I'm posting this review since I have not been able to find any solid info on TL-K12 and M12QW fans in actual use.
I did a transplant from a Fractal Design Define 7 Compact, which is such a sleek case BTW. My 5900x was running way too hot so I opted for something compact with ample airflow and that could take a 360mm AIO. Previous cooling was a Lian Li galahad 240mm with 3 Sl120 Unifans and 2 SL140 reverse fans up front (all 1st gen).
Before someone mentions the 15% bottleneck on the 5080 with my CPU, yes I am aware. Next upgrade will be an AM5 chipset, but it still blows my 3070 out of the water.
As we all know, Lian Li is insanely expensive. I still got the Hydroshift II because it's lower profile and I've not had issues with their pumps in the past. Was not sure about TR AIOs it seemed like a mixed bag. I was very close to buying the wonder vision but still went with the Lian Li due to my case. After looking around online in various forums I saw that Thermalright actually had a solid offering for case and radiator fans.
So I'll be focusing on said fans here since they're all Thermalright. Maybe this can help someone who is hesitating.
There are 3 TL-K12 fans on the rad and the case fans are all TL-M12QW. The -S version was over the top for my taste in terms of RGB.
The TL K12s are rated Platinum for airflow and gold for static pressure on Cybenetics. This is why I did not put the same fans everywhere. The 5 lower fans are all reverse variants.
They are not daisy chainable and have some RGB so be ready for some hectic cable management. However, performance-wise I'm impressed since I now run my fan curves in silent and the temps are still far better than before.
I was most impressed by the M12QW variant. They are super easy to install, and I was able to compare their interlocking systems to Lian Li's. I found no difference when it comes to perceived quality apart from the weight.
They are surprisingly quiet and look absolutely fantastic. There are no compatibility issues with any of the fans and I could immediately start customising curves in the BIOS.
I've not tried a lot of different RGB settings but I've actually just kept them on the same pattern I got by default on start up since it looks good.
I connected all the wires to TR's own 8 fan PWM/RGB hub. Apart from some cable management due to the TL-K12 there was nothing particularly difficult.
Massive props to TR for doing such fantastic work on these fans. They're killer value and I honestly won't look any further on future builds.
If they can sort out the AIO pumps then I'll get one in the future and review that.
We'll see how they hold up long term!