I found these while looking for pwm fans. The cheapest in Australia appears to be from Umart for $38 + shipping.
Noctua NF-F12 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown) $26.39 + $9 Shipping @ Newegg
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ah my bad, based on the title I thought this is a "silent" version of the NF-F12
Sheesh, fans are ridiculously expensive these days… I have eight Noctua 120mm fans (four F12's, four A12's) I picked up about 10 years ago for around $14 each, and I thought that was daylight robbery!
I'm still running some 10-15 year old Noctua on my current daily. (don't tell them or they'll start making them die faster, haha)
Not much difference even if you don't factor in inflation:
April 2010:
2 x Noctua NF-S12B FLX 120mm Case Fan (NF-S12B-FLX) = $51.98
1 x Noctua NF-P14-FLX 140mm P-Fan (NF-P14-FLX) = $29.00^^ all discontinued now.
NF-F12 is really showing it’s age now. It might be one of the best 10 years ago, but many other fans now offer better performance at a cheaper price, esp. for radiator/static-pressure.
Any suggestions at same price point and quiet? looking into replacing my stock amd one
Me too.
I got this fan as a case fan. But I thought the shape couldn't fit on a CPU because it's square. Is this designed for CPU?
@aerona: It's designed for radiators and tower-style (upright) CPU coolers (something like this). Not sure which AMD stock cooler you are using, but for the most part if you're going to replace the fan you might as well replace the whole cooler.
Disagree. Most 3-pin DC fans are roughly on par, but Noctua are the PWM kings. Noctua fans don't have the irritating clicking or whining noise that all other cheaper fans I've tried do. The clicking and whinning noise is worse as the cheaper fans ramp down (which is the feature of PWM fans).
From what I've seen these aren't great case fans but are good radiator/heat sink fans.
Noctua is great, but don't write off everything else.
Arctic P12s can be had for about $10-15 AUD when in stock, and trade blows with the NF-A12x25, Noctua's newer design. This has been shown with proper noise normalised testing:
https://youtu.be/W2Zis8RjcX8
https://youtu.be/QwftVMGPOiII'm also using some myself and can say I there is no clicking, whining, or any other untoward sound (though of course who knows if they could appear later).
These NF-F12s are a much older design and aren't in the same league of performance as the Arctic and NF-A12.
That's good info. I've found that 90% of any fans are technically quiet when running at low speed, but it's the clicking and/or uneven sound that annoys me the most. The reason is because of pulsing nature of PWM fans. Noctua have eliminated it. If you say that Arctic P12 have too, then that's awesome.
I watched the second vid you posted. He describes the issue with PWM fans perfectly and the Artic P12 does have a hum sound at 1000rpm. The noctua don't.
@Puti: I believe the hum is more of a resonance caused by the fan running at a specific RPM, where the frequency produced by the blades happen to align and amplify each other. I think I might've noticed that with my units as well, but from memory any change in RPM (as little as +/- 2%) prevents this.
I don't think it is caused by the PWM signal.
Noctua's new NF-A12 fans are next level though. Nothing comes close to them in all use cases.
if you arent sensitive to sound, grab the arctics as the other comments have said, but if you do care (and have the $) the noctuas are worth imo.
The arctic P12s have been found to outperform these, even when factoring in sound. These are a very old design and have been superseded.
noise volume yes perhaps but I would say that preference for the sound they actually make is subjective. A video comparing: https://youtu.be/QwftVMGPOiI?t=381
That's fair enough, very hard to quantify though.
Fwiw I have P12s and Noctua NF-S12Bs in my build, and if anything I find the noctuas sound profile more noticeable at high RPM (different model from this and unscientific comparison, but just my 2 cents).
Would this be quieter than the new Vornados with a DC motor? Need to cool a bedroom at night.
Get the LEGENDARY A12x25 and you will not look back.
Can you convince me why and where from
Noctua fans are already pretty low noise. Silent versions will probably affect specs too much