Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Fan Review

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We tested the acoustic performance of the Noctua fan precisely 10cm away from the fan, facing the direction of the airflow. The results were recorded with our decibel meter which has a 1 decibel margin of error. The fans were pulled far away from the main test system using their cables to minimise background noise from the system. We used Delta Noise levels (Recorded noise level minus ambient noise level), the background noise level was 37 dBA and this was as low as we could get it without turning the system off – which would obviously make testing impossible.

The Acoustic performance of the NF-F12 speaks for itself – that’s if you can even hear it! You can see all that slaving away by Noctua to fine tune every part of their NF-F12 fan has paid off. It is quieter than the all the other fans we tested at equivalent RPM speeds by a substantial margin – it even manages to squeeze in a fair bit quieter than the Be Quiet! Shadow Wings fan which I thought were going to be very tough to beat.