Hello everyone, so on this video I decided to go 4k 24fps rather then the normal 1080p60, I also spent some time setting up my camera to try and improve the focal clarity and color. Watching it back there are some settings I still want to tweak to try and make it better. But im curious to know, do you prefure 4k 24fps or 1080p 60fps or maybe 1080p 24 fps. let me know so I can try and up my quality a bit more with every release.
@@Ammarx1 4K for life than, I just bought a slider as 4k on my m50 is harder to pan without the shakes showing up on the camera, improved B-Roll to come.
iris it’s personal preference kind of like why I have no RBG in anything I’m not a fan of the look it’s kinda nice to carry a color theme through a build and try to challenge yourself to get all parts in a select set of colors some times.
motherboard: black RAM: white case: white keyboard: white mouse: white GPU: black PSU: black monitor: black case fans: white LED heatsink: silver CPU fan: *NOCTUA*
Seriously, re-release this without the music... I'm actually surprised you haven't been contacted by Noctua, this music during a fan review might legitimately qualify as slander against all those brands.
I heard it and wondered if anyone actually listened to this insufferable garbage, or just used it for youtube crap. You'd have to be a sick fuck to actually listen to it.
@@KernelFault CMF is a value from using the RPM to calculate. They cannot be equal if they are not measuring the same thing. That is actually like saying RPM and vehicle speed are the same. Especially before you post it as a formula that is absolutely incorrect, you should look it up or double check. The best method is to not listen to you after these posts.
@@rallyfeind Compare the CMF of a 80mm fan & a 140mm fan spinning at 1200RPM. One fan will push more air than the other. Compare how loud a 40mm fan is at a certain CFM compared to a 140mm at the same CFM. One will be louder than the other. The bottom line of the intent of this test was to discover which of these fans make the least noise while they are cooling a CPU. Run the CPU at 100% and adjust the fan RPM to get a steady state and consistent temperature . Take a reading of the sound level when that state is reached. You will then know how loud that fan is when removing a given amount of heat from the CPU. Repeat for each fan and compare the results. You will be able to see which fan is the most quiet when cooling the CPU at full load. I have several current machines that have gigantic CPU coolers that do not require a fan to keep the machine from overheating. In the context of this test, my cooling setup has 0rpm. If you based it's performance on RPM, where would it rate? If you compared dB at a given temp, you would have a more accurate comparison to my cooler and this cooler using the fans he chose.
Even the older Noctua fans are more than just "another" fan. Noctua has always hit the sweet spot how performance/noise that no one else was able to achieve. Vardars seem to be just as good, bit I never got around to buy one of those, not even when they were gentle typhoons.
Yepp, you totally right "fan just a fan" in CFM standpoint. If the biggest problem is the cpu temp, just buy the cheapest highest CFM fan and call it a day, but if you care about noise here some main points: - mechanical shock (RPM/30), stronger the magnet and more powerful the fan bigger the shock. - vibration, bad manufacturing tolerances not all the fan blades are the same length and sizes wich cause vibration, your case works like an amplifier. - switching noise (RPM/30), stronger (in W) the fan bigger the noise, most noticable, when fan spins at low RPM, it's louder then the airflow noise. - airflow noise, probably the only real thing what manufacturer write on the box Here some of my tricks to eliminate noise and save some money: - don't buy "cheaper" branded fans they just as bad as the cheap noname onces, buy 2-3 cheap instead, if money is concern. - remove all stickers inmediatly especially from graphics cards where manufacturer use heavy (2-3g) metal stickers, these are applied by hand in a chinese factory, not aligned perfectly in the middle wich couse vibration and shorten the fan life. - to reduce the case vibration use heavy case 10-12 kg (20-26 lbs) made from thick metal and put some weight top on your case. Forget the sock asorbers mounts most of them are stiff garbage, they should made from the softest silicone and the spacing between the case and the fan should be 4-5mm or more to actually asorb any vibration, not 1-2mm like most of in the market. I use 2-3 layer of 1,5mm thick double sided tape for fans, works much better. - use 3 pin fans instead of 4 pin PWM, they are 1,5-2,5 dB quieter I only aware of 2 manufacturer BeQuiet and Noctua, who use 3 phase fan controllers wich basically eliminate the shock and switching noise, but they are so expensive you can buy 5-6 fans for the price of 1 premium fan.
@@nolandderlugner1351 Usually they have stronger magnets, so the mechanical shock and the noise will be bigger. The other thing is that you can hear half of the switching frequiency, which is originally out of human hearing, about 16-25kHz, but average fans have two poles, so you have to divide it by 2, so you get 8-12kHz screaming noise. Older ASUS motherboards tend to screem with standard intel fans, only the expensive Noctua and beQuiet fans have proper 3 phase motor controller which can fully eliminate the switching noise and the mechanical shock by using sinus wave insted of rectangular.
@@GUBBIn1LL3R Gentle Typhoo High RPM, 4200 RPM, these are friggin rocket booster noise wise.... but all that sweet airflow !!! 116 CFM of pure cooling powaa !!!
So cute, @@_WyreTheWolf. What if we just double those ratings, introducing Delta model THD1248HE. At 10,900 RPM, over 100W power consumption, 111.76 mmH²O and a shy 287CFM, this fan is probably a little bit too much for your application. You can't even plug it straight to your typical power supply either as it requires industry standard 48V DC system. The only downside is, it cost over $100 a piece. Not very appealing.
@@matthieuchampagne8140 Own it, love it :) I use it to get the warm air from 16 HDDs + 2 HBAs out of my case. Loud but surprisingly well balanced in term of vibration. Does a great job.
well, my homemade metal fan with a 15-amp 120v AC motor cools my computer so well that my 2 overclocked i9 11900k's and 8 RTX 3090s max out at 25 degrees! As a bonus, I had to super-glue everything to my house so it doesn't fly off, as well as buy a house made entirely out of metal so it doesn't violently explode!
Be Quiet Silent Wings 3 highspeed fans should be in this test, I have two of those 120mm on front intake, really quiet, exhaust is done with NF-A12x25 pwm, really good and quiet combo. Loudest fans on case are stock coolers on 1080, searching solution for those later. 🙃
Reminds me of my heatsink test on my i7-3770... With the "I had it for something else" Akasa K32, it hit 72C at high PWM auto - manual max speed got it down to 70C, but with a lot more noise just to save 2C. Replacement heatsink. Akasa Nero 3 (stormforce rebrand), and ok, it's a 120mm fan tower vs a 92mm circular, but it got about 50C with the PWM not going above 50%. One other way to consider fan performance would be under auto profile: Temp, noise, and active PWM level - and so long as the noise is good, the PWM level really only matters in the amount of reserve. That A12 sure is whisper quiet, even if the colour scheme suits no-one
I have a Dark Rock Pro 4 cooling an 8700K running at 5.0 or 5.1 GHz (depending on which BIOS profile I'm using.) I chose the DRP4 because it matched my motherboard (EVGA Z390 Dark) and because I knew it would clear my DIMMS. Just for funsies, I replaced the Silent Wings fans (which are not bad at all) with some NF-A12x25s I cannabalized from my last build. (Which decided to up and die a couple of weeks ago. Mobo and 1080 Ti kaput. Luckily my CPU was spared. I haven't tested the RAM as it was Corsair 3000MHz and isnt worth using on my new mobo (replaced with Trident Z black 4500, underclocked to 3867 15-16-16-31 / 4500 MHz wanted way more system agent an I/O voltage than I was willing to give it, I'd like the CPU to last a little while longer...) Observations: 1.) It knocked 3 C off both my peak temps and my average temperature. 2.) Oddly, Noctua Tan and Brown actually looks good with a black heatsink. If you absolutely can't stand Noctua's colors, try ditching the RGB for some UV lights. Noctua fans fluoresce nicely.
Thanks for redoing the video. This one was much more "scientific". Regarding the video quality, fps and stuff: I am using a 1080p screen and actually don't care much about fps or resolution of the video as long as it's >=1080p and doesn't stutter/ tear, which in these kinds of videos you probably wouldn't really see anyways as the moving elements are too few.
I like the fan testing; it's an overlooked area of pc building. I've been using Noctua fans almost exclusively for years. I pay the premium for Noctua air coolers because I know that they'll work well and give me no problems. The color doesn't bother me because I don't have any lights on in my case, except for a couple RGBW strips I installed and connected to my computer's PSU through a switch I installed on the side panel, so that they come on whenever I take the panel off so I can see inside the case.
Noctua has made and still does make some of the best fans on the market. They also make a few versions as you tested for yourself, that are ultra silent. I have used their fans for about 12 years now. Same ones I bought 12 years ago.
Noise is a big factor...the only reason my Corsair Hydro H115i was loud AF was the shit fans it came with. Replaced them with some Noctua NF-A14 IP3000P (They're black) and it made a HUGE difference in noise production. Btw, also take into account that a fan can sound quite different when it is blowing freely, compared to when it is running against a radiator. Another part can be durability. We've had a couple of 120mm fans in cheap corsair PSUs start to rumble like there is no tomorrow after about a year of use during office hours!
Looks like a Scythe Gentle Typhoon (Nidec was the actual OEM), which I believe is the og in that blade design, at least for the PC market (it predates the PWM era). Scythe was one of the main distributors for many, many years of the GT, in limited quantities to the consumer market. It was THE radiator fan for many years due to it's dBA vs cfm through a radiator, as no other fan was even close. CFM per dBA is kinda important in watercooling due to the sheer number of fans you're possibly going to have, especially if you go push/pull for the marginal gains that provides. Nowadays, there seem to be a ton of GT clones, which isn't really a bad thing.
Nice to know that Max RPM got you around 6C improvement. And that’s with no case. Basically, if you build on air just set your fan curve to favor moderate fan speeds and don’t OC too much where it forces max RPM just to stay stable. And I suppose there’s a lot to be said for using just the right voltage to keep the CPU stable under a given clock value.
Some Noctua fans exist in Chromax edition - Meaning they are all blacked out with either black or colored rubber corners. A little secret I have been told from Noctua is that their A12x25 fan will arrive in Chromax edition somewhere near the beginning of 2020. The Sterrox is apparently not the easiest material to work with.
Nice analysis but, the interesting comparison would be the performance to noise ratio. My suggestion would be to set 3 noise level profiles: "silent", "balanced" and "performance", assigning to each one with a max db level. Each fan would be set to the max RPM that would be below the max db level. We could then test the delta over ambient temperatures and compare for each noise profile. Another thing to take into consideration is the difference between static pressure optimized fans (less and bigger blades) and airflow optimized fans (more and smaller blades). Static pressure optimized fans do better on cpu coolers and radiators, where there is great obstruction to airflow (because of the high density fins) where airflow optimized do better for case air circulation.
Fantastic video. Congrats on the nod from Noctua. Your production quality was outstanding, (especially the audio mixing when you'd silence your music ) and I appreciate the amount of work you put into comparative tests. My one critique would be, you need a more uniform way of displaying your results. As a viewer, it was a little too unpredictable as to where the results would show up. At 9:30 you put a dark gray box on the right, and populated it with numbers immediately as you said them, which for me as a viewer made it easy to keep up. Then, at 11:00 when you compared the temperature deltas, you verbally spoke each result, but didn't show numbers until the very end underneath them all. Then at 12:00 you read them all but never put up the numbers visually. Of these 3, I think the first with the gray box and the numbers populating as you read them was the easiest to follow, and I would have preferred if each result was presented in the same way. Other than that though, I was very impressed with the quality and the content. You've gained a subscriber.
2:39 YES !! Finally testing NF-A12x25 and other fans on 212 EVO ! I own this cooler for 2.5 years running 24/7 still using stock fan, but I'm going to change it to lower the noise. Cooler Master fans like stock Blade Master or SickleFlow .. they push a LOT OF AIR but they are noisy. I believe as the fans gets older especially the cheap ones they get louder.
It's kind of weird because there's a balance between loudness and pitch. In my opinion a better way to compare fans as a user is cooling per decibel, but then we run into the issue of how annoying the noise is which I have no idea how to quantify. I really don't care if a fan is spitting at 4,000 RPMs if it's it creates the same noise as another fan that's spinning at 1200 RPMs. I figure it's like an engine. You have low torque engines that create high horsepower at high RPM which would be awful for towing whereas you would exchange peak power for more low down torque. I figure a fan design would have to have a specific range that it's targeting to achieve the performance goals. I'm also curious about the effect that putting a mesh filter right in front of it would have on noise and if that would cause the motor and air to generate more noise.
The best conclusion you can draw from this is that pitch is way more important than DB. Kicker is that what pitch you can deal with is something only you can know. I have a CPU + single GPU water loop and it took me three pumps before I found one that I could live with even though all three of them were only rated for 40DB (almost 20DB quieter than my Corsair fans). For me the Corsair fans were the right fit due to nothing but pitch even thouhg I know fine well they are louder than the Noctuas and quite a few other fans on the market. If I was going for best performance possible I'd go Noctua clearly; but I'm simply not, my 7700K is running 5GHz daily even though it can run 5.2 (avx offset 2) without issue. Some pro tips would be: Seal your fan edges so no air can be pulled through the gap between the fan edge and your rad, oversize your rad, and skim your cold plate plus cpu heat spreader to make sure they are flat (bonus points for running direct die on the COU with liquid metal (which is more effort since you need to replace it more often; the rest you can do once and leave it alone) Yes it's alot of effort but worth it if you really hate excessive noise coming from your PC.
A fan is not just a fan. It took years to have several good contenders in the fan field. (I'm speaking 15 to 20 years ago). And if you consider lifespan and noise/cooling ratio Noctua is among the best. I've got two cooling my 2950x and I can barely hear them when I get 32 "cores" running at 4GHz
I'd love to see it tested vs Silent Wings 3 form BeQuiet! and maybe some of the older eLoop fans that were quite popular in the water cooling community.
The thing is, the more silent a fan is, the more you are able to ramp up it's rpm while keeping it within your personal "ok" level of noise. So yeah, a silent fan should come with a high rpm option...
Why is it all you reviewers don't like the colour of the Noctua fans? Do you just stare inside your computers all day or do you actually look at your monitor when you are working? If the fan is that good who cares if it is sky blue pink with yellow dots - stop looking at the fans and get on with whatever you are doing on your computer!!
Sorry to say that I did cringe a bit at the testing methodology, but still enjoyed watching. The 1080p60 on previous videos was giving me some playback issues, but I think that's YT's conversion process or player as I've had it on other channels too. The 4k24 was nice and smooth and gave a nice jump up in visual clarity.
It was good that you tested the noise, speed as well as TEMP capability - made it really good to watch from an upcoming new computer perspective. My first thought was that it wasn't going to push the same volume of air through. How does this thing go with a basic 45mm thick rad? On mine one rad will be 60mm thick and the other has to be a 45 thick/deep.
I use Noctua fans, but the case fans are grey, and the radiator fans are the classic beige that Noctua loves. I dont mind it though. I can barley hear my PC. But give Noctua a little while, they will most likely come out with a black version if they havent already.
I personally run Corsair ML 120's and 140's they preform marginally better for cooling but only due to the rpm, and when I bought them the NF-A12 was not on the market, I would say for quiet the NF-A12 is by far the best and if OC at all costs is your thing its the ML's
Open air tests are pointless. Put them against some sort of restriction and the sound changed drastically. The a12x25 in particular makes a terrible noise at 1200 RPM when pushing into a radiator.
Okay, a decent test... but what about pressure? Many fans has trouble pushing air through a radiator for a liquid cooling system, because of the density of the fins in the rad. I feel like this would have been appropriate for the review.
I am impressed with the cooling capability while remaining that quiet, but the price is just too high for most people. It's 2-3 times as expensive as other fans that would be sufficient for most cases
It looks like a copy of the Gentle Typhoon (AP series - 15, 14, etc.) base design. That fan design means it will also be good as a radiator fan (best PQ curve to this day for the Ap series). I have the AP-15 series (1850 rpm model) and when it runs between 1000-1200 it is silent.
I think you might have some me on one or two of these fans for my update to my PC! Keep the content coming! You are a very underrated youtuber! I think your going places!
to make a more fair test you should mount the fan in a case as exhaust document noise (air flow test), and try it on a heat-sync (static pressure test) and document sound/temp; it is better to normalize for sound instead of RPM, do you really case how fast it is or is sound and temps all that matters at the end of the day? probably should test air flow on exhaust fans for the sake of science (RPM counter + one of those things that spins in the wind on a stick)
the primary issue with your test, is that the heatsink itself is the limiting factor. Therefore the results will be very close. But.... so try this again with like a 240/360 rad
If you're looking for something insane to bench, I just stuck a pair of Delta PFC1212DE's in my server, they can do 4000RPM and they're loud af, but they'll cool anything you ask them to.
So NF-A12 or NF-F12 ippc still not clear which performs better in termnof cooling radiators? From what i understand arround 1k Rpm they are similar in terms of noise. But ippc seems more robust..
Love noctua and have their black NF-f12 on my AIO. I replaced all my stock cooler master case fans with a 5 pack of PWM Arctic fans which are fantastic and daisychain for the same price as 1 noctua fan.
If you want to test other fans with comparable silent performance, you could have a look at the beQuiet Silent Wing 3 PWM or the Noiseblocker eLoop B12-PS. But with your current level of test equipment you would probably just get to the conclussion that you now own 4 normal fans that are mostly the same, and 3 silent fans that are also mostly equal to each other.
Liked the video man , i just want to give you feedback please if you can do it as a info graphic . ( a graph of every single of your test and sort it as the best to the worst and with in the margin of error Thanks
those new x25 series fans is not made in 140mm yet, i wish there were, now way i'm going down to 120mm. i got a new pc build coming up and need five 140mm fans and these new fans from noctua looks to be some of the best. i know how difficult it is to review fans, you did ok and its a important thing to know how fans perform. you have static pressure fans and airflow optimized fans, think noctua and many others are going for something in the middle. and to know how they perform, you need to know how much airflow that can produce on that certain application with what noise level, fan rpm does not count as much as you think. maybe the best way to compare fans is to cool a oc cpu under load, then adjust fan rpm so that all fans cool the cpu to same temp, then tell us how much noise difference the fans have. could also switch that around to make all fans cool the cpu at same noise levels, also including noise type so that something that more quiet but more annoying pitch would be set to lower rpm to adjust for that, a decibel reading is misleading in that aspect. with all fans sound the same the temp is the differentiated number to read out. thanks for reading this :)
Since you are testing a bunch of 120mm Case Fans.. Could you also do a Video about the actual CFM of the Fans? Because currently i'm looking for a quiet fan that has a high cfm for an Ender 3 Enclosure
That sticker's going to unbalance it :) :) :) ... but the NF-A12x25 can run quietly at 2000 rpm, why not use that? Nice graphics where you point at each fan with numbers. Great video! I have a few of these fans (on my NF-U12A), love 'em.
This test is not really applicable because sound strength and harmonics change when in cases due to pressure and airlfow. A true test would involve putting a full set of fans in one case then measure the rpm, temp, db and sound signature.
Fans are definitely not JUST FANS! That doesn't even mean "when compared to Noctua" Some fans, like that standard Cooler Master fan, are just trash and sound annoying as fuck.
Noctua fans are like singing talent shows where a really ugly singer walks in. Everyone is thinking this is going to sound like garbage until they start to sing and everyone is amazed by their performance.
In terms of all of the fans giving basically the same temperature when using the same RPM that might be down to the Hyper 212 nudging up against it's limits. I wonder if the results might have shown a bigger difference with a higher end heatsink or radiator.
please do corsair ML series and maybe sunon maglev if you can find the 25mm thick ones. they seems to be corsair ML's OEM. maybe even try delta ffb1212eh too if you want. i use 2 of them for my intake. it will be great if you can somehow do a test on more restrictive environment like on thick radiator or maybe case with closed front panel like mine (be quiet, i'm pointing on you. your SW3 fans doesn't even works well on your own case!. i'm using DBP900 rev 1 btw)
Test bequiet Silent Wings 3 120 mm vs Noctua NF-A12x25 normalised by noise - and check who push more air. Or normalise by airflow and check the noise... ...Period.
i was not a fan of noctua's color scheme... but they look good on mine, lined up to a 360 radiator... if its one fan here or there, it would look very out of place...
Is hating noctua colors mainstream? Im building a white pc and looks great on that.. if you rgb purple.... check linus video of why not watercooling to see how nice they look
Not a fan of adjusting rpm id be more interested in watt draw efficiency could use more aggressive blades if your just gona match rpm .how ever interesting test
Hello everyone,
so on this video I decided to go 4k 24fps rather then the normal 1080p60, I also spent some time setting up my camera to try and improve the focal clarity and color. Watching it back there are some settings I still want to tweak to try and make it better. But im curious to know, do you prefure 4k 24fps or 1080p 60fps or maybe 1080p 24 fps. let me know so I can try and up my quality a bit more with every release.
yeah... i can barely watch 1080p60
@@Ammarx1 4K for life than, I just bought a slider as 4k on my m50 is harder to pan without the shakes showing up on the camera, improved B-Roll to come.
60 fps all the way
I thought it was a different channel till I saw you. looking better at all times!
Good song how do i find it?
that music made me put my eyeball through a NF-F12 industrial ppc running at 3000rpm
I think it gave me cancer.
I like the brown beige Noctua fans and proudly display it. Those who know *know*
i like the new redux fans from noctua that are gray and black and still only 18Db love them
iris it’s personal preference kind of like why I have no RBG in anything I’m not a fan of the look it’s kinda nice to carry a color theme through a build and try to challenge yourself to get all parts in a select set of colors some times.
Just waiting for Noctua to release their new line of fans with BB-lighting (Brown & Beige).
noctua color scheme is a sign of quality now, they know quality and are not superficial.
@@jubuttib they are releasing white fans in 2020. just for info ;)
Noctua, the best fans that won't match your color scheme.
motherboard: black
RAM: white
case: white
keyboard: white
mouse: white
GPU: black
PSU: black
monitor: black
case fans: white LED
heatsink: silver
CPU fan: *NOCTUA*
Aech Dee case fans: poo poo
i replaced all of my fans with the noctua fans . complete silence and slightly better temps. will never use anything else again.
Awesome review. And I also agree that a fan is a fan, but when you can't hear it and it cools the same as others, things change.
Noctua fan's rock's i got a mix noctua and termatake blue 140mm in front of my case's.
Seriously, re-release this without the music...
I'm actually surprised you haven't been contacted by Noctua, this music during a fan review might legitimately qualify as slander against all those brands.
That music made me sterile and gave me erectile dysfunction.
taken strait from the playlist of 10 year old girl.. O_o..
"Listen to this fan spin..." while muzak playing.
I thought it was just the start... It isn't and it doesn't get better.
Thumbs down, can't even watch until the end.
I heard it and wondered if anyone actually listened to this insufferable garbage, or just used it for youtube crap. You'd have to be a sick fuck to actually listen to it.
Scythe gentle typhoon looks very much like the noctua and it came out long time ago. Insanely silent fan.
Good luck finding a genuine one now
Why value RPM over temp? IMO you should set each test run to a steady state CPU temperature and test the DB level.
Dave Ballard Bingo. This is where the A25 makes its money. I have one.
dB/CFM makes more sense to give you an idea of cooling ability at a sound level
@@sinephase RPM != CFM
@@KernelFault CMF is a value from using the RPM to calculate. They cannot be equal if they are not measuring the same thing. That is actually like saying RPM and vehicle speed are the same. Especially before you post it as a formula that is absolutely incorrect, you should look it up or double check. The best method is to not listen to you after these posts.
@@rallyfeind Compare the CMF of a 80mm fan & a 140mm fan spinning at 1200RPM. One fan will push more air than the other. Compare how loud a 40mm fan is at a certain CFM compared to a 140mm at the same CFM. One will be louder than the other.
The bottom line of the intent of this test was to discover which of these fans make the least noise while they are cooling a CPU. Run the CPU at 100% and adjust the fan RPM to get a steady state and consistent temperature . Take a reading of the sound level when that state is reached. You will then know how loud that fan is when removing a given amount of heat from the CPU. Repeat for each fan and compare the results. You will be able to see which fan is the most quiet when cooling the CPU at full load.
I have several current machines that have gigantic CPU coolers that do not require a fan to keep the machine from overheating. In the context of this test, my cooling setup has 0rpm. If you based it's performance on RPM, where would it rate? If you compared dB at a given temp, you would have a more accurate comparison to my cooler and this cooler using the fans he chose.
Even the older Noctua fans are more than just "another" fan. Noctua has always hit the sweet spot how performance/noise that no one else was able to achieve. Vardars seem to be just as good, bit I never got around to buy one of those, not even when they were gentle typhoons.
i donno i still think the NF-F12 isnt to special but this NF-A12 is really good.
Yepp, you totally right "fan just a fan" in CFM standpoint. If the biggest problem is the cpu temp, just buy the cheapest highest CFM fan and call it a day, but if you care about noise here some main points:
- mechanical shock (RPM/30), stronger the magnet and more powerful the fan bigger the shock.
- vibration, bad manufacturing tolerances not all the fan blades are the same length and sizes wich cause vibration, your case works like an amplifier.
- switching noise (RPM/30), stronger (in W) the fan bigger the noise, most noticable, when fan spins at low RPM, it's louder then the airflow noise.
- airflow noise, probably the only real thing what manufacturer write on the box
Here some of my tricks to eliminate noise and save some money:
- don't buy "cheaper" branded fans they just as bad as the cheap noname onces, buy 2-3 cheap instead, if money is concern.
- remove all stickers inmediatly especially from graphics cards where manufacturer use heavy (2-3g) metal stickers, these are applied by hand in a chinese factory, not aligned perfectly in the middle wich couse vibration and shorten the fan life.
- to reduce the case vibration use heavy case 10-12 kg (20-26 lbs) made from thick metal and put some weight top on your case. Forget the sock asorbers mounts most of them are stiff garbage, they should made from the softest silicone and the spacing between the case and the fan should be 4-5mm or more to actually asorb any vibration, not 1-2mm like most of in the market. I use 2-3 layer of 1,5mm thick double sided tape for fans, works much better.
- use 3 pin fans instead of 4 pin PWM, they are 1,5-2,5 dB quieter
I only aware of 2 manufacturer BeQuiet and Noctua, who use 3 phase fan controllers wich basically eliminate the shock and switching noise, but they are so expensive you can buy 5-6 fans for the price of 1 premium fan.
Why are 4 pins louder?
@@nolandderlugner1351 Usually they have stronger magnets, so the mechanical shock and the noise will be bigger.
The other thing is that you can hear half of the switching frequiency, which is originally out of human hearing, about 16-25kHz, but average fans have two poles, so you have to divide it by 2, so you get 8-12kHz screaming noise. Older ASUS motherboards tend to screem with standard intel fans, only the expensive Noctua and beQuiet fans have proper 3 phase motor controller which can fully eliminate the switching noise and the mechanical shock by using sinus wave insted of rectangular.
I like mine to sound like a jet engine! Cooler Master JetFlo 120 ftw!
i had jetflo 120 i found they wasnt loud enough ....i know own noctua industrial 3000 rpm ...get ya sen one dude you will frikking love em !
@@GUBBIn1LL3R Gentle Typhoo High RPM, 4200 RPM, these are friggin rocket booster noise wise.... but all that sweet airflow !!! 116 CFM of pure cooling powaa !!!
So cute, @@_WyreTheWolf. What if we just double those ratings, introducing Delta model THD1248HE. At 10,900 RPM, over 100W power consumption, 111.76 mmH²O and a shy 287CFM, this fan is probably a little bit too much for your application. You can't even plug it straight to your typical power supply either as it requires industry standard 48V DC system.
The only downside is, it cost over $100 a piece. Not very appealing.
@@matthieuchampagne8140 Own it, love it :) I use it to get the warm air from 16 HDDs + 2 HBAs out of my case. Loud but surprisingly well balanced in term of vibration. Does a great job.
well, my homemade metal fan with a 15-amp 120v AC motor cools my computer so well that my 2 overclocked i9 11900k's and 8 RTX 3090s max out at 25 degrees!
As a bonus, I had to super-glue everything to my house so it doesn't fly off, as well as buy a house made entirely out of metal so it doesn't violently explode!
Bought the NF-A12x25 when it was released and love it, have it on 1450rpm all the time and it is very silent.
I have mine on 100% 2000rpm and still well within my comfort zone.
To really normalize the results and getting comparable results, instead of setting the same RPM, you should have set them to the same noise-level.
@Tab Noctua selling point, and why people pay the extra money for them, is due to lower noise at higher rpm.
Finally a dB vs rpm. Pretty good test.
Subbed
Can you test the cooling at the same dB?
Cheers
I think BeQuiet! Silent Wings 3, Noiseblocker e-Loops, EK Vardar should hold up pretty good
Sechs0rBecks silent wings for sure i have 2 high rpm models on my vega 64 Morpheus cooler. Much quiet. very cool.
Be Quiet Silent Wings 3 highspeed fans should be in this test, I have two of those 120mm on front intake, really quiet, exhaust is done with NF-A12x25 pwm, really good and quiet combo. Loudest fans on case are stock coolers on 1080, searching solution for those later. 🙃
Loved the simile, ”Like angry bees in a windstorm.” 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Reminds me of my heatsink test on my i7-3770...
With the "I had it for something else" Akasa K32, it hit 72C at high PWM auto - manual max speed got it down to 70C, but with a lot more noise just to save 2C.
Replacement heatsink. Akasa Nero 3 (stormforce rebrand), and ok, it's a 120mm fan tower vs a 92mm circular, but it got about 50C with the PWM not going above 50%.
One other way to consider fan performance would be under auto profile:
Temp, noise, and active PWM level - and so long as the noise is good, the PWM level really only matters in the amount of reserve.
That A12 sure is whisper quiet, even if the colour scheme suits no-one
I have a Dark Rock Pro 4 cooling an 8700K running at 5.0 or 5.1 GHz (depending on which BIOS profile I'm using.) I chose the DRP4 because it matched my motherboard (EVGA Z390 Dark) and because I knew it would clear my DIMMS. Just for funsies, I replaced the Silent Wings fans (which are not bad at all) with some NF-A12x25s I cannabalized from my last build. (Which decided to up and die a couple of weeks ago. Mobo and 1080 Ti kaput. Luckily my CPU was spared. I haven't tested the RAM as it was Corsair 3000MHz and isnt worth using on my new mobo (replaced with Trident Z black 4500, underclocked to 3867 15-16-16-31 / 4500 MHz wanted way more system agent an I/O voltage than I was willing to give it, I'd like the CPU to last a little while longer...)
Observations:
1.) It knocked 3 C off both my peak temps and my average temperature.
2.) Oddly, Noctua Tan and Brown actually looks good with a black heatsink.
If you absolutely can't stand Noctua's colors, try ditching the RGB for some UV lights. Noctua fans fluoresce nicely.
Can i see a picture ofwhat the fans look like with UV lights?
Thanks for redoing the video. This one was much more "scientific".
Regarding the video quality, fps and stuff: I am using a 1080p screen and actually don't care much about fps or resolution of the video as long as it's >=1080p and doesn't stutter/ tear, which in these kinds of videos you probably wouldn't really see anyways as the moving elements are too few.
I like the fan testing; it's an overlooked area of pc building. I've been using Noctua fans almost exclusively for years. I pay the premium for Noctua air coolers because I know that they'll work well and give me no problems. The color doesn't bother me because I don't have any lights on in my case, except for a couple RGBW strips I installed and connected to my computer's PSU through a switch I installed on the side panel, so that they come on whenever I take the panel off so I can see inside the case.
Noctua has made and still does make some of the best fans on the market. They also make a few versions as you tested for yourself, that are ultra silent. I have used their fans for about 12 years now. Same ones I bought 12 years ago.
You know this fan is good when in present day, he does fan reviews and uses the Noctua as a benchmark standard to beat. It really is the best.
I appreciate how the testing was conducted. Nice job.
I like your style of testing and commentary. You just gained a new subscriber and a loyal fan! (no pun intended)
welcome aboard matey
@@MajorHardware glad to be on deck
A 'high end' build without a single Noctua A12x25 is oxymoron.
Noise is a big factor...the only reason my Corsair Hydro H115i was loud AF was the shit fans it came with. Replaced them with some Noctua NF-A14 IP3000P (They're black) and it made a HUGE difference in noise production. Btw, also take into account that a fan can sound quite different when it is blowing freely, compared to when it is running against a radiator. Another part can be durability. We've had a couple of 120mm fans in cheap corsair PSUs start to rumble like there is no tomorrow after about a year of use during office hours!
Looks like a Scythe Gentle Typhoon (Nidec was the actual OEM), which I believe is the og in that blade design, at least for the PC market (it predates the PWM era). Scythe was one of the main distributors for many, many years of the GT, in limited quantities to the consumer market. It was THE radiator fan for many years due to it's dBA vs cfm through a radiator, as no other fan was even close. CFM per dBA is kinda important in watercooling due to the sheer number of fans you're possibly going to have, especially if you go push/pull for the marginal gains that provides.
Nowadays, there seem to be a ton of GT clones, which isn't really a bad thing.
Try the Delta PFB1212UHE. I really like it, keeps my Intel Potato under ambient temp when overclocked to 6.9Hz.
With Boeing-style noise 😂
you sir got me to google that jet engine... thank you... props to remembering that old beast.
Nice to know that Max RPM got you around 6C improvement. And that’s with no case. Basically, if you build on air just set your fan curve to favor moderate fan speeds and don’t OC too much where it forces max RPM just to stay stable. And I suppose there’s a lot to be said for using just the right voltage to keep the CPU stable under a given clock value.
Some Noctua fans exist in Chromax edition - Meaning they are all blacked out with either black or colored rubber corners.
A little secret I have been told from Noctua is that their A12x25 fan will arrive in Chromax edition somewhere near the beginning of 2020. The Sterrox is apparently not the easiest material to work with.
The day they bring rgb is the day I buy stock
@@MajorHardware 😂 I'm in too!
Nice analysis but, the interesting comparison would be the performance to noise ratio. My suggestion would be to set 3 noise level profiles: "silent", "balanced" and "performance", assigning to each one with a max db level. Each fan would be set to the max RPM that would be below the max db level. We could then test the delta over ambient temperatures and compare for each noise profile.
Another thing to take into consideration is the difference between static pressure optimized fans (less and bigger blades) and airflow optimized fans (more and smaller blades). Static pressure optimized fans do better on cpu coolers and radiators, where there is great obstruction to airflow (because of the high density fins) where airflow optimized do better for case air circulation.
Fantastic video. Congrats on the nod from Noctua. Your production quality was outstanding, (especially the audio mixing when you'd silence your music ) and I appreciate the amount of work you put into comparative tests. My one critique would be, you need a more uniform way of displaying your results. As a viewer, it was a little too unpredictable as to where the results would show up. At 9:30 you put a dark gray box on the right, and populated it with numbers immediately as you said them, which for me as a viewer made it easy to keep up. Then, at 11:00 when you compared the temperature deltas, you verbally spoke each result, but didn't show numbers until the very end underneath them all. Then at 12:00 you read them all but never put up the numbers visually. Of these 3, I think the first with the gray box and the numbers populating as you read them was the easiest to follow, and I would have preferred if each result was presented in the same way. Other than that though, I was very impressed with the quality and the content. You've gained a subscriber.
Understood, Great feedback my man, thank you. Understanding what people like and dislike is super useful when your trying to improve quality.
I was pretty sure that noctua was going release a chromax version of the a12x25 in 2019. Anyways great vid. Subbed
Q3 or Q4. They delayed from Q2 2019. Have seen it posted in other reviews.
this aged great
@@gmodiscool14 indeed it has lmao
@@Lysol_kb a big bruh moment right here
@@DiamondkeyOwO indeed, an exceedingly big bruh moment
Damn, we recently used two of those fans on a scythe ninja 5 to keep a i9 9980xe cool. and those fans did an amazing job!
2:39 YES !! Finally testing NF-A12x25 and other fans on 212 EVO !
I own this cooler for 2.5 years running 24/7 still using stock fan, but I'm going to change it to lower the noise.
Cooler Master fans like stock Blade Master or SickleFlow .. they push a LOT OF AIR but they are noisy.
I believe as the fans gets older especially the cheap ones they get louder.
A fan is just a fan.
Until things go to far.
Then it's a stalker.
It's kind of weird because there's a balance between loudness and pitch. In my opinion a better way to compare fans as a user is cooling per decibel, but then we run into the issue of how annoying the noise is which I have no idea how to quantify. I really don't care if a fan is spitting at 4,000 RPMs if it's it creates the same noise as another fan that's spinning at 1200 RPMs. I figure it's like an engine. You have low torque engines that create high horsepower at high RPM which would be awful for towing whereas you would exchange peak power for more low down torque. I figure a fan design would have to have a specific range that it's targeting to achieve the performance goals. I'm also curious about the effect that putting a mesh filter right in front of it would have on noise and if that would cause the motor and air to generate more noise.
The best conclusion you can draw from this is that pitch is way more important than DB. Kicker is that what pitch you can deal with is something only you can know.
I have a CPU + single GPU water loop and it took me three pumps before I found one that I could live with even though all three of them were only rated for 40DB (almost 20DB quieter than my Corsair fans). For me the Corsair fans were the right fit due to nothing but pitch even thouhg I know fine well they are louder than the Noctuas and quite a few other fans on the market.
If I was going for best performance possible I'd go Noctua clearly; but I'm simply not, my 7700K is running 5GHz daily even though it can run 5.2 (avx offset 2) without issue.
Some pro tips would be: Seal your fan edges so no air can be pulled through the gap between the fan edge and your rad, oversize your rad, and skim your cold plate plus cpu heat spreader to make sure they are flat (bonus points for running direct die on the COU with liquid metal (which is more effort since you need to replace it more often; the rest you can do once and leave it alone)
Yes it's alot of effort but worth it if you really hate excessive noise coming from your PC.
A fan is not just a fan. It took years to have several good contenders in the fan field. (I'm speaking 15 to 20 years ago). And if you consider lifespan and noise/cooling ratio Noctua is among the best. I've got two cooling my 2950x and I can barely hear them when I get 32 "cores" running at 4GHz
I'd love to see it tested vs Silent Wings 3 form BeQuiet! and maybe some of the older eLoop fans that were quite popular in the water cooling community.
The thing is, the more silent a fan is, the more you are able to ramp up it's rpm while keeping it within your personal "ok" level of noise. So yeah, a silent fan should come with a high rpm option...
You can get most Noctua fans in black too. I don't think they do the NF-A12x25 in anything but beige YET, though.
Brown & beige is the color of quality. I proudly accept it. I leave the color matching inferior fans to others
Why is it all you reviewers don't like the colour of the Noctua fans? Do you just stare inside your computers all day or do you actually look at your monitor when you are working? If the fan is that good who cares if it is sky blue pink with yellow dots - stop looking at the fans and get on with whatever you are doing on your computer!!
Sorry to say that I did cringe a bit at the testing methodology, but still enjoyed watching.
The 1080p60 on previous videos was giving me some playback issues, but I think that's YT's conversion process or player as I've had it on other channels too.
The 4k24 was nice and smooth and gave a nice jump up in visual clarity.
I started doing 4k would u say that is better ?
It was good that you tested the noise, speed as well as TEMP capability - made it really good to watch from an upcoming new computer perspective. My first thought was that it wasn't going to push the same volume of air through. How does this thing go with a basic 45mm thick rad? On mine one rad will be 60mm thick and the other has to be a 45 thick/deep.
I use Noctua fans, but the case fans are grey, and the radiator fans are the classic beige that Noctua loves.
I dont mind it though. I can barley hear my PC.
But give Noctua a little while, they will most likely come out with a black version if they havent already.
I am genuinely surprised at how few subs you have.
I know what outperform NF A12X25. It's 2 NF A12X25 !
I personally run Corsair ML 120's and 140's they preform marginally better for cooling but only due to the rpm, and when I bought them the NF-A12 was not on the market, I would say for quiet the NF-A12 is by far the best and if OC at all costs is your thing its the ML's
Open air tests are pointless. Put them against some sort of restriction and the sound changed drastically.
The a12x25 in particular makes a terrible noise at 1200 RPM when pushing into a radiator.
I agree test is flawed if not in pressure restrictions of case
Okay, a decent test... but what about pressure?
Many fans has trouble pushing air through a radiator for a liquid cooling system, because of the density of the fins in the rad.
I feel like this would have been appropriate for the review.
Cooling performance with an average air cooler is represantative enough.
@@nottheengineer4957 what do you base that on?
I am impressed with the cooling capability while remaining that quiet, but the price is just too high for most people. It's 2-3 times as expensive as other fans that would be sufficient for most cases
It looks like a copy of the Gentle Typhoon (AP series - 15, 14, etc.) base design. That fan design means it will also be good as a radiator fan (best PQ curve to this day for the Ap series). I have the AP-15 series (1850 rpm model) and when it runs between 1000-1200 it is silent.
I think you might have some me on one or two of these fans for my update to my PC! Keep the content coming! You are a very underrated youtuber! I think your going places!
I just have to get over the color
Or do we remeber my GPU holographic paint job video. Maybe it's time for a revisit ;-)
Anything is better than there ugly brown that matches literally nothing!
to make a more fair test you should mount the fan in a case as exhaust document noise (air flow test), and try it on a heat-sync (static pressure test) and document sound/temp; it is better to normalize for sound instead of RPM, do you really case how fast it is or is sound and temps all that matters at the end of the day? probably should test air flow on exhaust fans for the sake of science (RPM counter + one of those things that spins in the wind on a stick)
the primary issue with your test, is that the heatsink itself is the limiting factor. Therefore the results will be very close. But.... so try this again with like a 240/360 rad
If you're looking for something insane to bench, I just stuck a pair of Delta PFC1212DE's in my server, they can do 4000RPM and they're loud af, but they'll cool anything you ask them to.
Good on you for revisiting this. I think I will make a company that dyes and resells all black noctua fans
And only just now, over 2 years later, do we start getting black versions.
So NF-A12 or NF-F12 ippc still not clear which performs better in termnof cooling radiators? From what i understand arround 1k Rpm they are similar in terms of noise. But ippc seems more robust..
Love noctua and have their black NF-f12 on my AIO. I replaced all my stock cooler master case fans with a 5 pack of PWM Arctic fans which are fantastic and daisychain for the same price as 1 noctua fan.
Noctua industrial fans are really good and worth the investment the 3000 rpm models not the 2000 rpm models and always four pin
forget about rpm , just translate rpm into noise, since that is what matters in the end. temp vs noise.
If you want to test other fans with comparable silent performance, you could have a look at the beQuiet Silent Wing 3 PWM or the Noiseblocker eLoop B12-PS. But with your current level of test equipment you would probably just get to the conclussion that you now own 4 normal fans that are mostly the same, and 3 silent fans that are also mostly equal to each other.
Liked the video man , i just want to give you feedback please if you can do it as a info graphic . ( a graph of every single of your test and sort it as the best to the worst and with in the margin of error
Thanks
I love noctua's color scheme..
@Noctua isn't the best looking fan out there, but no fan can match them. I'm loving their coolers and thermal paste
Take a look at the Fractal Design HF-12 I think is the designation, I have a 140 version in my case and it's super quiet.
those new x25 series fans is not made in 140mm yet, i wish there were, now way i'm going down to 120mm. i got a new pc build coming up and need five 140mm fans and these new fans from noctua looks to be some of the best.
i know how difficult it is to review fans, you did ok and its a important thing to know how fans perform.
you have static pressure fans and airflow optimized fans, think noctua and many others are going for something in the middle.
and to know how they perform, you need to know how much airflow that can produce on that certain application with what noise level, fan rpm does not count as much as you think.
maybe the best way to compare fans is to cool a oc cpu under load, then adjust fan rpm so that all fans cool the cpu to same temp, then tell us how much noise difference the fans have.
could also switch that around to make all fans cool the cpu at same noise levels, also including noise type so that something that more quiet but more annoying pitch would be set to lower rpm to adjust for that, a decibel reading is misleading in that aspect. with all fans sound the same the temp is the differentiated number to read out.
thanks for reading this :)
Since you are testing a bunch of 120mm Case Fans.. Could you also do a Video about the actual CFM of the Fans? Because currently i'm looking for a quiet fan that has a high cfm for an Ender 3 Enclosure
you used the splitter from noctua? that does'nt work. figure out why
Current Draw to Volumetric airflow is probably a good test too.
Fans draw so little power that this is irrelevant. Noise to temp on automatic profile would make more sense.
If you don't like the beige/brown colour scheme, just spray paint the bugger. If done well it makes no difference to the sound or efficiency.
I ended up doing that I have a video on it. It turned out amazing until the end
can you please test the Corsair Maglev against the Noctua NF-A12x25
I'm a sub before you hit 1mil, keep up the excellent work
Thank you happy to have you
I'm interested to see how the Corsair ML fans compare against the Noctuas. They work with magnetic levitation like hard drives do.
You deserve a like just for music selection. Other parts are already great. 🎶👏
Next time pls add in description the music details..
What screws should I use for these fans? M3 or m4? Thanks
at 1:29 currently, all i can say is, that is the best fan for radiators and heatsinks
I can't argue now that I seen it. They don't cool any better then any other fan but they are damn quiet.
That sticker's going to unbalance it :) :) :) ... but the NF-A12x25 can run quietly at 2000 rpm, why not use that? Nice graphics where you point at each fan with numbers. Great video! I have a few of these fans (on my NF-U12A), love 'em.
1:50 "That one is not a PWM."
This test is not really applicable because sound strength and harmonics change when in cases due to pressure and airlfow. A true test would involve putting a full set of fans in one case then measure the rpm, temp, db and sound signature.
Delta 120mm server fans are the best performers
Please test the bequiet! Silent Wings 3 vs the Noctua fans.
Fans are definitely not JUST FANS! That doesn't even mean "when compared to Noctua" Some fans, like that standard Cooler Master fan, are just trash and sound annoying as fuck.
Noctua fans are like singing talent shows where a really ugly singer walks in. Everyone is thinking this is going to sound like garbage until they start to sing and everyone is amazed by their performance.
i have a plan to make it purdy
In terms of all of the fans giving basically the same temperature when using the same RPM that might be down to the Hyper 212 nudging up against it's limits. I wonder if the results might have shown a bigger difference with a higher end heatsink or radiator.
maybe that something worth investigating, i have some higher end stuff lined up for review.
please do corsair ML series and maybe sunon maglev if you can find the 25mm thick ones. they seems to be corsair ML's OEM. maybe even try delta ffb1212eh too if you want. i use 2 of them for my intake.
it will be great if you can somehow do a test on more restrictive environment like on thick radiator or maybe case with closed front panel like mine (be quiet, i'm pointing on you. your SW3 fans doesn't even works well on your own case!. i'm using DBP900 rev 1 btw)
A good test would've been comparing their cooling at the same noise level.
If you paint a computer case desert camo brown and beige fans can match.
Test bequiet Silent Wings 3 120 mm vs Noctua NF-A12x25 normalised by noise - and check who push more air. Or normalise by airflow and check the noise...
...Period.
WOW amazing Video Tank you for doings this the correct way Subbed and Liked keep them coming
i was not a fan of noctua's color scheme... but they look good on mine, lined up to a 360 radiator... if its one fan here or there, it would look very out of place...
Is hating noctua colors mainstream? Im building a white pc and looks great on that.. if you rgb purple.... check linus video of why not watercooling to see how nice they look
I run my fans at 600rpm at all times, anything higher than 800 is noticeable.
Do any of you know if the nf a12x15 need to be connected to a 5v port like noctua advertirse, or if they will work Just fine in any motherboard port?
Not a fan of adjusting rpm id be more interested in watt draw efficiency could use more aggressive blades if your just gona match rpm .how ever interesting test