Noctua Main Fan Lineup Explained -
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2024
- This video is a deep dive into Noctua's main lineup of Fans. We will take a closer look at their NF-A12x25, NF-S12A and NF-F12. We will have a look at their quality, boxing, PQ Curve, additions, Radiator Performance, Case Fan Performance, and Heatsink Performance. Let's find out which one of their NF Fans is their Best Fan!
WATCH NEXT: Noctua NF-A12x25 Chromax - Absolute Best 120mm Fan
• Noctua NF-A12x25 Chrom...
Parts used (We use Affiliate Links):
Noctua A12x25: amzn.to/3P7OyiR
Noctua NF-S12A: amzn.to/3AvH0lK
Noctua NF-F12: amzn.to/3OM54VL
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00:00 Intro
00:40 What defines a good radiator fan?
01:15 Presenting the Contestants
04:45 Contestants Overview
05:15 Arctic LF 360 Testing
09:05 NZXT Kraken M22 Testing
#pcfans #radiator #pc #phanteks #arctic #bequiet #noctua - Наука та технологія
I love your videos. You state facts while throwing in jokes which makes your videos enjoyable. Keep me coming back to watch more. That entire bit trying to pronounce PBT was hilarious!
Thanks! Happy to hear the style resonates well :)
I learned quite a bit more from this video than I expected. Really great explanations!
Excellent video. I learned much, and this has informed my next purchase. Thanks!
Thank you for those 65 hours of testing!
this is exactly the video i need. Been overwhelmed by noctua fans lineup... and this video told me everything i needed. i greatly appreciate the effort put into testing
Nice video … keep in mind that the F12 fans predate the A12x25 So this might be why the A12x25 are beter (bit more development ect)
But the thing that I miss in this video is noise normalized results
And also how they preform at the same RPM (for example how the fans sound in comparison to each other are the same speed)
Thank you so much for so detailed work you have done!
Thanks for watching!
Wow! What a good video, I came to demystify the Noctua lineup, I left with quite a bit of knowledge on PC air cooling I can definitely use in the future👍
Glad the vid was useful!
Very good video! Thanks
This is an amazing video. Kudos for this entire research.
Thanks! Glad you liked it
Thanks for the great video.
Awesome detailed testing!
Glad you liked it!
This crushed my dream of using F12 as it looks amazing on the rear side, windtunnel effect
Awesome video thank for the info!
Glad it was helpful!
Crazy video, Noctua should just use this as promo
Great. Now I just need 200€ to populate my case with A12's :D
Joke aside: Noctua is one of the best, but IMO it's just too expensive...
Noctua could add a link to a Loan-Calculator on their website. Would speed up the process
Excellent video, a blend of scientific rigor, comedy and swearing.
I just wish the audio was better becuase honestly this is straining to listen to for half an hour
Great video mate thx 😘
Glad you enjoyed it
Much needed explainer!! Always wondered if the other noctua fan offerings, vs the a12x25 fans, are any good on AIOs static pressure/airflow wise, pumped to watch the vid!
Hope you'll enjoy :)
@@STSYT just got done watching!
As a mechanical engineer, it was really intriguing how you introduced the concepts of static pressure/airflow, and established the p-q curve correlation, simply fantastic!!
Also hats off for the INSANE 65 HRS OF TESTING !!!
Glad you liked it ^^ took some time this one
great video bro!
Thanks!
Probably the best guide on Noctua fans like wow 😂 I’ve been telling ppl that the Chromax ones are the same as the standard F series
Great video! I came here because people "laughed" at my S12A fans.. I have 4 of them dating back 10 years of which I bought then for $18 AUD each. They are still currently half the price of the A12x25 and at a time were even 1/3rd the price of them.
The S12A's probably perform the same in the Corsair 4000D airflow so I'm not worried at all!
Thank you
I like your humor. Was considering the Toughfan 12, but I went with the Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax. For the price of 3 of those I would have gotten some nice RGB fans, but of course the RGB element makes the actual fan smaller in diameter. They will replace the super loud radiator fans which came with the Aorus 3090 ti with AIO. The fans that came with it can only be connected to the card itself and run at minimum 30% which is insanely loud at idle. I think 900 rpm.
If they are good I might replace my "Corsair Air Series SP120" for the CPU AIO as well. Sadly nobody makes colored rings like Corsair did. Really like them.
Oooh, double you! So fancy! 😁👍
Thanks for all the testing! Weird results though, Noctua itself says "In the chromax line, Noctua recommends the pressure-optimised NF-F12 for heatsinks and radiators and the airflow-optimised NF-S12A for case fan usage."
Why would they recommend the two models when they are worse than their all-rounder? Just so that they don't stop selling?
The only redeeming quality I can think of is the sound. One additional test you might've tried is case with nf-s fans running at 100% vs case with nf-a fans running speeds lowered to match the dB of the nf-s case.
nf-a with low noise cable lowers speed to 1700 rpm but is still 2 dB louder than nf-s, so you'd probably have to run the fans at 1500-1600 rpm.
I subscribed at 65h. Thank you so much
I think that to get the best results with the A12+S12 combo you'd need to do noise-normalized testing where the rear fan PWM is separated from the front PWM. Why? The S12 can run at full speed at a much lower decibel level than the A12 can, so at any given dBA level the S12 can run faster than the A12 can at the exhaust while the intake fans need to drop their speed even more.
Not saying this would be viable for a benchmark, but because it may make the 2x A12 + 1x S12 a viable real-world build even when 3x A12 beats it in benchmarks.
This was actually taken into consideration when benchmarking.
I had a big list where I lowered each fan individually. However, as it turned out, lowering the S12 had close-to 0 impact when the A12's were spinning high. The same happened in vice-verca. While the S12 was spinning like crazy, the temps took an immediate hit when I lowered the A12's.
In the end, the temp were basically always relying on the "strongest" fan. Therefore I decided to not include these graphs as it would have made everything more complicated to understand.
I also tried this to the extreme just out of curiosity. Almost standstill on the A12s & full blast for the S12. The temps did not take that too good.
You're right that you could make it an A12+S12 combo and let the S12 spin a lot faster as it will be generally a quieter fan. However, as I had to find out, exchanging it against a A12 will just as good, or even better as you can run everything a lot slower thanks to the added perf.
@@STSYT Do you mean that the setup with the S12 at full blast and A12s at low rpm was hotter than the setup with three A12s all at low rpm?
This would actually make an interesting general case fan setup deep-dive. Is it worth having airflow-optimized exhaust fans at all instead of just using same fans front and back?
Thanks for the video, watched some ads as appreciation.
Thanks for that!
what noctua cooler are you using on the z690?
Thanks!
Highly appreciated ❤️
Got all of them :)
I am a bit overwhelmed by the choices, which Noctua fan is the best for rear exhaust? 140 or 120 both work. Cheers!
nice content
Glad you enjoy it!
Whiche noctua fan is good for custom shroud gpu? I am confused with noctua and phanteks t30 120?
Thank you so much !!!! hopeful you take in your hands a silent wings 4 to compare with the phanteks t30 and noctua
lol, I'm benchmarking them today
I'f love to see you compare the nfa12x25 vs the 120 and 140 mm industrial lineup
Yes
Greetings from Chile!! Osorno, Patagonia
I see an STS video: first i press like then i watch!
That's the spirit
You need a lav mic my dude. Great video.
Thanks! We have one now, so the sound quality will be better in the future
Great video thank you for making it. Oh buddy you need a wireless mike you sound far away and the room makes you echo had to turn up the volume high to hear you.
This has actually already been fixed^^ I'm using a Rode Wireless Go now.
My videos are produced over a month in advance though, so the change will take some time
A12x15 or S12A for case fans?
A use case for the F12 might be as a case fan for GPU cooling, since it produces more directed air flow than the A12. In a big case it might help push air underneath the GPU and out the back through the PCIe slots, whereas the A12 spreads the air more evenly across the case. But in a high-airflow case that probably doesn't matter. Maybe in a more restricted case like the Fractal Define 7 the F12 *might* offer better noise-normalized GPU cooling?
I donno, but i kinda doubt that. I believe the A12's general "being better" will outperform it again.
The only way to make the F12 succeed would be to add soo much resistance that part of the PQ graph is reached where the A12 starts to slow down.
And although a Fractal 7 isn't the most airflowy case, I think the F12 needs something like a concrete wall
@@STSYT I do think you are right and honestly I'm surprised that Noctua is still trying to sell the F12 without giving it a proper update to keep it competitive with the A12 in at least a part of the PQ curve.
I mean the fan market could definitely use an A12-class static pressure fan with good airflow straighteners.
65 hours was worth it. Thanks
Glad you think so!
Like all your videoes and some of the mild cursing makes me lol. I just built a new pc using all noctua fans. Noctua u12a heat sink, 2 noctua 120mm nf-s12a and 2 noctua 140mm nf-a14 all chromax. I wanted my build all black then decided its to much black so I took the brown isolation pads off my wifes noctua fans in her case and added the brown pads to the black chromax fans in my new build and it turned out really nice looking. I wanted to try the be quite silent wings for my case fans but 1 of the 140mm fans had a bad connector so I sent all the be quites back and ordered the chromax fans. If it wasn't for that 1 be quite fan with the bad connector I would of kept all the be quites for case fans.
It was sooo frustrating not to see the fans actually running in the video. I was very curious seeing how they ran. Maybe for your next videos you should show the fans in motion from time to time.
Noted!
well would you look at the an honest noctua line up review, hopefully they refresh their line up in a significant way.
That won't happen at least until Q2 2023, not a single 120mm fan in sight
@@STSYT yeah their road map got delayed alot unfortunately.
👍
Based on the 22:10 chart, I do wonder if the S12A will really only win if it has virtually no impedance at all, which obviously will never be the case, unless you cut out the grill for your rear exhaust fan entirely. But I really don't know if the grill of a rear exhaust will give less or more back-pressure than about .4 mmH2O, and if it might give off less when one approaches silent operation, but I'm not sure. I still think the S12A might be a decent fan choice though for the rear exhaust, as I'm running it at 600rpm, which together with three different fans in the front as well is more than good enough for venting my 4000D Airflow with 300 Watts of load anyways. But the nerd/engineer in me is quite curious for how this graph would look for a near in-audible sound level, as that would not favour high static pressure in nearly the same way as high rpm scenarios. I also wonder where the average rear exhaust grill would sit on the static pressure and air-flow axes for each of the fans at that sound level. According to the 22:10 chart, the S12A and F12 have no reason to exist it looks like, and they certainly don't for heat sinks, but I have no idea at what sound level Noctua was referring to and how things look for low noise, and at what impedance a rear grill approximately is. At a higher rpm, the a12x25 has an inate advantage over the S12A obviously, as the back-pressure is a lot more relevant. Currently I'm having a mix of fans, but the plan was to have 3x a12x25 for intake and keep my S12A as the exhaust.
Any update on this? I have an S12A now which I use for exhaust and I ordered an A12x25 for intake, and I really don't want to just throw away or sell my S12A (then I would also need to buy another A12x25). The S12A is extremely quiet and I would agree with you that its what this test lacks. Yes, the A12 at 100% moves more air than the S12A, but the A12 100% is 2000RPM.... While S12A is only 1200RPM, which is A LOT less noise. I will go as far as to say that S12A is the quietest I have ever heard on a fan, and I have tried beQuiet fans that are rated for lower dbA values (no hate on be quiet, they are amazing, just not as silent as the s12a). So I still believe that the S12A will perform just as good for the same noise as the A12x25, for the rear exhaust with grill and no filter. What do you think?
@@rebelkassadin It think it might perform better still for very low noise levels. But I suspect the A12 is better per noise than the S12A when one gets to around 1100-1300rpm (mine goes to 1300 at least), at least if one prefers the lower pitch noise of the A12. But thing is, there' s no way to know for sure. Like... sticking my hands behind the fans isn't actually a proper measuring method 😂 But both are very good nonetheless, so I've settled on that it doesn't really matter who's really the very best. I have my S12A set at just 600rpm or so though. So it's more or less completely non-audlble. It's not expelling the air with great force or anything, but together with 3 front fans also at 600RPM it's enough to keep my 4000D Airflow ventilated more than well enough for the case airflow to be total overkill for my 300W+ system. It's all down to the device heatsinks at that point, higher case flow being unrelevant. But yeah, I think the S12A is about just as good as the A12 unless you need to run it at a high rpm, which I personally am far from needing to with an airflow case and relatively low-wattage system.
@@oes2546 Agreed, same situation :D I mostly run at very low speeds and therefore I dont think any fan will make more than a 1C difference in temperature, irrelevant.
Obligatory comment for 65 hours of work!
Obligatory response to the obligatory comment for 65 hours of work!
I applaud you for pronouncing W as "wee". Everyone should do that. Saying "double-u" is just dumb.
I'm sticking to it until it becomes standard
Double u sounds much better
A12 fans costs a bit too much so I'm going with P12 fans instead.
i just bought the most expensive as usual the more you pay the better quality you should expect
Comment!
Reply!
It's called PWM, not PVM.
No
@@STSYT pulse width modulation.
PVM? PEE DUBBLE YEW EMMM
F-series is worst
Shock result