The Noctua NF-P12

With the exception of two additional fan blades with those strange-looking notches on the ends, the Noctua NF-P12 looks almost like any other 120 x 25 x 25mm fan. The first thing that will strike you about the NF-P12, is its color. The frame is tan, and the fan itself is brown—echoing Noctua’s corporate color scheme. A color combination that you certainly don’t see in case fans every day.

The fan cable utilizes a standard 3-pin female connector, is 16” long and sleeved with what appears to be nylon—but with a highly flexible, semi-rubberized coating. The flexible sleeving and extra length of the cable should make routing and connecting the NF-P12 to motherboard fan headers—no matter where they’re located on the motherboard—a lot easier than fans with shorter cables and thicker, stiffer sleeving. Even the shrink tubing job on the NF-P12’s sleeved cable is first-rate, compared to other fans where the tubing easily separates from the sleeve, leaving you with a frayed mess. Arrows that indicate fan blade rotation and airflow direction are on the bottom of the fan, and are much larger and easier to see than other fans on the market—a nice user-friendly touch.

While it’s hardly necessary for a fan to be as solid and heavy as a brick, some of them feel so light and cheap when you pick them up, you have to wonder about their overall, long-term quality. I dropped an LED fan on the floor once. The clear plastic frame cracked and one of the blades broke off! It’s safe to say that unless you hurl it from the roof of a ten-story building, a similar fate will not befall the Noctua NF-P12 by dropping it on the floor. If the NF-P12 feels a tad heavier than a generic 120mm fan when you pick it up, that’s because it probably is due to its quality construction—a very reassuring feeling indeed.

The NF-P12 spins at 1,300 RPM with a decibel rating of 19.8 dBA and airflow rating of 54.3 CFM (92.3 m³/h), putting it in the ballpark with other top-quality “silent” 120mm fans. Connect the black L.N.A. (Low-Noise Adapter) cable, and the NF-P12 drops to 1,100 RPM with a decibel rating of 16.9 dBA and airflow rating of 46.2 CFM (78.5 m³/h). Still not quiet enough for you? Hook up the blue U.L.N.A. (Ultra-Low Noise Adapter) cable, and the NF-P12 drops to 900 RPM with an airflow rating of 37.3 CFM (63.4 m³/h) and a “barely a whisper” decibel rating of 12.6 dBA!

Installation/Testing

Installing Noctua’s NF-P12 is no more “difficult” than installing any other 120mm fan. I’m going to install the review sample as a case fan—specifically the rear exhaust fan, with the following hardware:

● Intel Core 2 Extreme 6800 2.93GHz Processor

● Zalman CNPS9500A LED CPU Cooler

● Intel D975BX2 “Bad Axe 2” Motherboard

● 2 GB Corsair DDR-2 RAM

● EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS Video Card

● Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card

● (2) Western Digital Caviar 320GB 7,200 RPM SATA Hard Drives (RAID 0)

● NEC 1.44 MB 3.5” Floppy Drive

● Samsung SH-S182M LightScribe Writemaster DVD Burner

● Thermaltake W0117RU Tough Power 750W Power Supply

● SilverStone Temjin TJ09 Tower Case

● Windows XP SP-2 w/latest critical updates & drivers

The 120 x 120 x 25mm nine-bladed intake and exhaust fans in the TJ09 case are SilverStone’s own fans—specifically, the model F121225SL, which is rated at 1,200 RPM and 21dBA. Although it’s not listed with the case specifications, the CFM rating is probably 53.24 CFM (1.51m³ / min) or pretty darn close to the rating of SilverStone’s FN121 Fan (which interestingly enough carries a 5dBA higher noise level rating).

Noctua’s Vibration Compensators are rubber “push-pins” that you can use to mount the NF-P12 to the chassis of your case that help dampen any potential vibration noise. You pull them through the fan holes of the chassis and then through the mounting holes on back of the fan (needle-nose pliers work best). While they’re quite effective, the drawback is that if you tend to swap out and experiment with a lot of fans, the Vibration Compensators will eventually stretch and break—they’re only rubber, after all. For the tests, I’ve decided to stick with regular fan screws. I also used both fan grilles from the SilverStone fan on the NF-12.

For temperature tests, I used Futuremark’s 3DMark 06 Advanced v1.1.0. I ran the full suite of 3DMark tests with the resolution set to 1920x1200 and 4x AA/16x AF enabled to really get the pixels pumpin’ through the GeForce 8800 GTS to warm it up, while 3DMark’s CPU test cranked up both cores on the Core 2 Extreme processor. While all of this was going on, EVEREST Ultimate Edition v4.20 (Beta 1285) was keeping tabs in the background of CPU, GPU, DIMM and Motherboard temperatures, and averaged the results at the end of the benchmark. For the noise test, I removed as much extraneous noise as possible from my office, placed my Galaxy Audio CM-130 SPL Meter at my normal sitting distance and at ear level from the TJ09 (thank goodness for boxes and duct tape), and recorded the system at idle, and during the 3DMark session, then averaged the results. After obtaining the results for the SilverStone fan, I ran the tests for the Noctua NF-P12 as follows:

● Connected to the motherboard header – 1,300 RPM (19.8 dBA)

● Connected to the motherboard header with the L.N.A. – 1,100 RPM (16.9 dBA)

● Connected to the motherboard header with the U.L.N.A. – 900 RPM (12.6 dBA)

Let’s take a look at the results. First, let’s see how the NF-P12 stacks up at all three settings, compared to the stock SilverStone fan:

At default fan speeds, the NF-P12 and F121225S are practically neck and neck at idle—no surprise there. Under load, the Noctua fan easily drops overall system noise down a few notches over the factory SilverStone fan. On average and during peaks, the NF-P12 is slightly louder than the SilverStone at idle. And temperatures are lower across the board. Not bad!

Overall system noise on average and at peak takes another hit as the NF-P12’s L.N.A. throttles back the fan’s RPMs, causing the Noctua’s average and peak decibels under-load dip beneath the SilverStone’s at idle once again. The slight reduction of airflow has resulted in a small increase in operating temperatures, though.

With the NF-P12 coasting along at 900 RPM, things are starting to get a bit toasty inside the TJ09 under load—and we’ve hit a wall in the reduction of overall system noise as well. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, as the slower-turning fan is removing a lot less hot air from the case with the U.L.N.A. installed. Meanwhile the reduced noise level of the fan is being masked by the noise from all the other fans inside the PC.

Now let’s step back and take a look at the big picture on noise and temperatures for the Noctua NF-P12:

Your results with the NF-P12 will vary based on your specific hardware configuration. For example, let’s say you’re already using a case with excellent airflow like the SilverStone TJ09 that has relatively quiet fans to begin with. And that the fans on your CPU cooler fan and power supply are also fairly quiet. And you’ve routed and organized all the cables and wires inside the case to keep things neat, look good and aid airflow. You will see a reduction of overall system noise and heat with the NF-P12—though not as dramatic as someone with a case with more restrictive airflow, hotter-running components, the usual chaotic rat’s-nest of wires and cables, and faster, louder high CFM fans in an attempt to keep temperatures under control.

By the same token, had I overclocked the CPU and video card of the test system, I would have had to add two more NF-P12s to the TJ09’s upper fan brackets as exhaust fans to help keep things cool. And I probably still would not have been able to match an identically configured system with a higher overclock, a good water-cooling setup, and a set of NF-P12s with L.N.A.s and possibly U.L.N.A.s providing general air and radiator cooling, in terms of noise and heat reduction. Considering the specific applications that the NF-P12 was designed for, I probably would have gotten better results—if not exclusively in noise reduction, then certainly in heat reduction, with an NF-S12 as an exhaust fan, particularly at lower fan speeds—but that’s a subject, possibly for another review.

When hand-picking the major components of your system to reach your specific noise and heat reduction goals, sometimes the little things can easily be overlooked and hinder your efforts. For example, when connecting a fan to a motherboard header, some motherboards might run the fan’s RPMs way out of spec beyond its rated plus or minus percentage margin. While BIOS updates from the motherboard manufacturer can solve that problem, the best line of defense is a good hardware monitoring utility and somewhere else to plug in the fan to insure it’s running within the accepted tolerances of its RPM ratings.

Clearly the Noctua NF-P12 is an effective and versatile fan that can make a major contribution in keeping your system cool and quiet—depending on your other components—and how and where you use it.

Final Impressions and Conclusion

Fans are one of the few components most enthusiasts don’t get excited about. You install them; they either work or they don’t, and you forget about them (until they stop working). Unless a fan is particularly cheap and poorly made, I normally don’t give how a fan is made a second thought. My experience with the Noctua NF-P12 has changed that, though. I was very impressed with the quality of this fan. The sleeving job on the cable is top-notch, and the included L.N.A. and U.L.N.A. cables are great time and money savers. You don’t have to go through the trouble of hunting down the right resistor to splice into the fan cable. Or spend the extra bucks for a fan rheobus, losing a spare a drive bay in your rig’s case as a result, should you need to run the NF-P12 at slower speeds.

The nine closely spaced blades of the fan with their Vortex-Control Notches, gives the NF-P12 a more pleasing, whisper-like tone compared to the usual wind-tunnel “Whoosh!” generated by average fans. Also absent are the annoying motor and bearing harmonics present in cheaper quality fans. Although you’ll always get the best possible results when using something for the specific purpose or application it was designed for, the engineering and quality Noctua has built into the NF-P12 pretty much guarantees you’ll be pleased with the results regardless of how or where you use it inside your rig.

With an SRP of $19.99 (U.S.), the Noctua NF-P12 certainly isn’t the cheapest fan on the market. But those other fans don’t cool as quietly or efficiently as the NF-P12 either. Some may even cost as much or more than the NF-P12. But don’t be surprises if their overall quality and longevity doesn’t merit the higher price tag. And how many fans out there offer a six year warranty?

There’s no denying the one-of-a-kind color scheme of Noctua’s fans makes them stand out from all the others on the market without having to resort to the usual bling or gimmicks associated with aftermarket fans for PC enthusiasts. On the other hand, beige and brown doesn’t color-coordinate well with most of today’s PC components and accessories—especially if your case has a windowed side panel. Of course, if your case doesn’t have a windowed side panel, then it hardly matters anyway. For what it’s worth, the NF-P12 will take on a more neutral tone when illuminated by blue LED lighting installed elsewhere inside the case. Though I doubt Noctua will jump on the “me too” bandwagon and make black or LED fans any time soon, the NF-P12 would look better if both the frame and fan were brown. I would like to see a PWM version of the NF-P12 (and the NF-S12) as well.

If you’re tired of wading through all the marketing hype, frills and unfulfilled promises of better, quieter cooling and need a first-class, quality 120mm fan that’s versatile and powerful enough for your rig’s toughest cooling problems, while keeping the decibels to the absolute minimum—then the Noctua NF-P12 120mm Fan should be your first and only choice.

Barry’s Rigs ‘n Reviews would like to thank Jakob Dellinger of Noctua for providing the sample for this review, and making it possible!