Noctua NF-S12A FLX, Premium Quiet Fan, 3-Pin (120mm, Brown)

UPDATE: these two 120mm beasts are still running just as good as the day I put them in. I wanted to include some specification information I learned after spending the better part of my day combing through the specs on noctua’s site. They provide a wide range of specs for these fans and it’s helpful because they make several versions of each size. Each version mainly consisting of different fan blade, size, shape and number of blades. Noctua provides a very wide and comprehensive amount of data for each fan variant. My first conclusion is that the 120mm fan line is by far noctua’s most efficient in power consumption and cfm output at a given power draw. Also the 120mm line is generally the quietest line of fans when compared to the cfm output. 120mm seems to be a sweet spot for the range of fan sizes noctua makes. I had considered gettin 140mm fans for my next build but after learning what I have. I’m sticking to 120mm Out of the 120mm line up the NF-S12 series moves more air by a wide margin. It generally blows away every other version and even beats out the larger size fans. The only place this fan was slightly beat out was in sustained air pressure. Basically this fan had slightly lower numbers in sustained air pressure output because of the aggressive angle of attack these blades have but generally unless you are placing this fan rite up against a very restrictive air flow environment like say a densely packed set of fins for a cpu cooler. The slight air pressure deficiency won’t ever become an issue. Keep in mind that it wouldn’t even become a factor unless the fan began to build air pressure in its operating environment. Something that shouldn’t happen with case cooling fans if you are doing it rite. Matter of fact. Noctua uses the higher air pressure output variant fans on there line of coolers. So, perfect example of how knowing your specs and operating environment can enable you to engineer a damn near perfect air flow profile for a given need/situation/preference. ORIGINAL REVIEW: NF-S12A FLX - is the fan I ordered and before I ever installed it. I hooked it to a 12.5v constant power source and spun it up in free air at full power. NOT A DAMN SOUND! Completely silent. A mouse fart would have broke the silence. On top of that. The cfm output is astonishing. Just keep in mind. The fan may be silent but what it pushes air through or past can still create noise. Think strategically. I had two silenX fans go bad after about 13 years in a old rig I use for basic stuff ( the one pictured ) so I figured I’d try these out as a test for my new rig I’m currently planning out. I was blown away by the amount of air flow in and out of the case. Again, the fan may be silent but if the case is not conducive to smooth air flow, you can still experience noise. So using the limiting adapters may be a good idea if you experience this. Case and point. These are the best fans I’ve used or experienced in my life. Combine that with a VERY aggressive angle of attack from the blades, which is difficult to sustain airflow and keep unwanted volumes down. You can see on the fan blades and inside the fan housing. The little dips and dimples added to counteract the negative effects of that given aggressive blade angle and speed. The engineering and time that went into making these the best fans on the market. that is what elevated them to the amazing status in my book. You know the technical details. Just do your research. Study the specs and with a little forethought. You can get all the cooling muscle you want and need and keep everything super quiet at the same time.

I wanted to replace my stock NZXT case fans and Corsair fans that I bought. My research ended up leading me to this Australian brand with the fugliest color scheme. But when you are in for serious performance, Noctua will definitely not disappoint. Pros: -Silent. These are silent killers. You can barely hear these things spin even on max speed. With headphones on you definitely won't hear squat. -High performance. These bad boys are almost the best in terms of performance compared to any other fans out there on the markets. Tons of reviews will support Noctua. -Good build quality. You can feel the difference in material used to make these fans. They are a lot sturdier and do not wobble around. They also put rubber around the screw holes to prevent and vibration against the case, adding to the low noise. -Warranty. You get lifetime warranty with Noctua. Their customer service is excellent. I bought their tower cooler and emailed to ask if they could provide another fan bracket so I can attach another set of fans on it. They obliged and mailed the brackets free of charge to my place. -Peripherals. They give you several extra cables and anti-vibration "screws. They definitely go well and beyond to ensure your desktop is chilled and quiet. Cons: -Colors. Granted this is probably a marketing ploy to make their product stand out with their brown and poo-brown colors. Their marketing strategy is probably to prove that their products are superior and don't need to look cool or gamer-ish to attract customers. It definitely works, because any informed gamer will recognize their products instantly. But honestly at this point it would be GREAT if they had more appropriate colors. -Price. With great performance comes great expense. These fans are not cheap. I spent well over $140 buying Noctua case fans. But they are definitely genuine premium products. Conclusion: You won't regret the purchase if you understand that these are premium products. Their price is truly justified, but if you really don't want to spend that much you should look elsewhere (if you are okay sacrificing some performance and noise). For me, I've had all but great experience and became a die-hard (at times blinded) Noctua fan (pun intended). But yes, they need better colors.

I have an NZXT H500 with stock cooling. The top case fan bearing started to give up the ghost and began to sound like an armored division rolling through my room. I looked for case fans to purchase and initially looked at other brands because I figured they would be less expensive options. I saw the Noctua NF-S12A FLX fans at less than $20 each. Noctua's excellent rep, paired with what I consider a very fair price, made this an easy decision. The fans come with rubber anti-vibration pads installed. They each came with a power cable extender, low and ultra-low noise adapters, mounting screws, and adapters for direct PSU power connections. I run a Ryzen 3600 and an RX580. For a while before fan failure, I had noticed that the side tempered glass on my case was warm to the touch. I had also heard my GPU cooling fans spinning up and down while playing games. After installing the Noctua fans, the fan no longer spins up and down and the side tempered glass panel is no longer warm to to the touch. Great fans! Great price! One of the most satisfying purchases I have made.

Once you order one of these you’ll see right away it’s different from the pack. VERY well built, NO vibration, near silent operation. I have 3 of these and a big Noctua cpu fan cooler and you just don’t hear anything. The OEM fans made too much noise and didn’t move near the air these do. Mounting hardware is cool and you need to understand there is a silicon rubber grommet for the corners to dull any vibration. There are several colors of corner grommets to choose from! The attaching hardware is different but if you pay attention to what you doing they work just fine. Mine fit fine, but you might have to rotate the fan to mount as the cables are well built, but can interfere when stacked above and below config like the front of a case. Best computer fans I’ve used. There are fans that blow much harder- say Delta, but they sound like a Delta jet. Quick shipping, decent price, great cooling, would do business again.

I was looking for a good fan to push a good amount of airflow through the case that doesn't have any radiators and these worked out great. The build quality is top notch and they bundle accessories for just about any use case/situation. They include screws and rubber push pins depending on how you want to mount them, I personally prefer the rubber mounts for ease of install and quick removal if I ever need to, but depending on accessibility you may want to use the screws, the only downside is that the screws are silver so they may be a little bit of an eye sore if they are visible and you have a different color case. They also include a Y splitter if you want to connect 2 fans to 1 header and a resistor cable if you want to bring the noise level down even more (They are super quiet right out of the box as is), as well as an extension cable to get to further headers, the stock cable coming off the fan is only about 6" long so you will most likely need to use it if you are trying to get some nice cable management. I have also used these fans for almost 8 years at this point and I haven't had a single issue with any of them, other brand fans I have used that use a different bearing method usually will start to wobble/grind after a couple of years, typically right out of the warranty period go figure, after switching to Noctua I won't go back to any other brand. If you are looking for a Noctua to match a black case/if you are not a fan of the color scheme (although I think it will grow on you after a little while, I love the look now) they sell an Industrial version that is black but admittedly are slightly louder. 10/10 fans, look no further!

Noctua is the premier air-cooling manufacturer on the market. It won't get any better than this. I bought and installed these two years ago. They are so good at pushing and pulling air, that they rarely need any actual cleaning. I have a Cooler Master Cosmos 2 case, as well. So coupled with that, I rarely ever hit 40c on my CPU. In fact, it takes the hottest days of the year for my temp cases to get close to that. On average, with high load of multitasking and heavy gaming, my CPU temp stays around 33-38c, and in the winter about 27-33c. I've also had the fans running on max speed for a year straight (with power cycles of course), and sometimes with 48hrs+ of uptime. Still no wear and tear. I don't foresee myself ever buying another brand of cooling fans again. These things deliver results comparable with liquid cooling. That's not even the best part. These things are quieter than my desk fan! I was amazed at how quiet these fans are even on max speed setting. They're practically silent on low and medium speeds. You'll need a good case to take full advantage of these fans, but even in a terrible case, these will outperform any other fan on the market, especially for its price.

They're not as quiet as I was led to believe from other online review sites, I can still hear the air wooshing when the fans are at 900rpm (using the L.N.A), but at the same time they make an agreeable sound that doesn't annoy me as my previous Cougar Vortex fans did with their higher pitched wooshing. The packaging was superb, and the fans along with their silicone pegs (a tip for installation: if you have a smaller chassis and do not have nimble fingers it helps during the installation of the pegs if you use a set of pliers to grab onto the peg and pull it through the fan holes) and assortment of add-ons has a very impressive build quality to them. Coupled with the six year warranty this product is superb, just make sure you keep onto everything for if you need to call in that six year warranty (though I seriously doubt it considering the quality of everything). I also enjoyed the fact that they sleeved the *entire* fan wire. Getting those aside, it should be noted that the colors are not as nice looking as in the product photos, in the sense that the photos make the tan appear more whitish whereas in real life it is indeed closer to "puke tan" That's only a small detail however as I think everything else outweighs the color scheme. Superb build quality, superb packaging, and performance wise it doesn't offend my ears during use so I think these are superb, just be aware that they really aren't whisper quiet unless you're using them at 700 rpm.

I'm using this fan in a pretty non-traditional manner as an exhaust fan for my composting toilet. The fan must run silently, 24/7, and be able to pull air through a 3"x6' duct. This fan performs admirably. I hooked it up to a simple, two-prong "DC Motor PWM Speed Controller" and it's perfect! I can adjust the speed easily and don't notice any off-effects. It's then wired directly to a 12v battery bank. As previously mentioned, this fan runs 24/7 and is just a few feet away from my bed. With the PWM controller, I am able to drop the fan way down so that the noise is *barely* above ambient. If I need extra exhaust, I can crank it up to max and it still runs whisper quietly - much softer than any other exhaust fan I've used. And at any power level, it pulls enough air to keep the composting toilet vented & dry. It comes with a good handful of electrical adapters as well. I could cut up one of the adapters to attach to the PWM controller without destroying the hardwired connectors into the fan. Perfect!!

Es noctua, marca líder en ventiladores y con mucha razón. De pasar de un ventilador de 3 pines de stock (muy ruidoso) a noctua (igual de 3 pines) fue como si no instalará ventilador alguno. A la larga es la mejor inversión para tu computadora y para tu sanidad mental.

Oh oh oh! Where to start? First of all, I can't believe theses fans are only twice the price of some of the more cheaply made fans we viewed for sale. We received the 6 year online warranty from the company before we even received the fans. Absolutely amazing and impressive-this company knows how to add the wow factor. The fans themselves arrived within two days and we are in a rural community. We purchased these not for a computer but for our motor home to cool the back of our RV refrigerator and replace the very cheap and oh so noisy fan in the bathroom. The fans take minimal power and are so quiet we weren't certain they were working when we put them in for the refrigerator ( we put in two on a perforated L bracket using the rubber anti vibration plugs that come with the fans and it was easy as pie) and the one in the bathroom we just switched out the old RV fan of the same shape and size and bolted the Noctua in the existing bracket. These displace a lot of air and we opted to not use the low noise and ultra low noise adaptors so we could get the full 1200 rpms. You can get a slower speed by incorporating the adapters if you like, but we wanted maximum airflow and as they only run on a single speed depending on your needs we opted for the full blast. Noctua makes a wide selection of fans for different applications so if you are considering this type of application, these babies are perfect. Even the boxing these came in were top quality! I wish these people made cars and houses and computers and and and-lol. You won't be sorry you spent the extra 12 bucks over a cheaper fan

Very good product. High RPM with silent opearation. Really this product deserves award. Using as a exhaust fan. Many accesories provided with this fan.

Uno de los mejores ventiladores que he tenido, excelencia es lo que compras

I bought two of these fans to use in place of a duct fan because each fan running full on handles 107 CFM, so 214 CFM combined and they are virtually silent. I used angle magnet brackets from Lee Valley to mount them in the rectangular duct and because of their vibration dampers they have no vibration and are much cheaper to run than AC fans. I picked Noctua because of their stellar reputation. Two fans side to side fit a 4x10 duct. I use a duct I built in under floor to ceiling bookcases to pull heated air from a Direct Vent gas fireplace in a surround 10 feet away. Huge difference in circulating the air. I added a small power supply to power the units and I am adding a thermostatic controller to automatically turn them on and off. The overall solution is half the cost of a fireplace squirrel cage fan, way quieter, cheaper to operate (12V), and if Noctua's MTBF data is correct they will outlast me.