Noctua NF-S12 1200
Fans
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The Noctua NF-S12 comes in a nice windowed cardboard box in the same style as all their other products.
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The rear of the box boasts about all the research and effort that have gone into the product, including specially designed rotor (motor) and perfectly shaped/angled blades. This coupled with the U.L.N.A (resistor) makes for a very quiet fan. At full power (sin U.L.N.A) the fan moves around 47.6 CFM while making a mere 17 dBA. Add the Ultra Low Noise Adaptor, and you get 24 CFM @ around 6 dBA. Looks like the research paid off.
There are two versions of this fan, confusingly called the 1200 (this one) and the 800, a slower rotating version. The 800 moves 34 CFM @ 8 dBA, and 20 CFM @ 5 dBA with the U.L.N.A.
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Inside the box you’ll get four standard case screws, four rubber mounts, the fan itself, a 3 pin to molex converter and the U.L.N.A. The rubber mounts are like push in screws and go into your case, and then the fan slots onto it. This stops fan vibration from being amplified by your case. It’s obvious that this fan is designed for silence.
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The U.L.N.A is a female 3 pin to male 3 pin fan cable with a resistor on the 12v wire which lowers the input voltage to the fan, so lowering the RPM from 1200 to 600 and lowering noise output.
It’s nice to see the molex to 3 pin adaptor as not everyone has a nearby/free fan header on their motherboard and it always comes in use further down the line.
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The fan itself is in army camouflage colours, with the outer a peach colour, and the fan blades themselves a light brown. While not overly unattractive, case modders won’t be too pleased with something that isn’t glowing bright blue.
There are two main advantages with this fan over others:
Noctua Straight Blade Design – more here
Nearly every fan out there uses the same shaped blades that are thinner at the motor than the outside of the fan. This design was originally intended for higher speed fans, and isn’t particularly suited to low RPM which most PC fans are. Instead, Noctua got the Austrian Institute for Heat-Transmission and Fan Technology on the case, and they came up with the straight blade design which provides more than 10% increase in performance. In other words, the blades look different for a very good reason.
SSO Bearing – more here
The bearings used on most fans need time to stabilise which means that they cause themselves harm when they are first turned on (due to the gyro effect). The Noctua fans use the same principle, but employ a magnet that immediately stabilises the fan from the word go, reducing noise, wear and increasing lifespan.
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