[section_title title=Closer look] Closer Look

Starting with the rear of the fan controller. Unlike may offerings that we have seen from the likes of BitFenix and Lamptron, Aerocool have decided to use a large header which leads to a ribbon of cables, these then provide four molex or four fan headers capable of accommodating with 3pin or 4pin PWM fan headers. I would have liked to see a slightly more refined fan controller like we see from the competition and some nice black cables just for aesthetics and cable management reasons. In the middle of the picture we have the two pin header for the temperature probe. It was nice to see that this was black, and was more than likely made black as the temperature probe should be situated around the key areas of your system like the CPU or the graphics cards. lastly on the right we have a USB header which supplies the power and data to the card reader, as well as a blue USB 3.0 internal header.  A quick look at the side of the CoolTouch-R shows that the are six mounting holes to secure the CoolTouch-R to your chassis. the middle two of these holes are fitted with brass threads to give them some more durability in case it needs to be taken in and out of a chassis numerous times.  On to the display of the CoolTouch-R. As you can see, the display colour is very vivid, this is the blue that is on display. To the naked eye, this blue is a few shades darker, I had hoped to photograph the different colours but because the camera would not pick up the colours properly, I decided against it. However, the colours listed on the specifications page are quite similar to what I saw when using the CoolTouch-R. On the bottom left hand corner we have the Color button. Pressing this once will scroll the used through the different colours on the display.

On this particular sample, the order of the colours was,  Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple, Cyan, White and Display Off. Once the user gets to the end of the sequence, another press of the color button then starts the sequence over again. Along the top edge we have the selectors for each of the four fan channels with a display for the fan speed in the middle. At the moment this displays ‘0’ signalling that the fans are turned off. However, pressing the plus or minus buttons to the right of this display will cycle the speed display from ‘0’ to ‘L’, ‘M’ and ‘H’, which signify 5V, 7V and 12V respectively. Lastly to the left of the speed display we have a systems temperature. I found this to be relatively accurate and because you can place it where you want in out system can be useful for tweaking airflow to specific areas of your system. Lastly we have the IO for the CoolTouch-R. Generally, I do not like having IO on a fan controller as I feel that it looks a little tacky and generally is not needed. Whilst Aerocool have also released the CoolTouch-E which lacks this IO in favor for a larger screen, I cannot help but feel it is still an unnecessary addition. Not once throughout testing and general use did I feel a need to use the IO and whilst I can see the appeal of it to people with smaller chassis that lack options on the IO panel, the inclusion of an internal USB 3.0 header with no adapter seems a little short sighted as generally, you will only find one USB3.0 headers on most motherboards.

 

1
2
3
4
5
Previous articleCooler Master Nepton 140XL & 280L Review
Next articleCM Storm Trigger Z Mechanical Keyboard Review

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.