Noctua NF-A12 and P12 Redux Fan Group Test Review

Posted by: Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/29/2018 04:44 PM [ 25 comment(s) ]

Noctua recently released new Sterrox manufactured 120mm fans in a wide range of configurations. The NF-A12 series, however, has been a fan series they worked on for four years! In this group test, we'll put nine recent Noctua fans to the test, and compared them in cooling performance, noise levels and airflow.

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Tagged as: noctua

Agent-A01
Senior Member

Posts: 11335

Posted on: 06/29/2018 05:17 PM

Hey boss, thanks for the review.
It's nice to see something out of the normal scope of reviews; it's fresh.

Can I ask why you rated the graphs in meters per second?

It's not going to mean that much to most people I don't think as CFM and m^3/h are generally what everyone uses/knows.

One has to do some calculations to get a rough comparison to other manufacturer's specs.

vbetts

Posts: 14360

Posted on: 06/29/2018 05:36 PM

Man these are nice fans, and I want them! Only problem is..The a12's are $29.99 on newegg for one!

I would need 7!

Agent-A01
Senior Member

Posts: 11335

Posted on: 06/29/2018 05:38 PM

Man these are nice fans, and I want them! Only problem is..The a12's are $29.99 on newegg for one!

I would need 7!

Those are the type of fans you buy and forget; they'll last forever.

I've already replaced most of my fans with them; much quieter than the previous NF-f12s

Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone

Posts: 35074

Posted on: 06/29/2018 08:09 PM

Can I ask why you rated the graphs in meters per second?

Well you know me, I like to do things differently

No, the anemometer is a common instrument used to measure wind speed and the register output is in meters per second.

Robbo9999
Senior Member

Posts: 1220

Posted on: 06/29/2018 08:28 PM

Ah, Noctua did good! So that's a 4 degC decrease in temperature when comparing silent operation performance of previous generation with these new improved fans: 68 degC down to 64 degC with new generation. If your CPU runs hotter than that then the temperature decrease would be greater than 4 degC with these fans, and if your CPU runs cooler than the 60 degC range then the difference will be less than 4 degC - to give some perspective on how much temperature decrease you could expect to see (this is based on my understanding of thermodynamics from a Uni degree a long time ago!). They're some impressive fans!

Reddoguk
Senior Member

Posts: 1663

Posted on: 06/29/2018 09:17 PM

They should sell them in bundles with money off if you buy multiple.

I'd need 6 but £180 for fans is too much even with a 6 year warranty. They should sell them in 3's for £75 each hint hint. ^^

I paid 3 squid each for my current 120mm Akasa fans and there good for that price. 10x less than these. Ok they aren't as good but 3 pound vs 30 pound is a problem for me.

BuildeR2
Senior Member

Posts: 2810

Posted on: 06/29/2018 09:38 PM

These new fans do interest me, but I can't remember how airflow vs cooler capability works. If I have the Noctua NH-D15S and I replace the fans with these new ones, will the better fans bring temps down or has the cooler already reached its peak cooling capacity?

TheDeeGee
Senior Member

Posts: 5872

Posted on: 06/29/2018 09:48 PM

Proof that Watercooling is overrated.

BuildeR2
Senior Member

Posts: 2810

Posted on: 06/29/2018 09:50 PM

Proof that Watercooling is overrated.

Maybe I'm crazy/old school, but I would never get a wink of sleep knowing that there is water INSIDE my computer box! Give me more metal and more efficient fans.

H83
Senior Member

Posts: 2619

Posted on: 06/29/2018 10:05 PM

I can´t wait to read the reviews of the new Noctua coolers with those wicked fans! My current Noctua cooler struggles a little "against" my overclocked 7600K so a better cooler from them is welcome.

Great review as alway!

Robbo9999
Senior Member

Posts: 1220

Posted on: 06/29/2018 10:14 PM

BuildeR2
Senior Member

Posts: 2810

Posted on: 06/29/2018 10:26 PM

I think it depends on your current fans you have & what RPM you run your fans at. If you have a noisy but high air flow already through your heatsink then these fans might not see much of an improvement in temperature - already in this Guru3d review at the 100% RPM setting the new fans performance vs previous generation fans wasn't such a big difference - the largest difference is seen at lower RPM's at the threshold of audible vs inaudible. These new fans might decrease the noise for you, but performance difference I imagine would not be that great a difference if your current fans are already at high RPM and pushing lots of air through heatsink.

You've got the NH-D15 cooler already, and that's not noisy, the fans are good on that, so I don't think it's worth replacing them - you'd also have to research if these new fans fit properly on your NH-D15 and also if they're optimised for it. Having typed that just now I googled it, and NH-D15 has 140mm fans on it and this guru3d review is for the 120mm fans, so I wouldn't put 120mm fans on your NH-D15. If Noctua do these new optimised fan designs in 140mm fan versions that are the same shape as the fans on your NH-D15 then it might be worth switching them, but again you'd have to make sure they're the right type of fans - some are designed for static pressure & others are designed more towards air flow - CPU heatsink fans are mostly of the high static pressure variety.
Ah, all good points. I currently have the fan included with the cooler (some kind of custom shaped 140mm with 120mm mounting holes) and a mid range 120mm Cougar HDB PWM fan as the second fan. They both run at about 800-900 RPM and never really spin up. They are quiet so I was thinking maybe the new Noctua A series fan would benefit me, but honestly a delid+liquid metal would do MUCH more for CPU temps but I'm not putting money into a Haswell system at this point. I'll just wait to see what Noctua is up to when the new 8c/16t 9 series Intel CPU comes out and I might build a new PC. Thanks for the info and insight!

Robbo9999
Senior Member

Posts: 1220

Posted on: 06/29/2018 10:31 PM

Ah, all good points. I currently have the fan included with the cooler (some kind of custom shaped 140mm with 120mm mounting holes) and a mid range 120mm Cougar HDB PWM fan as the second fan. They both run at about 800-900 RPM and never really spin up. They are quiet so I was thinking maybe the new Noctua A series fan would benefit me, but honestly a delid+liquid metal would do MUCH more for CPU temps but I'm not putting money into a Haswell system at this point. I'll just wait to see what Noctua is up to when the new 8c/16t 9 series Intel CPU comes out and I might build a new PC. Thanks for the info and insight!

Oh yeah, 100%, I highly recommend a delid once you get your new setup going - that's if you want to run quiet & cool! I speak from my own liquid metal delid experience with my 6700K combined with NH-D14 cooler. Yes, so do that delid rather than buy new fans, delid will make way more difference. Of course you void your CPU warranty, but CPU's are reliable, just make sure YOU are when you delid!

typhon6657
Senior Member

Posts: 261

Posted on: 06/30/2018 11:02 AM

Proof that Watercooling is overrated.

You like being blasted with wind noise?

Goiur
Senior Member

Posts: 620

Posted on: 06/30/2018 02:05 PM

You like being blasted with wind noise?

My build has now less fans with the noctua d15s that with the previous H110 i had... Likewise temps, less noise. AIOs are *****, if we are talking about customs, then its a different tale to tell.

TheDeeGee
Senior Member

Posts: 5872

Posted on: 06/30/2018 10:31 PM

You like being blasted with wind noise?

I don't hear anything with my Case Fans at 600 RPM and CPU Fans at 750 RPM.

Did you even check out the review?

Agent-A01
Senior Member

Posts: 11335

Posted on: 07/01/2018 12:15 AM

I don't hear anything with my Case Fans at 600 RPM and CPU Fans at 750 RPM.

Did you even check out the review?

And your temps are nowhere near a H20 setup either.

H20 has way more potential options for different setups.

What's your point?

typhon6657
Senior Member

Posts: 261

Posted on: 07/01/2018 09:23 AM

I don't hear anything with my Case Fans at 600 RPM and CPU Fans at 750 RPM.

Did you even check out the review?

No I just came to the comments to troll you.

TheDeeGee
Senior Member

Posts: 5872

Posted on: 07/01/2018 11:07 AM

And your temps are nowhere near a H20 setup either.

H20 has way more potential options for different setups.

What's your point?
My 4770k @ 4,5 GHz reaches 55-60C depending on the game, which is a perfectly safe operating temperature, and a more than a good result for fans at 750 RPM.

And my GTX 1070 @ +125/+500 maxes out at 59C with an Arctic Accelero Extreme 4 fixed at 35% Fan Speed.

Not sure why one would want to risk their hardware with water to gain 1% more performance over air, and have 20C less just because of e-peen. It's not like 35C vs 60C is gonna expand the lifetime by 10 years.

Robbo9999
Senior Member

Posts: 1220

Posted on: 07/01/2018 01:30 PM

My 4770k @ 4,5 GHz reaches 55-60C depending on the game, which is a perfectly safe operating temperature, and a more than a good result for fans at 750 RPM.

And my GTX 1070 @ +125/+500 maxes out at 59C with an Arctic Accelero Extreme 4 fixed at 35% Fan Speed.

Not sure why one would want to risk their hardware with water to gain 1% more performance over air, and have 20C less just because of e-peen. It's not like 35C vs 60C is gonna expand the lifetime by 10 years.
It's true that on a practical level water cooling doesn't really offer tangible gains in performance over air with current gen Pascal GPUs, and also not for 4 and possibly 6 core Intel CPUs. For the GPUs, 2150Mhz on water vs say 2050Mhz on air would only be less than 5% increase in performance, and that's probably an optimistic best case difference in performance between the two. A good third party air cooler on a Pascal card is all you really need to get the best out of it. Same is true when it comes to cooling Intel CPUs, you only really need water cooling (and good quality water cooling at that!) for overclocking of 8 core plus CPUs.

Agent-A01
Senior Member

Posts: 11335

Posted on: 07/01/2018 06:41 PM

Not sure why one would want to risk their hardware with water to gain 1% more performance over air, and have 20C less just because of e-peen. It's not like 35C vs 60C is gonna expand the lifetime by 10 years.

1%?

Your whole statement just proves your ignorance and lack of experience with water.

Fox2232
Senior Member

Posts: 8812

Posted on: 07/02/2018 01:02 PM

Lucky me. I have 5x "Fractal Design Dynamic X2 PWM GP12" in main PC to keep noise profile in smallest frequency range possible. And mini PC can't fit 12cm fan.

Otherwise this would be costly.

Noisiv
Senior Member

Posts: 6586

Posted on: 07/02/2018 02:01 PM

Lucky me. I have 5x "Fractal Design Dynamic X2 PWM GP12" in main PC to keep noise profile in smallest frequency range possible. And mini PC can't fit 12cm fan.

Otherwise this would be costly.

Do you need that many fans to begin with? More intake + outtake fans = more incoming dust
For example right now you're browsing Guru3d and your airflow needs are exactly zero.

This is my grand anti-dust zero-dB plan:
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/building-a-newer-gaming-pc.419384/#post-5517901

I have all the necessary components including that daylight robbery 100 € DEMCIFLEX FD-R5 dust-filter-set, with several Phanteks F140 MP/TS/XP just laying around.
I'm such lazy bastard, maybe because the case is already silent for all the practical purposes, but one of these days I'm going to finish it.

Noisiv
Senior Member

Posts: 6586

Posted on: 07/02/2018 02:17 PM

My 4770k @ 4,5 GHz reaches 55-60C depending on the game, which is a perfectly safe operating temperature, and a more than a good result for fans at 750 RPM.

And my GTX 1070 @ +125/+500 maxes out at 59C with an Arctic Accelero Extreme 4 fixed at 35% Fan Speed.

AC4 is a superb cooler.

But when you have super tall memory and a big-ass CPU-cooler, setting up 4-slot GPU-cooler is a pain (in the ???

)

Fox2232
Senior Member

Posts: 8812

Posted on: 07/02/2018 02:26 PM

Do you need that many fans to begin with? More intake + outtake fans = more incoming dust
For example right now you're browsing Guru3d and your airflow needs are exactly zero.

This is my grand anti-dust zero-dB plan:
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/building-a-newer-gaming-pc.419384/#post-5517901

I have all the necessary components including that daylight robbery 100 € DEMCIFLEX FD-R5 dust-filter-set, with several Phanteks F140 MP/TS/XP just laying around.
I'm such lazy bastard, maybe because the case is already silent for all the practical purposes, but one of these days I'm going to finish it.
I do not need them, but all slots are occupied for practical reasons.
When temperatures are OK, 3x front intake does not spin. 2 Fans on top Radiator (outtake) will spin no matter what (slowly), that's built-in safety. And one on back for Fury X was apparently spinning too even at idle on minimum rpm.
EVGA PSU has "ECO" mode which stops its fan unless it gets "hot", but then it spins fast enough to be audible. So, "ECO" is OFF and it spins very slowly (inaudible).
I actually removed old 1TB 3.5'' HDD from case as it was biggest source of noise.

To that practical reasons for having all fan slots occupied... It's about control of airflow. If I leave one fan out, then positive air pressure will lead to air leaving through that place.

To your idea. It is doable. And if board allows fan control via other than CPU sensor, then you can set particular fan(s) based on VRMs/chipset temperature. And that will make you pretty safe. And I hope you are going to have more luck than I had... My micro 2400G system has buzzing coils under full gaming load. And they buzz at fps frequency. It's not noisy, but if that system was any quieter under load (like if I did delid), it would be annoying.

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