r/Noctua

Noctua just released a 120mm version of their Chromax.black G2 series fans.

I was honored to be among the first to build using these.

Unlike usually in my builds this time there is almost no wood visible and this one has a bit of a race car spirit with a carbon fiber pattern, velocity stacks and a copper pipes that hides the fan wires for the RAM cooler.

Processor is cooled by the old legendary NH-C12P SE14 with an updated NF-A14x25 Chromax.black fan.

The case fans are 10x 120mm Chromax.black fans.

System is powered by a massive Seasonic Prime TX-1300 Titanium PSU.

GPU extension cable is from EZDIY-FAB

Greetings from Noctua!

Today we are proud to announce the release of the NF-A12x25 G2 PWM chromax.black.

Available in single-fan and speed-offset dual-fan packs, the new chromax.black variants provide the same state-of-the-art quiet cooling performance for PC cases and water cooling radiators as the regular NF-A12x25 G2, just in a sleek all-black design.

Find out more here: https://www.noctua.at/en/news/noctua-presents-nf-a12x25-g2-chromax-black-120mm-fans

FINALLYYYYYYY

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, MSI B850 Tomahawk Max Wifi, 32GB [16x2] Crucial Pro DDR5-6400 (RIP Crucial), Sapphire NITRO+ RX 9070 XT 16GB.

Noctua NH-D15 G2 LBC CPU Cooler w/ NF-A14x25r G2 PWM [x2]
Noctua NF-A14x25 G2 PWM (140mm) [x4]
Noctua NF-a12x25 G2 PWM (120mm) [x5]

Samsung 990 Pro 1TB M.2
Crucial MX500 500GB 2.5" Solid State
Crucial X9 1TB External SSD

Super Flower LEADEX VII XG 850w 80+ Gold Fully Modular
Lian Li LANCOOL 217 Case
Void Linux

My wife's gonna kill me when she finds out how much I've spent on only fans! How many A14 G2s will be sold because finally A12 has landed? I bet quite a few...

Greetings from Noctua!

We entered the testing lab to find out which of our low-profile coolers was more suitable for the Fractal Ridge mini-ITX case, but we found out much more than that. See how a custom fan duct and removing extra fans unlocked better SFF performance and optimal acoustics.

Read the full blog post here: https://www.noctua.at/en/expertise/blog/fractal-design-ridge-noctua-build-guide

You might be surprised to find us posting here, but we thought that this community is the perfect place to share our latest blog post.

Lastly, thank you to the mods for allowing us to share our findings here.

I recently picked up a stack of three Cisco 3650 switches (48 port PoE & 4x 10G SFP+, stacking kits, etc) thinking they wouldn't be any louder than my stack of aging 48 port 2960's, but man was I wrong! So of course I spent $200 on a dozen 40mm Noctua fans and a few hours replacing all of the fans in all three switches!

Huge shoutout to u/composr and u/2Confuzed for the guides on how to mod the fans, though I was able to figure out how to mod the PSUs on my own since they were pretty loud too.

The power supplies were pretty straightforward once I figured out the pinouts, just needed to cut out the old fan, wire red to red and black to black (I cheated and used the scotch locks included with the Noctua fans), and add a spacer from an extra fan module. A bit of 3D printing might be able to make this slightly cleaner, but I'm plenty happy with the result. Of course use extreme caution when opening a PSU if you try to replicate this, as capacitors may or may not be discharged and you could get zapped if you don't know what you're doing.

All fans and PSUs are testing good, and temps are great! Since there is a decent bit of air resistance inside the switches and PSUs it's not entirely silent, but it's as quiet as my Bosch dishwasher. At least I'm only hearing the sound of the air being drawn through them, not the sound of the fans being lil jet engines.

Now that the fans are done, I'll get these new switches configured and will likely get them in the rack over the weekend if time allows. They'll be replacing my old 2960's, see last pic in the series. I'll be sure to do a followup post once everything is complete.

Hello I'm new to the fans can someone with experience tell me which version of Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 is better?Thx! I will put 3 on the side,3 down and 1 rear.

Just got this 6700XT from a friend, and as I did with my previous gpus my first move was to design a custom shroud and fit on some Noctua fans on them... This time I did it cleanly by custom cables and mounting it with screws instead of zip ties.

Update (gap fix): https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctua/comments/1t3f8pz/update_rtx_3080_ti_suprim_x_noctua_mod_done/

My GPU was super loud and I got tired of it. Ordered 3 NF A9x14 and disassembled them to fit on the GPU. I managed to do it all non-destructively and without any wire jankiness, resoldered the OEM cables to the Noctua hub, since the pinout is the same. 3D printed some mounts I designed to mount to the cooler, I can make the file public if anyone is interested. I'm super grateful for Noctua to share the CAD design of their coolers but it would be really nice if that included the stem in the frame to which the fan and PCB mount to, it would certainly have made this project easier.

All in all, very worthwhile, the noise has dropped significantly! The temps have not improved however, might refresh the thermal paste/pads later. For now, slight undervolt works wonders for keeping the temps under control. Feel free to reach out if you want to do the same and need some help!

Models (STEP files provided):

• Mount: https://www.printables.com/model/1709730-noctua-fan-stem-gpu-mount
• Ring to fix the gap: https://www.printables.com/model/1710359-msi-suprim-x-gpu-noctua-fan-spacer-ring

Waiting is over 😍

Hey everyone. I’ve designed systems on paper for other people for years, but this is literally my first time physically building my own PC. I wanted to take my time, sweat the details on the cable management, and go absolutely all-in on a 100% Noctua cooling ecosystem.

The goal was a zero-compromise Workstation for heavy 3D rendering and a 4K gaming rig. I live in a tropical country where the native ambient room temperature sits around 25°C to 28°C (77°F - 82°F), so brute-forcing the airflow with premium fans was mandatory to keep the hardware healthy.

Specs

• Case: Asus ProArt PA602 Wood Edition Modern Black
• Motherboard: ASUS ProArt X870E-CREATOR WiFi
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 G2 chromax.black
• GPU: ASUS GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua OC Edition
• RAM: 96GB DDR5 6000 MT/s CL30
• Storage: 4TB Samsung 9100 PRO (Gen 5) + 4TB Samsung 990 PRO (Gen 4)
• PSU: Seasonic PRIME TX-1600 Noctua Edition

Fan Configuration (Replaced all stock case fans)

• Front Intake: 2x NF-A20 PWM chromax.black.swap
• Top Intake (Front): 1x NF-A14x25 G2 PWM chromax.black (Positioned above the 200mm front fans)
• Top Exhaust (Rear): 1x NF-A14x25 G2 PWM chromax.black
• Rear Exhaust: 1x NF-A14x25 G2 PWM chromax.black

Thermals & Performance

Given my high ambient temperatures, I am completely blown away by how the NH-D15 G2 chromax.black handles the X3D chip and how the A20s feed the system under different scenarios:

• Idle (No AC / 25-28°C Ambient): CPU sits between 54°C - 58°C.
• Idle (With AC / 21°C Ambient): CPU drops to a frosty 43°C - 47°C.
• Gaming (Helldivers II / Battlefield in 4K): CPU usually sits around 65°C - 69°C (saw a max spike of 72°C). The RTX 5080 Noctua GPU literally never reaches 55°C. It's a ghost.
• Heavy Rendering (Cinebench Multi-Core test): Scored 2312. Sustained 100% load for 10 minutes and the CPU never exceeded 75°C. No thermal throttling whatsoever.

I spent hours trying to get the cable management exactly right according to my own criteria, especially the routing in the back panel to keep the airflow completely unobstructed.

Let me know what you guys think of the fan layout and the cable runs! (Photos attached).

Cool to see all the PC builds! Here's something different. I design custom cooling ducts for hobby miners. If course Noctua is the spec fan!

I usually recommend the nf-a12 5V PWM as these Bitaxe Gamma 601 miners have a 5V PWM fan control. They typically ship with a crappy heatsink and tiny cheap 40mm fans that spin at 8000rpm. Super noisy and don't cool the whole board.

I based my design on a copper tube heatsink, 120mm fan, with multiple air paths to cool all hotspots including the back of the board. Quiet and effective, thanks to Noctua!

Of course one of the colorways is Noctua beige and brown!

Bitaxe and Chill!

I have a green residue that is somewhat tacky. I am hearing this is from something else and is just over spray. Please confirm what this is out the box? I have seen with another on a post after shipping on the fan itself. Similar splatter. This is an expensive rig I am building and 1 of 9 Noctua I have on this.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctua/comments/1t2nnsa/rtx_3080_ti_suprim_x_noctua_mod_done_right/

Thank you all for pointing out the huge gap between the shroud and the tip of the fan and the potential performance loss. I have now fixed that and added a ring that brings the space from 5.5mm to a little less than 1mm (a touch less than the Noctua frame). It is pressure fit and is removable via 2 holes with which an allen key (or any L shaped tool) can used to pull it up.

It improved performance significantly! Now, without any undervolt and stock fan curve, it reaches a max temp of 80°C when stressed, fans being barely audible (huge step up from OEM fans which were really loud). I don't have any noise-testing equipment but it is really quiet. As for the temps, it may have improved it by a couple of degrees, I'm pretty sure with stock fans it reached about 83°C although that was not my main focus.

If you want to do the same, I have linked the files in my original post (with STEP files for you to modify) and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out!

To address some other points:

Why didn't I just deshroud the GPU/make my own shroud: I like the OEM shroud and I want to keep the card itself completely unmodified.

Aesthetics: I think it looks cool, I picked the OG brown fans because Noctua. Plus my GPU is mounted horizontally so I don't even see the bottom of the GPU anyways.

Why not bigger fans: same point as "why no custom shroud" but also because I want the card to keep the same profile, and I certainly do not want to make it bigger, I have other PCIe cards in my machine.

Just make a custom fan curve and undervolt it: Believe me, I tried. No matter what I did, the fans always ended up at 100% and they were loud at slower speeds anyways.

I just got nice hoodie, keychain and some sticker for my Noctua collection 😍

Greetings from Noctua!

Have you ever wondered why chromax.black fans launch later?

Black colouring additives alter the polymer’s behaviour during injection moulding, so to maintain our ultra-strict tolerances, we require completely new toolings and months of rigorous validation tests.

Read the full Blog post here: https://www.noctua.at/en/expertise/blog/how-can-it-take-so-long-to-release-black-fan-versions