- Review -
NF-S12-1200
The straight blade design coupled with the SSO bearings makes the Noctua fans a very ingenious product indeed.
Noctua was nice enough to send me a great selection of fans. I used the 1200 version on my Noctua NH-U12 CPU cooler and compared it to both a Coolink Swif-1202 fan that Noctua has recommended in the past for this particular cooler, and a YS-Tech 120mm fan that spins at about 2100 RPM.
The Noctua fan was able to keep the CPU at the same temperature as the faster spinning YS-Tech fan but at a much lower sound level. To be completely honest the Noctua fan running at full blast was nearly inaudible, and when using the U.L.N.A resistor I almost couldn't distinguish it from the HDD's spinning.
Then it was time to test the 800 version of the fans, I used three of them in my CM Stacker 830 and I was even more impressed by these. At its default 12v setting I couldn't hear anything but a faint sound of air flowing, the motor was not audible even if I put my ear only a few inches from it.
Noctua was nice enough to send me a great selection of fans. I used the 1200 version on my Noctua NH-U12 CPU cooler and compared it to both a Coolink Swif-1202 fan that Noctua has recommended in the past for this particular cooler, and a YS-Tech 120mm fan that spins at about 2100 RPM.
The Noctua fan was able to keep the CPU at the same temperature as the faster spinning YS-Tech fan but at a much lower sound level. To be completely honest the Noctua fan running at full blast was nearly inaudible, and when using the U.L.N.A resistor I almost couldn't distinguish it from the HDD's spinning.
Then it was time to test the 800 version of the fans, I used three of them in my CM Stacker 830 and I was even more impressed by these. At its default 12v setting I couldn't hear anything but a faint sound of air flowing, the motor was not audible even if I put my ear only a few inches from it.
"Not only did the NF-S12-1200 keep up with the YS-Tech 120mm fan performance wise, it did so without any noise. This is honestly something we thought impossible.
The NF-S12-800 was able to maintain our case temperatures at more than acceptable levels, it actually didn't let the temperatures get any higher than when using the cooler master stock fans. To think a short while ago I considered the cooler master fans quiet!" (Mike Pettersson, Driverheaven.net)
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