Noctua NF-P14 FLX Fan

Andy Ruffell / 14 years ago

Noctua have once again achieved what they set out to do, which was to produce a very quiet 140mm fan. This certainly excelled in this part while producing a product that will trounce most 120mm fans running at speeds that are higher than the Noctua and still give lower temperature readings. The Noctua fan is unbelievable quiet and you can hardly hear it even on the fastest RPM setting, a feat that not many other companies can achieve. That being said, it is mostly just due to the size increase of the blades and fan itself, but the Vortex-Control-Notches will also shave a few dB off the overall sound level and not give you that irritating hum’ that nearly all fans produce.

Noctua have also produced a very sturdy and well-designed fan and they have made every effort to improve its performance, however, having just adaptors to adjust fan speed is a bit annoying and could be improved with a proper fan speed controller although this would certainly bump the price up.

The performance of the Noctua is a tad behind that of the Akasa Viper but does give very similar results at a quieter noise output so if your primary concern is the noise level of your computer then Noctua and more especially the NF-P14 FLX should certainly be a prime contender for you. If however, you want a fan that can be quiet and can give you that slightly higher fan speed and air flow when you need it then the Akasa Viper may well win, but only if you can stand that droning hum’. The Akasa Viper and Noctua NF-P14 are priced very similarly and so there is not much to chose them apart personally I’d only chose the Noctua for a case fan and have the Viper for a CPU cooler (the Akasa Venom).

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