Noctua NF-P12 120mm Fan Review

Water Cooling Tests


Single Fan "Push"



The deltas shown by the NF-P12 with the very dense fin arrangement of the Black Ice Extreme single fan radiator is very good. In these single fan tests the numbers it achieved about a 10% improvement over its closest competitor and it beats the lackluster Ultra Kaze by a staggering 30%.


Dual Fan "Push / Pull"



Things get a bit tighter in the dual fan radiator testing but the Noctua fan is still able to win by the skin of its teeth. Together these tests demonstrate that the Noctura NF-P12 fan is, as advertised, incredibly effective when used in applications that require high static pressure. This holds true in both an air cooling scenario, and the two water cooling scenarios.


Subjective Acoustical Tests

The impressive performance shown by this Noctua fan would mean nothing if the NF-P12 was louder than Noctua promised. Some fans on the market are able to offer great performance by sacrificing silence in favor of moving as much air as possible. Remember, these were subjective tests where I eliminated as much environmental noise as I could while running each set of fans.

I am happy to report that Noctua’s promises have held through and they have produced a fan that was the quietest in our testing while maintaining great performance. During the listening tests I was continually amazed that this fan was operating at 1300RPM while maintaining a smaller acoustical footprint than the Ultra Kaze which operates at 1000RPM. There was none of the blade or slight motor noise which is normally associated with high performance PC fans so it seems that all the engineering put into the NF-P12 is paying dividends.