Posted by mav2000 on 01 Mar 2010 /
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Introduction
After the recent review on the Excalibur, I was on the look out for a few low noise fans, specifically for the Venomous X. I was pretty happy with the results that I was getting with the Scythe Gentle Typhoons and decided to get the two Noctua brothers to test. Before I go any further, let me clarify that this was a test to see which would be the best performer with low noise as an added criteria and is not meant for someone looking for benching fans.
With that out of the way, lets first take a short look at the history of Noctua before we go ahead.
Noctua comes from a cooperation of the Austrian Rascom Computer distribution Ges.m.b.H. with the Taiwanese cooling specialist Kolink International Corporation, pooling more than ten years of experience in the development, manufacturing and marketing of high-end cooling components. Established in 2005, Noctua took the international silent enthusiasts’ hearts by storm and quickly developed into one of the most acclaimed suppliers of premium quality quiet cooling products. Today, Noctua is present in more than 30 countries across the globe and working with several hundred sales partners. Chosen by noise conscious PC users, system integrators and industry clients alike, Noctua has become synonymous with impeccable quality, excellent customer service and class leading quiet cooling performance.
As we have seen with the recent coolers that Noctua has launched, they are a company which believes in providing a full and all-inclusive package, with their main aim for any product being silence. These beliefs have been carried forward to their fans as well and as we shall see, they do offer a comprehensive package.
And on a lighter note, the good looking models on their site seem to have the same “color scheme” as their fans. 
Lets now take a closer look at the two fans.
Noctua NF-P14 FLX
The NF-P14 FLX is the bigger brother and is a 140 x 140 x 25 mm fan with the capability to mount on a 120 fan hole. The fan has a nine bladed VCN (Vortex Controlled Notches) design. The VCN design helps to reduce turbulence as well as the sound associated with it. It’s also something which is found on the Scythe GT’s, which leads me to believe that this system really works. The fan also works on an SSO bearing, which is a type of oil pressure bearing, helping to reduce motor whine and increase the life of the fan.
Lets take a look at the basic specifications before going ahead.
The fan comes well packaged in a cardboard box with a plastic shell inside. The rear of the outside box opens out to give us some more specifications.
Once we open the box, we are greeted with the plastic covering, which encases the fan and all its accessories. As you can see from the specifications and the pictures below, the fan is very well built and carries a lot of extra accessories. I have seen very few fans with the list of accessories that the Noctua carries in its retail form.
The package includes the fan itself, 4×140 mm spacers, to mount the fan into a 140 mm space, two extra fan undervolting extensions, four fan screws and four rubber screws which can be used to attach the fan to the chassis.
The only other package which comes even close to this is the one from Coolermaster that came with the Excaliber. But even that does not have undervolting extensions, which would actually be a godsend as it is pretty noisy at full tilt.
The fan itself is very well built and seems to be very solid. In the above picture you can see the VC notches on the fan blades.
Lets now move on to the younger brother.
Noctua NF-S12B FLX
The NF-S12B FLX is of a different design to the larger NF14, but works with a similar SSO bearing. The blades themselves are of a different design, with a more impeller-like design with beveled blade tips. The purpose of this is to increase the amount of area available to the blades, thereby making them more efficient at pushing air.
Lets take a quick look at the specifications before moving on to the product itself.
The fan comes packaged in a similar brown and cream box with the fan and all the accessories itself encased in a plastic frame.
As with the older brother, the fan comes as a complete package, with two extra undervolting adapters, fan screws and rubber mounting screws, and a 3 to 4 pin adapter.
The fan itself is very well built, like the P14 and again seems to be quite solid. In the picture below you can see the design of the blades as well as the bevelled tips.
Both the fans have a sort of plastic sleeving on the wires and this greatly enhances the look. I only wish they had used better quality sleeving for a better look.
Let’s now move on to the testing arena.
Testing Results
The testing was done on the following setup, in a closed case environment and each fan was tested twice, with the lowest scores taken in the charts below. Only one fan was used in a push setup. All the fans were run at the highest rpm. The charts below will show a difference from ambient value.
Test Setup
AMD Phenom 965 C3 @ stock and 4 Ghz. Vcore at 1.525V
CPU NB at 2600 1.20V
Thermalright Venomous X
MSI GD70 790 FX AM3 Motherboard
OCZ Platinum 1600 Ram
The Competition:
Noctua NF-P14 FLX
Noctua NF S12B FLX
Coolermaster R4
Yateloon High Speed
Cooler Master Excalibur
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850 rpm
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1450 rpm
As you can see from the chart above, the P14 does a decent job on idle, coming close to the Yateloon Highspeeds, which is a very good result, considering that the Yateloon’s make a huge amount of noise and the P14 is barely audible. In the load results the P14 fares quite well, beating the R4, the Scythe 1450 and the S12B. The S12B is comparable to the idle temperatures of the Scythe GT 1450, but does not make such a good showing in the load results, ending up at the bottom of the table.
Overall the NF P14 impresses with its extremely low noise profile and load temperatures. Please do keep in mind that out of the top three, the Excalibur and the Yateloon are extremely loud and are usable on a day to day basis only with a fan controller.
We then turned up the voltage to see how these fans would compare to one another with a higher heat load. Both of the Noctua models shine on idle values, running very close to the Scythe 1850. But once we went on to testing the 100% load results, the S12B could not keep up with the competition, ending with the highest load temperature. The P14 on the other hand was again very close to the Yateloon, which in itself shows the capability of this fan.
Since all the results were recorded on the Venemous X, which is not a very restrictive heatsink, I am sure these fans would do better on heatsinks which require more air pressure and are not very dependent on air flow.
Conclusion
I was pretty impressed with the NF P14, but less so with the S12B. The NF P14 did a good job in both the tests and was very close to the Yateloon results through out our testing. The one thing that I liked about both the fans was the extremely low sound profile, matched only by the Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1450. Even the 1850 Scythe was a bit more noisy than these two.
PROS:
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Great overall package on both the fans, with every conceivable extra thrown in.
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Very low sound profile, were the most quiet fans in the test.
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Well built and a nice six year warranty to boot.
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The NF P14 was outstanding for the sound profile that it has.
CONS:
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The S12B was bottom of the charts in each and every test.
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Pricing, even though they carry all the extras.
The Noctua NF-P14 FLX receives our TechREACTION.net Silver Silicon Award!
You can find the NF-P14 FLX and NF-S12B FLX fans at Performance-PCs. Thanks to Noctua for the review samples.
For some more expert reviews of the Noctua NF-P14 FLX and NF-S12B FLX, you should check out TestFreaks.
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