ASUS ROG Strix XF 120 case fan in the test – not bad, but far too expensive

If you have a full portfolio, then please also with fans. With street prices starting at around 29 euros, Asus positions the ROG Strix X120 as a top-of-the-range fan for cases and radiators, but it also sets itself the bar very high. You can safely do without the missing RGB, but what good is this high-priced offer and can the fan beat the reference, which is even offered at a lower price? Today’s test will of course show it.

I am not going to submit to the PR speech of the Asus homepage and slides and fully quote all the great word creations that are ascribed to the fan in an advertising-effective way. The design, however, seems well-considered, so that all of this is brief and to the point functional and free of optical frills can rewrite. The fan does what it should, which is the main thing. However, we will have to write about a few things that cannot be seen (or heard) at first glance. But I’ll get to that in the course of the article.

The magnetic levitation bearing used (“MagLev”, Magnetic Levitation) is intended to reduce friction and prevent tilting in the bearing, which can also be convincing in practice. The principle of action is not new, but it is quite effective. with the specified 400,000 hours of MTBF for the camp, you are, at least according to the data sheet, very well in the race. Of course, we can’t test it, but buyers are happy to take the offered 5-year guarantee with them.

The frame is simple and black, rubber applications used in the screw connection openings are intended to reduce structure-borne noise and the rotor blades with their rounded ends follow current trends. Due to the omission of RGB illumination, the hub can also be a bit smaller and the fan opening is not reduced in diameter by light rings on the inside. So less is definitely more and you will painlessly survive that the lamp shop is closed today. So no fair, thanks for that.

The accessories are neat, because you get the fan and the obligatory four housing screws as well as silicone decouplers and a Y-splitter. The manual is more decorative, because you can’t really go wrong. If it weren’t for the price, which of course includes the Asus brand and the ROG brand. Brand-affine buyers are hardly deterred by something like that. You can get such fans in the OEM business from around 4 to 6 USD, so the margin is also right.

On the next page you can see how and what we test and why. Understanding the details is extremely important in order to be able to classify the results objectively later. The differences between many models are more in the details and the best fan for all situations can hardly exist. There is a certain optimum in every situation and of course there are also good all-rounders. But they usually have their price. If you are planning specifically with 60 mm radiators, for example, you can perhaps save money by choosing the best model for your application, which might not do so well as a case fan. And vise versa, of course.

For your curiosity, I also have the original data sheet at hand as a PDF:

Q17285_ROG_STRIX_XF_120_QSG_WEB