Noctua Fans on Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360

[CuttingEdge]

I'm planning a "Noctua" build so will be replacing fans on the AIO (LF3 360) that I have but I am not sure what's the best way to run the fan cables, as the Noctua fans have this very rigid sleeved cables. If necessary I can get a different AIO that might be more suitable for the Noctua fans. Or perhaps I need some fan hub ? I will be building this in Thermaltake Core P5.

Ryzen 9800x3d
Asus X870E Hero
Asus RTX 5080 Noctua Edition
Seasonic TX 1600W Noctua Edition

 

[WYP]

Hmm. Not sure what the best option is. I would just route the cables of the Noctua fans behind the motherboard tray and then connect them to your motherboard or a fan controller.

Noctua plans to release its own CPU liquid coolers. They plan to release them in Q2 2026. If you want an all-Noctua PC build, you may want to wait for that product. Depends on if you want to wait or do everything now really.

 

[CuttingEdge]

Hmm. Not sure what the best option is. I would just route the cables of the Noctua fans behind the motherboard tray and then connect them to your motherboard or a fan controller.

Noctua plans to release its own CPU liquid coolers. They plan to release them in Q2 2026. If you want an all-Noctua PC build, you may want to wait for that product. Depends on if you want to wait or do everything now really.

I think my only solution for now is to use 120mm noctua fans with 140 noctua brackets SFMA1 (inverted) and with 420 LF3Pro - this way I can run cables in similar way as they are now run on arctics own fans. Otherwise I would not only need to mod the fan cables to make them shorter but I would also need to alter the frames of the fans too. Once noctua releases their collab AIO this will have to do.

 

[WYP]

I think my only solution for now is to use 120mm noctua fans with 140 noctua brackets SFMA1 (inverted) and with 420 LF3Pro - this way I can run cables in similar way as they are now run on arctics own fans. Otherwise I would not only need to mod the fan cables to make them shorter but I would also need to alter the frames of the fans too. Once noctua releases their collab AIO this will have to do.

Hold on. Is your cooler 420mm or 360mm? Your first and second posts talk about different versions of the LF3 Pro. Noctua do have 140mm fans. The newest ones are their NF-A14x25 fans.

 

[CuttingEdge]

Hold on. Is your cooler 420mm or 360mm? Your first and second posts talk about different versions of the LF3 Pro. Noctua do have 140mm fans. The newest ones are their NF-A14x25 fans.

I am getting 420mm and and I figured out that I can use the 140mm brackets with the 120mm fans on 420mm AIO for the sake of cable management. I will be a bit of a hack but if I can't run cables neatly otherwise I will be happy with the way it end up looking.

Another option for me is the Asus PROART LC 420mm but it seems very overpriced - so will have to look further into it.

 

[NeverBackDown]

There's no point getting a bigger radiator if you use the small fans. You won't be cooling all the surface area. You'd be better off getting correct size fans or the correct size radiator/fan combination you desire.

If you use a bigger radiator and small fan option I wouldn't be surprised if you had worse performance than the alternative mentioned options.

 

[CuttingEdge]

There's no point getting a bigger radiator if you use the small fans. You won't be cooling all the surface area. You'd be better off getting correct size fans or the correct size radiator/fan combination you desire.

If you use a bigger radiator and small fan option I wouldn't be surprised if you had worse performance than the alternative mentioned options.

I was wondering if that might have some negative effect but I can offset this with push pull set up I think. My main goal is to have as few cables visible as possible while using noctua fans instead of the stock ones. The arctig fans have a lot of gaps in the frame so all the fan connectors can be tucked away - the noctua ones on the other would need to be modded with a dremmel to make some room for the AIOs cable splitter and I would need to mod the cables too and make them much shorter. The 140mm bracket solves this quite nicely.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Again if I'm following correctly this still makes no sense to me. You'd rather spend MORE money on the INCORRECT fans rather than spend the money on the correct size fans?

You're other argument of less cables also doesn't make sense using 120s. 6 120mm fan cables instead 3 140mm fan cables. You don't need to mod the fans. Just run them in between the frames. That's what everybody does. Hell I have the AF fans myself and run both sets in between the frames.

You mentioned using a splitter but I don't see how that changes anything. Connect to motherboard CPU_FAN and connect both fans on the other end behind the motherboard. You would do the same routing with 6 120s in push pull.


I'm just confused as to how to help you get to where you want to be.

 

[CuttingEdge]

Again if I'm following correctly this still makes no sense to me. You'd rather spend MORE money on the INCORRECT fans rather than spend the money on the correct size fans?

You're other argument of less cables also doesn't make sense using 120s. 6 120mm fan cables instead 3 140mm fan cables. You don't need to mod the fans. Just run them in between the frames. That's what everybody does. Hell I have the AF fans myself and run both sets in between the frames.

You mentioned using a splitter but I don't see how that changes anything. Connect to motherboard CPU_FAN and connect both fans on the other end behind the motherboard. You would do the same routing with 6 120s in push pull.


I'm just confused as to how to help you get to where you want to be.

I want a clean build. I have couple of AIOs on the way such as Asus PROART 420 and LF3 420 (this one - I already own in 360 size has a cable splitter for the fans - but with noctua fans it's not really possible to neatly cable manage them. I would need to use a dremmel the frames and shorten the cables too. The noctua 120 to 140 adapter will cover all the cables so it will look clean. I can push pull it too to compensate for that smaller size fans. This has nothing to do with the cost. I'm not saving on anything I just want a nice, clean noctua themed build