Thermaltake Commander FT and Riing 12 Review – Cooling on a Whole New Level!

As technology progresses, we see the progression from what we typically think of as standard computer components, to something one may have seen on The Jetson’s. One of which that this is most common with, is Thermaltake. Constantly it seems; day after day, week after week! Thermaltake throws the norm out the window, and brings in a new standard. Today, we have the privilege of taking a first hand look at the new Commander FT Touch Screen Fan Controller, as well as the Riing 12 Case Fan. Both of which throw the previous norm quickly out the window!

COMMANDER FT TOUCH SCREEN CONTROLLER

To start, the box that houses the fan controller is as simple as it needs to be. The front of the box shows the Commander FT with some basic specs.

The back of the box goes into a bit more detail as to what is included with the fan controller, as well as its specifications.

As soon as you open the box, you see the fan controller with its mounting screws. Internally, the fan controller is quite bare. There are little to no components of mention, with the exception of the PCB and pre-attached fan cables.

The Touch Screen Fan Controller is truly a revolutionary design. It’s dimensions of 148 by 88 by 42 mm, proves that it will easily fit in any open 5.25″ drive bay. It has a good balance between plastic and steel, which makes it easy to mount, yet has solid weight of 300g.

It features five 3-Pin or 4-Pin fan connectors and one 4-Pin molex power connector, as well as a temperature sensor probe that is carefully wrapped in a clear plastic tube for protection.

Specifically, the fan controller can look after five different channels, at 10W per channel. This gives a total of 50W of combined wattage. The speed range can vary from 0 – 9990 RPM.

The total color touch screen measures at 5.5″, with access to five different channels, quick temperature checks, as well as auto/manual mode. The auto/manual toggle lets you choose whether you want to pick how you wish each channel to run, or if you want to let the fan controller automatically choose fan speeds. You can also dim the screen, or brighten, depending on your PC’s environment.

There is a toggle for performance versus silent mode, which is almost self-explanatory. Performance mode will provoke the best cooling performance, which puts that fans at the highest speeds and best air flow. As you can imagine, the silent mode slows down the speeds with near negligible noise. A quick check showed that the Commander FT was not currently (at the time of writing this article) available on Amazon, but we did find it for $36.99 on Newegg.