’t going to bother I’ve still got the urge to recase and was doing some further thinking / reading

I take it for using more than 6 fans or 8 with the octo, it’s literally as simple as using a splitter for 2 fans per channel as long as it doesn’t pull more than the rated current as opposed to daisy chaining multiple hubs

the other question I have is under the description for the octo it mentions temp control for the fans.

Am I right in thinking instead setting up fan curves based on temp vs rpm I can set a temperature set point and have the fans ramp up automatically to maintain this temperature?

If this is the case can I pick what sensor it controls against ie loop temperature sensor, cpu package etc and can I set multiple fan groups against different sensors

does the commander pro have this function?

 

[fritzo]

Thanks for the confirmation, sounds like a winner

funnily enough was just reading up on it and it mentions being able to adjust PID so assumed it did do set point control

I’m thinking to run the radiator exhaust fans and side inlet fans under the dictates of the water temperature sensor in the cpu loop

and if it can pull info from HWinfo then control the bottom inlet fans and side exhaust based on the dictates of the GPU temp

In theory should reduce fan noise as it’s only running what’s needed, when it’s needed

In reality probably won’t make a massive difference especially as I’m stuck using the GPU air cooler, but if I was doing it all again and had a card with a water block available I’d deffo think about a dual loop


Now I guess I should go price it all up lol

 

[fritzo]

The commander pro can set curves up for any sensors including it's own supplied sensors. When you think about it, having the ability to force temperature to a specific point is no different to just having steep curves. No, it's can't do complex functions with sensors, but really I just don't think that is necessary. Fact is that employing complicated systems doesn't make the cooling any better, it just makes it more complicated.

To an extent that’s correct and it’s certainly not necessary, but controlling to a set point is more efficient than relying on a best guess fan curve and if set up correctly stops the fans constantly hunting up and down

The change in fan pitch as it ramps is a lot more intrusive acoustically than a fixed speed as it just becomes white noise

in theory you can calculate the fan speed required to maintain the required heat rejection based on the TDP, then adjust the dead bands to suit so you end up with the most efficient means of providing the cooling required, at the minimum fan speed

more so if it was set up as a dual loop with fans controlled against both the GPU and CPU individually

It’s probably slightly more complicated, definitely more expensive and marginally better from a performance perspective and arguably that makes not particularly worthwhile

the same could be said about custom loops vs AIO’s etc etc

the main reason is it gives me something to do