Identifying fan type 3 pin or 4 pin pwm.
Cpu fan 4 pin vs 3 pin.
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 to slow the fan down when full speed is not need.
The 3 connector fan is very common use in laptop it can adjust the fan speed according to the cpu temperature but the flexibility is poor.
2 advantages to 3 pin vs 4 pin fans 3 pin computer fan.
A 3 pin cpu fan will work in a 4 pin cpu fan.
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.
This is still considered a 3 pin fan.
You can use a 3 wire fan voltage controlled rpm on a 4 pin fan header or a 4 wire fan pwm controlled on a 3 pin fan header as shown here.
In contrast 3 pin 4 pin fan is the main stream now.
In the z170 bios you ll notice there are two modes of operation that can be chosen for the chassis fan headers dc mode or pwm mode so you re covered there using either 3 wire or 4 wire fans and still have speed control otherwise they d run full blast.
4 pin molex to 3 pin cpu fan power connector cable cp c 118 price.