Why are Corsair fans so expensive

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person31

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Jun 13, 2015
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I mean that compared to cheap fans such as Arctic F12s, they really don't seem to be worth the price. For example, a pair of Corsair AF120s is £17.00 from PC World and they offer:
Speed: 1500 rpm
Max noise level: 25.2 dB
Max airflow: 52 CFM
Pin connection: 3

However, a pair of Arctic F12s are £7.50 from an Ebay store. They offer:
Speed: 1350 rpm
Max Noise: 22 dB
Max Airflow: 74 CFM
Pin Connection: 3

Overall, it looks like the Arctic F12 is a much better fan. Why is it so cheap then? By the way, I'm not hating on Corsair, I just used their fans as an example as they are the first fans that came up on Google.
 
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Brand name. Everybody has heard of Corsair's products, their advertising is everywhere, and their market is worldwide, so prices being higher is no worries. For those ppl not experienced in pc, probably never having heard of Arctic before, would you trust them over a recognised name like Corsair?

Having a much smaller market, Arctic runs into stiff competition from other companies such as SilenX, BitFenix etc so must sell cheaper, just to make the sale
 
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Yeah, having looked at other Corsair products, they seem slightly overpriced for what they are. Would getting many Arctic F12s be a good decision? Or would it be better to get a more trusted brans like Bitfenix?
 
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It has to do with cost of goods manufactured and cost of raw materials. In this case the cost of materials needed for Corsair's fans is high, so the price of the product is going to be high. If the cost of materials were lower, the price would be lower.
 
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Depends on your case, gpu, cpu cooler. Some who run high powered amd gpus with a tower air cooler on a high OC, need considerably more airflow than a stock cpu with a decent cooler and a small nvidia gpu. And then there is also personal taste. Some could care less as to how noisy a pc is, as long as it stays cool, because they use headphones when gaming. Some, like me, don't use headphones, so tend to prefer a pc as silent as possible, so spend extra for better quality, quieter fans, cpu cooler and gpu.
Case matters because of airflow characteristics and fan capability. 2x 140mm intake fans will produce much more cfm at a low, silent rpm than 1x 120mm Fan at max, noisy rpm, but some cases don't have 2x 140mm fan intake capability. My current case will handle 1x 140mm or 2x 120mm intakes in front. If I want a second 140mm, its mounted on the floor in front of the psu.

For me, fan price isn't as much a consideration as placement and performance according to my personal tastes and parameters.
 
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I find it hard to believe that the cost of plastic, motors and sleeve bearings in Taiwan is higher for corsair than other companies whose fans are also made in Taiwan. I can believe that with as large as corsair is, their employee overhead is considerably higher than those other companies, everything from production to quality control, so that could well account for slightly higher prices to offset those production costs, but raw materials? I can't see that. Corsair is like Walmart, they get the biggest discounts from the sheer size of bulk they buy.
 
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Why do you assume their fans are made in Taiwan? They are an American company.
 
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They have a production facility for select products, not all of them. Their PSUs are done by different OEMs with Corsairs input on design. The AX series is made by Seasonic and the AXi is Flextronics.

Unless they have stated it or you work for them I doubt we know who or where the fans are made.

That said, the Corsair AF and SP fans have both gotten excellent reviews and are made of quality materials. The SP fans for my H100i feel like server grade fans, heavy, unlike those Arctic fans which I have installed before and they feel cheaper.

Anyone can do some Googling and find plenty of forum posts with people talking about the noise issues with the Arctic fans.
 
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All psus, no matter who the parent company, are made in China. Corsair doesn't make psus, they order from other OEM's like Flextronics, Seasonic, Chicony, whose production facilities are in China. That's why they say 'select' products, because corsair actually does have in-house products, the rest are outsourced under Corsair's brand name.

Yes, Corsair fans have had some good reviews, like the tweak town article of several years ago, but those articles don't cover everything. The Corsair fans on the hydro series coolers are miserable. 60+ db(a) is not quiet by anyone's standards and no mention was made of the fact that sleeve bearing fans on a horizontal axis are a short step away from failure. Great for vertical, but lousy for horizontal.

Also, weight in a fan is no consideration of quality. Heavier magnets, motors, blades put more stress on the bearings, especially sleeve bearing when horizontal and inverted. In that aspect, a lighter fan will actually last longer.
 
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You pretty much repeated what I said, I know that Corsair does not make their own PSUs they do however design them or have input in the design.

That said, I have found that weight can mean better quality in a lot of cases. I can say from experience in the IT world that their fans are made of heavier higher quality plastics because they need to keep running and failure is needed to be minimized.

As for the DBA ratting, that is at maximum blast and it makes sense as you want a high Static Pressure fan for a radiator although the highest I have found in reviews for the H100i is 37.5 DBA in a review so not sure where you got your 60DBA from.

You are still making a assumption of where the fans are made without any real information to back it up and why would it matter anyways? These days most products are "made" (normally assembled) in China yet it doesn't stop people from buying them. Even a lot of Japanese products are.

My point still stands that the Arctic fans are getting worse ratings if you look at people in forums talking about them than the Corsair fans.
 
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Not going to dispute you on arctic fans being crap, lol, but I did just weigh my Phanteks f120MP and the Corsair 120mm that came with my h55 (says Taiwan in very small lettering on the back) and the Corsair weighs barely more. (balance scales, no numbers). I'd like to think the Phanteks is higher quality.
 
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No offense, really, to anybody who likes them, but I wouldn't use a Corsair fan if it was given to me. I've personally seen three literally catch on fire or burn out fan hubs, on different systems. Well, I didn't actually WATCH them catch on fire, but I saw the results of said barbecue. And a whole bunch that were crazy noisy when there was no reason for it as they were not long in use.

Plus, and more importantly, their specs on paper are crap. They might meet or come close to their noise ratings when they are new, but after a week or two of medium to heavy use, they get much louder and stay that way. At least all the models I've worked with. Much like their power supplies. Good when new, a few months later, crap.

It's actually kind of a pet peeve for me. Likewise with Cooler Master and to some extent Cougar. If it's a Noctua, Cryorig, Noiseblocker, Phanteks, Scythe, Thermalright, Aerocool and in some cases Swiftech and Cougar, I would prefer not to use it. And even those companies have some lower quality products that are not necessarily the best choices in the world even for the price.
 
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^In addition to the above, my H100i stock fans seem to slowly leak over time. There is an oily residual buildup on the fan blades from time to time, and the dust from the mountains likes to settle on it.
I wish I could replace them, but as an undergrad, I dont have the money to spend on two new fans at the moment... sadly...
 
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You might be able to reseal them. I don't know on those fans but most of them have a "dust cap" or rubber plug and if they are leaking past that you can seal them up with a small amount of silicone or RTV gasket sealant. Just be sure to allow them to dry for a few hours before putting them back into service.

http://www.overclockers.com/em-spinning-lubricate-pc-fans/
 
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Weird. Never had an issue with that and I live in Southern AZ so pretty much dust city. Hell we had a dust storm last week.

darkbreeze, sorry you have had issue with their products. Luckily after over 10 years I have not.
 
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Eh, not everybody has the same experience with ANYTHING. They have some good cases but I try to avoid their fans or using their power supplies whenever possible. I don't have much experience with their peripherals, so I can't comment on those, but after many bad experiences with their other products I just tend to shy away from them altogether. Their memory products are top notch though.
 
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I've found their coolers to be underperformers as well. I'd gladly choose a Cooler Master Nepton 240m over an H100i any day, and I'm not a big fan of a lot of Cooler Master's products either but they at least have decent liquid AIO coolers for the price. I also have a highly modded Storm Enforcer case that has shown itself to be worthy.
 
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Only thing corsair I own is my h55, which has seriously impressed me with its performance, 4.3 GHz straight OC on 3770k, p95 26.6, small fft across 8 cores and I'm seeing 67° at 1.208v. But thats after throwing the stock fan out the window and replacing it with a nf-f12. So basically it could be considered a Noctua AIO, since the rad isn't anything special, just a standard slim 120mm, and the pump is asetek.
 
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Yeah, fan and pump = cooler. Radiator factors in only really in terms of durability. Cheap quality equals shorter life but doesn't REALLY factor in in terms of performance as most of the radiators in the world are made by only a handful of manufacturers. That includes automotive and industrial radiators as well.
 
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