- Review -

21.01.2007 BigBruin.com

As case fans you can't go wrong with any of the Noctua units. Even at their full speeds they are all extremely quiet while still moving a decent amount of air. [...] I would even accept two of the three fans for use on CPU coolers. The NF-R8 may not be the fastest fan available, but it is only 200 RPM slower than the fan I happen to be using to cool an AMD XP2800+ processor on a Spire brand heatsink. It may not be the latest and greatest system, but the Noctua NF-R8 managed to hold the temperature while producing less noise. It was possible to slow the speed of the fan down to 1300 RPM and still operate the CPU at a safe temperature, but the decrease in noise wasn't worth it to me. Along the same lines, the NF-S12-1200 kept an Intel Celeron 3.33 GHz processor with a Thermalright brand cooler at a safe operating temperature. It was several degrees warmer than when the cooler had a fan rated at 1800 RPM installed, but it was quieter and nowhere near a temperature high enough to be concerned about.

"Noctua continues to impress with the cooling products they have sent to Bigbruin.com for review. The NF-S12 and NF-R8 fans provided the cooling performance needed, the low noise operation wanted, and many quality touches that might not be expected." (Jason Kohrs, BigBruin.com)