Difference Between 3 Pin 4 Pin Cpu Fan

Hey guys on todays episode we learn about the difference between 3 pin and 4 pin fans and whether one or the other performs better for cpu cooling.

Difference between 3 pin 4 pin cpu fan.

The pwm fan does not need to rely on the motherboard bios which is more convenient. 2 pins provide electricity to turn the fan. The 4th wire is pwm or pulse width modulation and it does a better job at reducing and controlling fan speed than reducing the voltage for a 3 pin fan. 4 pin connectors are usually used by cpu fans with higher power consumption.

Three wire and four wire fan connectors. 3 pin connectors are usually used for the smaller chassis fans with lower power consumption. The so called pwm line uses the pwm mechanism to adjust the fan speed and the fan voltage is constant avoiding the control voltage to shift. A 3 pin fan connector will be smaller in size than the 4 pin pwm fan connector.

The 4 pin cooling fan is based on the 3 pin and has a pwm line pulse width modulation. It will also have three square holes on the front and three wires entering the back. Fans and on board fan headers are backwards compatible. There is no disadvantage and depending on the board you can change certain fan headers to how they control the fan.

The only difference is that the cpu fan will not have the smart fan option uses the 4th pin so your fan will go at full speed instead of being able. The 3rd pin feeds rpm information back to the motherboard. A four pin connector is a little different than the three pin connector since it has the extra fourth wire used for controlling and sending signals to the fan which likely has a chip on it that tells it to slow down or speed up in addition to the other wires the three pin connector has.