Noctua introduces A-series fans with extremely tight tolerances

G

Greg S

Posts: 1,607   +442

Noctua has well established itself as an expert in air cooling solutions. Known for its iconic brown fans and whisper-quiet performance products, Noctua has launched its latest flagship A-series of 120x25mm cooling fans.

Also read: The Best CPU Coolers 2018

The NF-A12x25 utilizes a completely new Sterrox liquid-crystal polymer material for the fan blades. This allows for extremely little expansion to take place due to heat and provides stability across a wide range of operating conditions. Using a stronger material resistant to common issues allows a clearance of just 0.5mm between the blade tips and the fan housing.

Although many fans are specifically advertised as either "static pressure" or "air flow", Noctua is placing the new A-series as an all-around product. The small space between blade tips and fan casing helps improve static pressure performance when used on heat sinks or radiators while still remaining a fan very capable of pushing high volumes of air.

Comparing to Noctua's NF-F12 and NF-S12A, it is clear just how much of an improvement the A-series is over the previous generations.

In a statement from Noctua's CEO Roland Mossig, it is clear that major effort has been put into developing the next generation of quiet performance cooling. "We have never put so much research and effort into a single fan so far, both on the level of fine-tuning the aerodynamic construction and on the level of materials and manufacturing."

In fact, it has taken more than four and a half years and over 200 prototypes to arrive at the current model. Typical fans use a clearance of 1.5mm to 3mm between fan blades and housings so that as centrifugal forces pull on the fan blades there are not any problems after years of runtime. Sterrox material helps combat impeller creep towards the casing while Noctua's use of a fully steel motor hub and axle mount reinforced with brass keeps the fan in alignment.

The NF-A12x25 arrives in 4-pin PWM and 3-pin FLX (flexibility) versions with low-noise adapters that allow for three different speed settings. An additional 3-pin ultra-low noise edition is also available. Also included is the NA-SFMA1 adapter that allows 120mm fans to be used on devices that have 140mm mount points.

New models are available from Amazon now. The NF-A12x25 retails for $29.90 / €29.90 and additional 140mm to 120mm adapters are available for $11.90 / €11.90.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/74421-noctua-introduces-series-fans-extremely-tight-tolerances.html

 
That's a lot of science and engineering for what amounts to a simple case fan.
 
That's a bit high but it is just now being introduced. I would expect it to drop by at lease 30-40% by this time next year .....
 
I have used Scythe for the most part because they perform very well and are very quiet, and are less costly than this. ATM, I really do not see an advantage to moving to these fans over Scythe.

IMO, it would be interesting to see TechSpot do a review of various fans and how well they perform both in terms of moving air and noise. I am not inclined to believe marketing materials from any fan company such as the graphic in the article. I bought a Noiseblocker fan once that was supposed to be quieter than an equivalent Scythe fan based on the marketing material from Noiseblocker, however, my own experience was quite different - the Scythe was the better fan.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JaredTheDragon
I don't mind the colour. Then again I mainly care about performance and price is secondary. $30USD for each fan is expensive.
 
Jon Tseng said:
Noctua fans are great I have loads. But the colour man!

No one ever woke up the morning and thought "hey what my high tech rig really really needs is a big splash of BEIGE"...
Click to expand...

So is it bad that I kind of like the colour? It would match my new leather sofa quite nicely!
 
wiyosaya said:
TomSEA said:
That's a lot of science and engineering for what amounts to a simple case fan.
Click to expand...
That's is what they want you to believe, anyway. ;)
Click to expand...
Not until you're trying to build a rotating blade with that tiny bit of clearance from housing using PLASTICS.

You must see how a large turbine generator rotor or turbofan jet engine operate, which are built from high tech METALS and cost upward thousands if not million of dollars to appreciate what Noctua did.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DelJo63
Yeah, until Noctua starts offering their fans in black, I'm not even a looker- let alone a buyer. Why can't they offer more colors than that god-awful beige? It looks straight out of a pc from 30 years ago. Sorry, but for a lot of enthusiasts color DOES matter.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PerformanceV8
Angga B said:
Not until you're trying to build a rotating blade with that tiny bit of clearance from housing using PLASTICS.

You must see how a large turbine generator rotor or turbofan jet engine operate, which are built from high tech METALS and cost upward thousands if not million of dollars to appreciate what Noctua did.
Click to expand...
Well, blade growth is a very real problem with the compressor impellers of turbofan jet engines. With that much metal in motion, and at the RPM they operate, (round about 30,000 RPM, IIRC), blade growth would destroy an engine long before its maiden flight, if the phenomenon wasn't tightly controlled.

So, the aircraft industry is rather obviously where Noctua has appropriated the hype for these new fans, if not the direct material technology.

For those of you who have been too busy arguing about the price of RAM, and those dastardly miners hogging all the video cards, try to keep up.

Noctua has been offering black frame and blade fans for several years. These are in their so called "industrial line".

quitest-120mm-fan.jpg

These fans however, spin 50% faster than the "consumer models". 2000 RPM being the norm for workaday home builders, and 3000 RPM for the commercial series. (@120 mm size)

Of course, the gaming delinquents at Newegg take offense at the reddish orange brown mounting tabs of these models as well. So, it's painfully obviously, you can't please all the people, all the time, and gamers never.

My last build included a Noctua air cooler, and it has the infamous "tan fan".

I considered replacing the stock fan with one of these. Of course, more RPM means more noise. Ergo, I was going to put the "low noise adapter" from the stock fan into the CPU fan power lead, with the hopes of adjusting the RPM range downward.

My solution was simply to ignore the beige air pump, and the problem seems to have gone away.

If you think about it, you spend tons of money for your video card, which has all of the most modern and hip aesthetics built into the cooler cover, then slap it into your machine upside down, where you can't see it without a mirror. But you know it's there, and psychologically that's enough to satisfy your yearnings, isn't it?

So kidz, I'm mercifully going to close for now, but I'm leaving you with a chunk of ancient wisdom, "you can't have your cake and eat it too". And in the spirit of the holiday, we should all be thankful we have Techspot to complain about it..

Here's links to the 140 & 120 PWM versions of these fans:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAADY6HZ2209

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608052
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

midian182
Apple advises against using rice to dry wet iPhones, offers better tips
Replies
3
Views
166
Gezzer
G
Daniel Sims
Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) receives new dedicated server browser, mod launcher, and other features from fans
Replies
1
Views
104
MakeMSGreatAgain
M
A
Kioxia sent 130 TB of solid-state storage to the International Space Station
Replies
0
Views
161
Alfonso Maruccia
A

Latest posts

Back