Installation:

   Installing the Fan commander is a breeze. It's slides right into a 5.25" drive bay on your chassis. In my case, using the popular Antec SOHO chassis, I attached some drive rails to the Ultra Fan Commander and easily slide it into the drive bay.

    The way Ultra has designed this Fan Commander, along with the way the Ultra Titanium Fans are designed using the 3-pin connections, make this such a pleasure to install. No more splicing wires, or running a bunch of adapters. The Ultra fans 3-pin connections plug directly into the Fan Commander, as it should be.

    There is also 3 thermal probe wires included along with a HDD led attachment so you can get drive information and cooling information to the front of the case to be displayed on the Ultra Fan Commanders front LCD Readout. You can place the thermal probes on just about anything in, or out of the chassis. Most people would want to attach one to the base of the CPU, maybe one in or on the Hard drive(s), maybe another on the Video Cards GPU. The options are limitless.

    During the testing, the temps appeared to displayed accurately the entire time.

Operation:

   At one point I had all 7 Ultra Titanium Fans attached to the Ultra Fan Commander to see if it would truly run all 7 at once, and it does ;)

   The front bright blue readout is very nice, albeit limited in it's display. It's nothing with customizable text like "Hi Billy!" on the front like a true LCD, but it serves its purpose nicely to relay the information of fan speeds and temperatures.

   Installed in the chassis, it's very sharp and professional looking. I used the black aluminum fascia, but there is also a shiny silver aluminum fascia included and it's easily changed using the included wrench.

    The Ultra Titanium fans are very quiet when run even at full speed. Not to mention the shine on these babies. You could use them as a mirror.

Issues:

  There is a few things I found as a minor annoyance with the unit. First being changing the fan speeds. In order to change the fan speeds, you have to go thru a series of button pushes and delays. It's not hard, just not as fast as it could and maybe "should" be. However do you really need to change the fan speeds on the fly that many times? It's really up the end user. The big chrome control knob on the left front of the unit is a bit awkward. It's not as easy to turn as it should be. A poor design in my eyes.

   Oh yea, there is another minor annoyance: the range on control with the unit. Do not confuse or compare this unit to say, a Rheobus, for fan control. You will not be able to turn the fans down to zero and gradually speed up to a spin, and all the way up to maximum like a rheobus. There is a limited range of control from basically low thru high. It works and will do for 99% of you. I've almost always run all my case fans at 100% anyway, I just get quiet fans.

Conclusion:

   I really like just about everything about the Ultra Fan Commander as a whole. It's a refreshingly high quality product that works well, and looks better, particularly in combination with the Ultra Titanium fans. I would really recommend getting both the fan commander and fans if you have the ability.  The cable braiding (that shiny silver covering on ALL the cables) is extremely good quality and really showcases the dedication to good looks Ultra puts into all of its products. They look so good together, like they were made for each other ;)

   Again, you won't have massive control abilities, but you'll have a great looking unit that does it's job very well, without going into extreme enthusiast control.

   The one real drawback to most people will be the price of this unit. At a MSRP price of $79.99 USD for just the fan commander, It's certainly not cheap. That doesn't include any of the pretty fans you see here either. However being able to handle up to 7 fans with good looks to boot, it's got alot of potential for cleaning up a messy system and ad that bit of class and function.

   There is certainly room for improvement, but there usually is with just about every product. The control range and control knobs could be tweaked for better control.

    For those of you with a sharp eye, you may have also noticed that this unit is a twin to the Sunbeam Chromatic Windmill with only a few cosmetic differences, namely badging. Personally for me the Ultra Fan Commander looks better than the Sunbeam version. Little things like black end caps instead of white on the Sunbeam bring the Ultra to the lead on the looks department for me.

    This unit is a bit of a toss-up to me as far as a recommendation goes. I'd recommend it for it's good looks, solid construction, and handling up to 7 fans with a nice readout including date/time/temps/etc.

    However I wouldn't recommend it for a "good buy" because of its hefty price tag. So in this case, it's more on how much you willing to pay for a cool unit?

   I'd like to thank Ultra products for supplying the review unit. Check out their site for a ton of good looking, and functioning products. Also stay tuned for my review of the new X-Finity 500W Power Supply.