Cooling your gaming PC might seem like a simple process, but nothing quite compares to the best PC fans. Sure, you could chuck any old blower inside your PC case, but your components can’t run the most demanding games at a decent frame rate if they’re hampered by what’s known as thermal throttling – heating up enough to underperform but not too much that your PC will shut down. Sticking with a set of Noctua, be quiet, Cooler Master, or Thermaltake fans is a surefire way to ensure your gaming RAM, SSDs, and motherboard feel the cold breeze when they can’t cool themselves.

While we can separate the best PC fans from the duds, you’ll still need to ask yourself a bunch of questions before chucking your money at your gaming monitor. Do you want the coolest components possible or a silent PC, as this is often the trade-off you’ll need to make? Are you attaching the fans to the radiator of an AIO cooler, the heatsink of an air cooler, or straight to your chassis? And what size fans do you need?

Once you’re sure everything’s compatible, you’ll need to consider the amount of air your case takes in versus how much it exhausts. Ideally, you’ll want either the same amount or more air coming into your case, but we’ll run through everything you need to know after presenting you with our selection of the best PC fans.

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