Everyone has "preferences" and "desires."
I used to build computers from modestly-priced parts. I remember the first "real" project used an Intel Tucson motherboard for a last-generation Pentium. I would not have given a minute's thought to overclocking. And since the OEM Gateway systems I'd purchased before that were "plain Vanilla" IBM-beige tower cases, I bought InWin budget cases.
Then I would proceed to complicate things. But it wasn't until early in the last decade that I became an "enthusiast" builder. I seemed to be having a pissing contest with a friend who had jumped on the enthusiast bandwagon. He would buy parts and cooling devices with the intentions of over-clocking, but at the first sign of a BSOD he would return the settings to stock.
My own extravagance arose with purchase of a front-panel fan controller with thermal sensor wires. While my friend was really happy with manual fan adjustments of his fan-legion with a front-panel Rheobus or whatever it was called, I could see that you would want thermal fan-control. But after piddling with the sensors, I gave up on my first attempt.
At some point I remembered another friend's remark about cooking. He was a medical researcher, just finished with school at University of Basil, who had worked summers in Parisian restaurant kitchens. "Simple is best" -- what we know as the KISS principle.
I would waste good money on later fan-controller experiments. NOt a lot of money -- perhaps the total waste was $120 over four years. At one point I made a Springdale motherboard control the CPU fan, but I don't think the onboard features supported much more.
Some of my purchases actually had promise. The Silverstone Commander worked, but you needed an NVidia chipset or (supposedly) an NVidia graphics card. And because of the NVidia-Intel feud -- they never fully perfected the software that made the Commander meet its promise.
So as much as I appreciate the market offerings of more recent years such as the Aquaero 5 controller, I try to design my whole cooling strategy around the motherboard capabilities.
The ASUS boards especially have their Q-Fan feature, ready-made with built-in fan profile options: "Turbo," "Standard," "Silent." And -- "User." With the first three, you don't even need the software. With "User" you only need to use the software once to get the profile you want.
"Simple . . . is Best." "Einfach ist besser." No more fans than necessary for the objective. Control fans in groups. Use the motherboard. Don't buy extra "stuff" if you can achieve the objective without it.