I dont see the "value" anymore, same with blacknoise/noiseblocker. yes they are silent, yes they come with long warranty etc., but i can get an arctic fan with roughly 0.08 sone that most of the time even pushes more air (at least vs silent noiseblockers <=9dB), and goes for under 8$ (and have no problem to be throttled down as well). https://www.arctic.ac/us_en/f12-silent.html

Not sure why I would want to buy the 5V fans, but I guess there are people for those as well. They are "special" as in you cannot directly connect them to fan headers anyway. But since the Arctic fans are 12V, lets compare those. The Noctua 12V fans definitely beat the Arctic fans in performance. With the Low Noise Adapter, they about match the sound properties (which are a bit harder to compare from specs alone due to sone vs dB(a)), and still do 30% more air volume. And static pressure isn't even documented for the Arctic fans. Plus you get extra performance capability without the Low Noise Adapter, further increasing airflow or pressure. As with every hardware, performance and price don't scale linearly. Higher-end components cost more, and the relative "value" goes down. But personally I wouldn't be content with some cheap fans just to save 50 bucks (say on 3-4 fans), when I have over a thousand worth of hardware in there otherwise.

I personally like Noctua, both its coolers and its fans. OK, there are some use cases where Noctua fans won't make much sense, and yes, probably there are fans out there which give you more performance / air pressure or whatever than Noctua ones. But on the other hand I never had a single Noctua fan failing. But I had Corsair, Arctic, Noiseblocker and some more which failed at some point. One Noiseblocker simply lost its frame and dropped down while nothing ran. Suddenly a "blop" and some metal noises from my case. I opened it to find the NB fan laying on the bottom while the mount was still hanging up there. Could be bad luck, who knows. But as I said that never happened to me with Noctua (yet). I am willing to spend more on fans to ensure they won't fail me so easily. And if you put everything together, it is not only the fan you get. You usually get some adapters (low noise, ultra low noise, extender, Y-cable) with it and mounting screws and those "gum nipples" for a silent mount, at least what I bought so far had those. So for those 20 bucks / 25 bucks (depending on what fan you buy) you get a full package of stuff you COULD need to mount the fan. That isn't bad ... So I have a good reason to like Noctua. Btw.: If you buy a whole cooler, say socket 2011 and you change your system to another socket, Noctua sends you a free adapter kit for your new socket after you send in a proof of purchase. So you are able to use their coolers without buying anything new, cooler wise. What else could you need from Noctua? I honestly think they do a very good job and offer a very high quality, therefore I am willing to spend a bit more. If you only go for the cheapest option available, you cannot complain when your computer dies because you took a 10 buck cooler to cool your 2066 socket CPU. I am not syying your ALWAYS have to buy the most expensive materials which are available, but for some components it makes sense to spend a bit more than usual: Those you cannot risk to fail!

I've been using arctic in almost all builds that weren't for myself when ppl wasted something "silent", and almost every "other" rig that was for myself , not one name brand fan failed in the past 17y, incl arctic. Besides, unless comparing total sales/total failure rate, it doesn't tell if brand xy is better. Do understand what you mean, yet i prefer not to spend 3 times the amount (anymore), when the throttled fan from one brand does NOT provide mor3 airflow when running at 5-7v (for me)..

Aside from making, arguably, the best PC fans available, Noctua as a company is a class act and very responsive to customer inquiries. If you ever have a question about any of their products, just use the contact us form on their web site and they'll get back to you within a day or two. I've never had an inquiry go unaswered.

Sure, just based on the fact they are made in Austria, which has a similar "mindset" as germany when it comes to quality. Then again, at noctuas price level, i would still go with noiseblockers bionic series.