Chieftec Nova Review

Introduction

Chieftec, or Chieftronic, recently came out with their Nova set of 120mm ARGB fans! It is time to take a closer look and determine if they are worthy budget fans!

What's in the Box?

A set of Chieftronic Novas are coming inside a regular Fan-Set box. The box contains some imagery and the usual amount of specs. Something that we immediately noticed however, is the higher-end quality of the packaging itself. Although this doesn't say anything about the performance and quality of the product, the box was significantly better than what we're used to with the usual fan set.

Once everything is removed from the box, we will find the following items:

• 3x NF-3012 RGB Fans
• 3x Screws
• ARGB & PWM Controller 
• Controller Connection & Power Cables
• Remote
• Manual

Down below we summarized the spec sheet:

Installation

Installing and controlling a set of Chieftronic Nova fans isn't any different from any other fan.

A single fan can be controlled over a PWM and 3-pin ARGB connection. 

If the user wishes to, or if his motherboard doesn't have the needed connection, the included ARGB and Fan Controller can be used. This one is powered using a SATA Power connector.
By using the controller, the user can make use of the included remote. Pressing on the corresponding button, the controller can set different colors and modes as well as the fan speed of all connected fans.

In case the user wants to use the controller whilst still maintaining motherboard control, the controller can be connected to the appropriate motherboard connections in order to allow passthrough mode.

Apart from connecting both the light and power connection, each fan needs to be positioned where the user wants to install it and screwed down using the provided screws.

Appearance

Design-wise, a Nova fan can be summarized as a high-end or premium version of a budget fan. The overall quality feels slightly better than expected.

For the quality part, however, especially the RGB implementation, little effort has been put it. Although the cutouts look solid and interesting, the amount and strength of the LEDs is not even nearly close to what it should have been. All LEDs can be counted, even if there is no light source in the room.

Overall, even if the fan has an "okay" build quality, once it's on, it doesn't make the best impression.

Benchmark

We benchmarked Chieftronics Nova set on both test setups. Once focused on pure radiator performance using an 80mm thick radiator. To determine the performance of a fan, the above ambient temperature of the water exiting the radiator is measured.

The second scenario is a raw case benchmark. For this, we measure the CPU temperature of a system using a Noctua NH-P1 passive cooler. In this case, the fans are responsible for recycling the air within the case.

Radiator

Whilst letting the Nova fans spin at max speed, they kept the water at 16.1°C above ambient. This positions them at the lower end of our benchmark candidates. 

After lowering the fan speed in 10% steps, we created a noise-to-performance chart.

On here we can observe that the Nova fans are unable to maintain a good noise-to-performance ratio all across the board.

Case

As case fans, the results don't look any better. Allowing the Nova fans to spin at max speed allowed the CPU to be cooled down to 50.3°C above ambient. This positions them at the very end of our list.

The corresponding Noise-to-Performance graph does not look much better. From start to finish, the Nova fans were significantly behind everything we've tested using this setup so far.

Conclusion

After the initial impressions gained by the high-quality packaging were quite positive, and even strengthened by the Fan's overall build quality, we ended up devastated by their performance.

For both radiator and case-fan use cases, the Nova set turned out to be one of the worst contestants we've seen so far. Upon seeing these results, we even started to question our machine, leading us to repeat the test more often than the usual 3x times. Additionally, we tested the fans in a different room and re-tested other fans to be sure the results were still consistent. All of our efforts ended up with the same results, the Nova set does not perform particularly well.

Adding to that, the RGB implementation isn't particularly exciting either. The amount and strength of LEDs,  are not sufficient for the use case, and the end- product, or overall build doesn't look particularly appealing.

To finish of this review, due to the (lack of) performance, we cannot recommend the Chieftronic Nova set for any use case. Neither for radiator, nor case use-cases.