Cooler Master MasterFan Pro RGB Fans and Controller Review

Cooler Master MasterFan Pro RGB

Are you ready to take your systems lighting customisation to the next level? I know I am! While there’s a lot of RGB hardware on the market right now, innovations are seemingly few and far between. Of course, the latest fans from Cooler Master certainly add a few new features to the mix, and custom lighting lovers are sure to be excited here.

16.7 Million Colours

With 16.7 million colours on offer, you can always find the perfect hue to suit your needs. Of course, they now go a little bit further than that with some incredibly advanced effects. Thanks to their new RGB LED Controller hub, you can program effects to the LEDs. By changing the frequency and order of the lighting patterns, you should be able to create effects unlike any other fans on the market. Of course, we’ll get to demonstrating those in a little while. First, let’s take a quick look at what you get for your money.

Introducing the MasterFan Pro Series

“The MasterFan Pro 120 Air Balance RGB series provides a specific air cooling solution. Ideally for CPU coolers and chassis in-take fans. Designed for Builders with RGB-enabled PCs. You can feel the flow with full color fun, and perfect match your PC’s theme. The MasterFan Pro series is fitted with multiple layers of our exclusive noise reduction technologies and a perfect blend of fan blade design that put together work in harmony to cool your entire case and its components in silence.” – Cooler Master

As you can see, we have two of the Masterfan Pro 140mm; they’re both the Air Flow model.

We also have the RGB control hub, which we’ll see in a moment. It comes bundled with a few cables to hook up RGB lighting strips, fans, etc. Of course, there’s also a USB header to connect it to your motherboard for power and the controller software on your desktop.

A Closer Look

The fans are very nice quality and come with a stylish and somewhat minimalist design.

The corner mounts are made from thick and durable rubber, creating a very nice quality anti-vibration mount for the fans.

The corners are completely removable too. While most users wouldn’t remove them, I can see this being handy for modders.

The fans have a control switch on the back. There is red and blue static, but you need the controller for RGB mode.

The fans have two headers on a single cable but with a good size Y-split. The first header is a 4-pin PWM fan header, while the other is dedicated to the RGB lighting features. It’ll easily hook up to any standard RGB controller hardware.

Controller Hub

The hub is much smaller than I expected. Of course, that’s a good thing, as it’ll be easier to locate it within your system build. There are three ports down one side, one for the USB header, and two RGB headers.

Down the other side, there’s a SATA power connector, as well as two more RGB headers.

On the reverse, two small screw mounts, which could allow you to mount it in a lot of places with the right hardware. Of course, you could even screw it to your motherboard M.2 if there’s nothing conflicting in the way.

Performance

The software is very easy to download and install. It’s very clearly laid out, with a simple yet in-depth interface for customising your lighting effects. An RGB palette as well as sliders, and numerical values can all be used to adjust the colour.

Simply pick your effect/mode, chose your colours, and the results are applied immediately to the fans.

Thanks to some funky frequency technology, the fans can display multiple colours at any one time. This creates some very unique effects as to how the colours mix, giving you a kind of foreground and background colour.

The frosted effect of the fan blade captures the light very well too. They’re not blazing like the sun in terms of brightness, but the colours are rich and tasteful.

One of the unique features of these fans is that you can tune the frequency to the RPM of the fan blades, or not if you desire. This creates some pretty sweet effects, which you’ll see in action shortly. This effect can make the blades look like they’re spinning much faster, or slower than they actually are. Get the right setting, it’ll even make them look like they’ve stopped or are spinning backwards!

Video

In the video below, you can see me clicking through the various effects on offer. Stick around for the second half, where you’ll see me changing the frequency of the lighting, allowing the blades to look like they’re stopped, spinning backwards and more. I would like to point out that the fan speed is constant in all of these demonstrations.

Final Thoughts

Price

The Cooler Master Master Fan Pro RGB series fans are anywhere from £18 to £25 each. The price will vary dependant on both the size and format of each model. They come in 120mm and 140mm variants. However, you can choose from Air Flow, Air Pressure, or Air Balance dependant on your cooling needs. The RGB fan controller is around £33 on its own. Hover there are bundles for around £75 that includes the hub, as well as 3 x 120mm fans.

Overview

Cooler Master has really raised the bar in terms of lighting quality here. Innovation isn’t a word that has been thrown around much in the world of RGB lighting for a while, and I’m happy to throw it around now. The lighting effects on offer are certainly unique and offer you a lot of cool ways to create lighting effects for your system build.

Frequency!

Obviously, the most impressive feature is the frequency adjustment. Creating the illusion that the fan blades are spinning at different speeds to their actual RPM, even going so far as making them look like they’re stopped or spinning backwards, is awesome. Sure, it’s a bit pointless too, but it looks really cool. If you want fans that are just fans, it’s not like there aren’t thousands of them to pick from on the market.

Dual Colours

By changing the lighting frequency, you can also create the effect that there are two colours in play at a time. This gives the foreground colour a kind of drop shadow effect that’s certainly interesting. You can also do a “Stars” effect, which is like a firework, one colour flashes, while the other washes through it and fades. Again, lots of cool customisation here.

Build Quality

These are premium price range products, so you would expect premium build quality. Fortunately, they do not disappoint. The durable build quality looks and feels great. There are thick anti-vibration mounts on each corner, and they’re removable too. All the cables are sleeved, and of course, the LED tech is top-notch too. The fans are incredibly quiet too, and the bearings are good for 490,000 hours, while the Silent Driver IC is certainly doing a great job of keeping motor noise to a minimum.

Pros

• Superb build quality
• Impressive RGB tech
• Easy to use software
• 120/140mm variants available
• Compatible with multiple RGB controller tech/motherboard features
• Three different airflow design options available
• Competitively priced in terms of features

Cons

• None

Cooler Master MasterFan Pro RGB Fans and Controller