My pc:



Top points:

Love the new corsair iLink ecosystem. I have a total of 10x Corsair iCUE iLink QX120 fans that includes a h150i 360mm iLink AIO.

Pros:

WHISPER quiet cooling. Can't even tell my PC is on. My previous fans were Corsair 120mm RGB's and were probably 10x louder, my PC sounded like an airplane. With these all set to "extreme" mode in iCUE, still cant even tell my PC is on.
Essentially cable free! Cable management is incredible now. I was able to remove literally 20 cables from my PC as each fan had a power cable and a RGB cable. I also was able to remove TWO pc fan/rgb hubs.
Each fan is NOT daisy chained; each fan is individually addressable and can be run at any individual speed.
Each fan has built in temp sensors to accurately display internal temp
Fans are essentially wireless
Fans are magnetic, so only need to screw in top two screws of the top fan. All three fans can be completely removed for cleaning in 5-10 seconds
Fully customizable individually addressable RGB software

Cons:

Expensive as fuck. Each fan is ~$60
Surprisingly difficult to install due to Lack of directions, the box included a QR code for the manual instead of a paper one, and the QR code was linked to Corsair's storefront webpage trying to sell me more stuff instead of the actual directions
Also, the cables need to be connected and installed very carefully in the correct order, or it will not work.
Corsair failed to fully explain that each side of the fan hub can control up to 7 fans/devices PER SIDE for a total of 14. This was yet again not abundantly clear. Perhaps I needed the manual (lmao).

tl;dr

Buy the shit. Fuck those cables.

This post was edited by Bachelor on Jul 8 2023 11:54pm

Not a particularly big fan (puns for days!) of Corsair's noise to cfm ratio on their fans, and this just seems like yet another gimmicky attempt at reinventing the wheel.
Fan cables were never an issue to hide and manage for me, and rgb is generally something I stay away from too as I find it annoying, so this is definitely not a product made for me.
Corsair's iCUE is also absolutely bloated garbage software. Nty!

Glad you like them though!

These have an improved cfm ratio, up to 63.1 apparently. But you're right, the price to cfm isn't top tier.

As far as sound, I wasn't necessarily bothered by my previous loud fans, but it is a night day difference and my office is eerily quiet in comparison to what it was. It's just nice to have a whisper quiet rig. Necessary? Absolutely not.

I've always been annoyed by the incredible amount of cables the fans take. But its also having to have massive fan hubs which also have their own connections. Again, is this necessary? Absolutely not. But it soothes my OCD.

You'll find that iCUE4 has had a massive overhaul over previous versions and you only need to download the plugins that you need. No other BS.

An iCUE install is north of 1-1.5 GB, uses tons of RAM for all its services, and is phoning home constantly. Fan/pump/lighting control, macro functionality, etc. should not hog that many resources lol. By definition it's bloatware.
Thankfully there are lightweight FOSS tools to replace all that, at the fraction of the resources used, and without telemetry.

I mean, iCUE is actively running on my pc right now. It uses LESS memory than ONE tab of google chrome.



I think that's beyond minimal, wouldn't you say?

As far as the install size, are you really worried about 1GB?

Idk, I've seen instances of it using over 1 GB of RAM, but I'd imagine it varies based on what functionality you use. iirc iCUE.exe is also not the only services it runs.



Why would you want any driver to take up over 1 GB+ of disk space? Why would you want a driver to have tons of telemetry? Nobody is worried about 1 GB of disk space, but to me it's just a matter of principle.
You do you, ofc. I'd personally rather use open source tools like OpenRGB, FanControl, and AutoHotKey, rather than these proprietary bloatware "ecosystems".