After switching back to air cooling from AIO in order to make the PC a bit more silent, I started exploring further options. I was searching for competitive prices on the Grid+ V2 or the Corsair Commander Pro and came across the Grid+ V3 which has only just been released and very quietly too. I'd not seen any TechTube videos or any articles reviewing it but decided to take a punt, so I waited in hope for Black Friday deals but could only secure one with free delivery from Scan, at £49.99. Upon opening the box which is nicely packaged, you're greeted with a typical nondescript black box with ports and a selection of wires. The V3 itself has fairly strong magnets in the base so can be mounted to steel chassis' without any issue, although they do provide an adhesive mounting pad if you're not a ferrous fan. The V3 is equipped with 6x PWM fan headers; however, in the cable box there are 2x 3-way splitters to allow the control of up to 10x fans in total. Also inside the cable box is the obligatory power cable, which in this case is Molex (really NZXT? It's nearly 2018), the USB2.0 header to microUSB data cable and some zip ties. More importantly and we'll get to why shortly, there's a little square microphone and a 3.5mm extension cable. Fitting the unit, thanks to it's magnetic properties, is a doddle. It's very thin too so easily fits between the motherboard tray and back panel of even the most restrictive of cases. I opted to display mine inside the main component space and quite nice it looks, too. The supplied cables are long enough for mid-towers; however, those with E-ATX cases may struggle should you wish to install in the extremities of your chassis. Thanks to the CAM software, setup ought to be a doddle right? Wrong! CAM wasn't detecting the unit at all. Admittedly, I was using an internal USB2.0 hub but rather laughably, it's an NZXT one and it wouldn't work. If I plugged the unit directly into the motherboard, the issue went away; however, that's not an option for me owing to the poor internal USB connectivity on my EVGA Cheesecake board. The only fix was a USB TypeA to MicroUSB cable and plug it into the rear I/O through the handy-dandy cable slot in the S340 Elite. It worked a treat whilst keeping my much needed internal USB hub. Once CAM detected the V3, it then asks if you'd like to start an adaptive fan profile. THIS is why the V3 comes with a microphone. CAM will then ask you to run your favourite game for a while to collect baseline noise vs. fan RPMs vs. CPU/GPU temperature. Once complete, you then need to idle the machine to do the same. After these two measurements are taken, CAM then generates it's own artificial load on the CPU and plays with each individual fan's RPM to measure it's effect on temps vs. noise before finalising your adaptive profile by showing you the before and after results. It's worth noting that this isn't a quick process and takes around 20-30 minutes to run. Now, I didn't expect a drop in temps... but I got one. Idle temps were down ~5c on both CPU and GPU, presumably because I had setup the case fans sub-optimally, potentially removing cool air from the path of the components. It also shaved off nearly 6dB off the idle noise, which if you understand how the decibel scale works, is significant. Even in the load scenario, whilst it didn't lower overall temps, it did lower the noise to maintain those temps, again with a 6dB improvement. Now it's worth mentioning at this point that your adaptive profile is designed for everyday loads like gaming, rendering etc so the fans speeds and temperatures are tailored to whatever task you ran when CAM asked you to load the CPU and GPU. Once this is set, don't expect the profile to cope with artificial stress tests and power-virus scenarios. You'll soon approach TJMax. If you want to benchmark though, you can turn off adaptive profile and return to a more traditional approach for benchmarking. Once finished, flick the adaptive switch back on and you're nice and quiet again. Overall, I'm very impressed with the unit. It's a shame that the supplied USB cable wouldn't work in my NZXT USB hub; however, it was quickly rectified with a spare cable I had laying around. If you're after silence that scales with load, then this is one of the easiest ways to achieve it. At £49.99, it's not the cheapest, but the noise reduction is worth every penny to me.
Nice one, I've been thinking about a Grid V3 for a bit so it's great to hear the thoughts of someone who's actually living with one. Like you, I'm super disappointed that NZXT haven't ditched the Molex power connector, although I have a couple of little SATA power to Molex adaptors lying around somewhere. I take it that once you've calibrated the software you can remove the microphone entirely? My NCase is pretty packed as it is, so anything that lets me cut down on wires is a good thing, especially given that the Grid has wires for power, data, plus all of those fans. Finally, do you mind sharing what fans you were using with the Grid? Did you have any issues with low RPMs on PWM fans, as this was a known issue with the V2 and what put me off getting one a while back. Cheers!
I think, and it's purely assumption, that the microphone is an integral part of the system when using adaptive mode. I have the mic plugged directly into the V3 without using the extension jack as mine is in the main compartment. If you run it in the rear behind the motherboard tray, you'd need to place the mic in the main compartment using the extension cable. The mic isn't large or ugly so won't look out of place. It's the size of a small dice or thereabouts and comes with sticky mounts if you need to mount it away from the V3 box. The mic needs to be in or around the airflow i.e. the noise sources, to calibrate the profile correctly. Fans wise, all mine are Corsair HD RGBs, both in 120 and 140mm flavours. No issues at all with fan speed or PWM control and no software clashes with Corsair Link either. They work together nicely. If your PC temps fall below the baseline, the V3 will even shut them down until they're needed again. It's a great bit of kit.
The major problem with NZXT's Grid+ and Hue+ ETC is the CAM software which can be flakey at best and pretty dam useless at worst. Just pulled my Hue + because of the CAM software as every update and there are many bought out to solve some issues then created issues of it's own. Enough was enough I got tired of posting on the CAM problem/bug page along with many others.
That's also true and half the reason I pulled the Kraken X62 out of my build. The reason that I went for the V3 though and was happy with it being CAM driven was because the fan profile it creates appears to be loaded and stored in the V3 unit meaning it only then interfaces with CAM for temperature monitoring, which has always been reliable despite the software being less than perfect. FWIW, the latest CAM build seems pretty reliable and should the next release be a flaky one, I'll roll back to this version which I know to be good - for the Grid+ at least anyway.
