Fan Control vs Novabench
Side-by-side comparison of features, pricing, ratings, and alternatives.
Fan Control is a Windows utility by developer Remi Mercier (Rem0o) that gives PC builders granular control over CPU, GPU, case, and AIO pump fans. Instead of relying on motherboard BIOS curves, it reads temperatures from multiple hardware sources at once and lets you graph custom fan-speed responses per component. It uses the open-source LibreHardwareMonitor library for sensor data and supports a plugin system for extra hardware support (including some Dell laptops and HWiNFO integration). The app itself is closed-source but completely free, distributed via GitHub releases and package managers like Winget, Scoop, and Chocolatey.
Novabench is a benchmarking suite that tests CPU (single and multi-threaded), GPU (3D graphics and compute), memory, storage and NPU performance, alongside network tests for connection speed, latency, jitter, packet loss and traceroute analysis. Results can be compared against a database of millions of previously submitted scores. Beyond benchmarking, it includes stress testing to validate system stability under sustained load and real-time monitoring of temperatures, power consumption and battery health with historical logging. The free tier runs the full benchmark suite with no time limit and no account required, while paid Plus and Pro tiers add extended stress testing, deeper analytics, and persistent monitoring with batch testing across machines. It runs natively on Windows 10/11, macOS 12+, and recent Linux distributions on both x86-64 and ARM64.
- Completely free with no ads, license keys, or nag screens
- Very low resource footprint compared to full vendor RGB/control suites
- Extremely granular curve and multi-sensor mixing control
- Active development with a real plugin ecosystem
- Free tier includes the full benchmark suite with no time limit or account needed
- Covers CPU, GPU, memory, storage, NPU and network in one tool
- Genuinely cross-platform, including ARM64 support
- Large comparison database for contextualizing scores
- Windows only, no macOS or Linux build
- UI and curve editor have a learning curve for first-time users
- Relies on motherboard fan headers being software-controllable, which varies by hardware
- Deeper stress testing and analytics are locked behind paid Plus/Pro tiers
- Pro tier pricing is per-user, which adds up for multi-machine fleets
- Less specialized than dedicated GPU-only or CPU-only benchmark tools
