Hey guys, welcome to an unboxing that is out of necessity going to be fairly
quick. I'm trying to get this fan on a heat sink so that I can test the Thermal
Rate Silver Arrow with an alternate fan configuration uh now before I take it
off the CPU and swap it out for something else. So, I've already talked
a fair bit about Noctua's NFA14, which
is a square frame 140 mm fan, ideal for
radiators and case fan and sort of all kinds of different applications. This
guy's got 140 mm holes on a 140 mm
frame. It's pressure optimized, so it's good for all those applications. This is
the F12, which is very similar except, see that cool stuff going on there? It
is a focused flow fan, so it's ideal for spot cooling. It's ideal for radiators,
heat sinks, anything that requires a 120 mil fan with 120 mil mounting holes.
This guy right here is a 140 mm frame
with 150 mm width. However, it's still
140 mm blades and 120 mm mounting holes,
which makes it ideal for mounting on coolers like this where you could
benefit. See, this is there's one already on here, which means you can
benefit from the larger blades. See in there? You can see the blades are like
all the way the entire width of the entire heat sink now, but mounts with
120 mm holes. So, check this out, guys. Ideal for 140 mm CPU coolers. Tons of
technology. their flow acceleration channels, AAO frame, stepped inlet
design, inner surface microructures, integrated antiibration pads, custom
design PWM IC with SEDD. Basically, these are the most overdesigned fans you
can get. Yeah, pretty much. So, there's like flow
acceleration channels which increase efficiency. Um, and the increase in
speed achieved through the flow leads to significantly reduced flow separation
which permits lower vortex noise and
higher air flow efficiency. These guys are all about having quiet operating
products. SSO2 bearing, extremely high quality bearing, completely sealed, so
it's not going to get dust and junk in it over time. Also comes with a six-year
warranty. And the stepped inlet design is actually on the edge of the fans
here. I'll just show it to you on one of the other fans. You see the stepped inlets here. Has something to do with
breaking up the flow that comes in, making it quieter and more efficient.
There's golf ball like dimples in here that just generally make the fan more
better. I've been a huge Noctua fan for
a long time now. This guy right here spins at 12,200 RPM or 900 RPM with the
included low-noise adapter. Uh it's going to be so quiet at 12,200 RPM. I
don't see much point quieting it down, but I mean it still performs very well
uh with the low-noise adapter. You can see there's a significant drop in static
pressure. So if you are using it in a heatsink application, you may want to use it that way. It succeeds the
award-winning NFP14, which is the NFP
12140 mm version. So this is even better than that guy and incorporates a lot of
the technology that we saw introduced with the NFF12 which was like a huge
step forward in fan design even for Noctua round 14 flow acceleration
channel AO frame aha advanced acoustic optimization frames feature integrated
antiibration pads as well as Noctuas that's the stepped inlet so this is just
branding for multiple things that we've already talked about before the inner
surface microructures those little things I showed you before in there are
to reduce the blade passing noise and improve air flowing pressure efficiency
and the improved antiibration pads. I'll show you in a minute here.
High-end PWM circuitry is circuitry is very important. It makes it more
compatible with third party coolers. Also reduces the amount of just sort of
random IC noise that it makes and uh
yeah, it's just generally better. The fan itself comes with an extension
cable, which you'll see you'll you may need in a moment cuz it comes with a
very short cable. Comes with a Ysplitter. Okay. Well, that's handy. So,
single four pin PWM to dual four pin PWM.
Okay. Needy, neaty, neat, neat, neat,
neato. Oh, yeah. Uh, low speed adapter, low-noise adapter, and low speed
adapter. It does both things. Mounting screws. Although, you probably won't
want to use those because it comes with rubber noise isolating vi antiibration
mounts. So, check this out. This is a very unique looking fan. Sorry, I'm use
the camera to get the fan out. So, check this out. Looks looks kind of bizarre,
right? See, it's got those those uh these are the rubber antiibration mounts
that are integrated. These are the 120 mm mounting holes on a 140 mm by 150 mm
frame. Very, very strange looking design, but you can see why. This is why
I wanted to have one of them mounted already before I even started doing the
unboxing. Cuz you can see here that if we mounted it this way, see that these
pieces wouldn't get to touch the heat sink. So, you wouldn't get to take advantage of any of the antiibration. If
you use the fans that were included with this cooler, which you can see have a
very similar design with the 120 mil holes and the 140 mm blades. You again
don't get to leverage any antiibration, anything, because there's no room on a
frame this size to build that in. So, that is why Noctua did this, so that
they could put the fan in like this. See that? where you get rubber to metal so
that you don't have any sort of well vibration. I know I've said that word a
lot in the last little bit. No innuendo intended. Uh so you don't
get any vibration being passed, but you get to take advantage of the 140 mm
blades that can be mounted on 120 mm devices. Now, something like this
useless for radiators. Don't do it because it'll leak around the edges.
It's kind of like Corsair's new SP fans, which are they generate good static
pressure and all that, and that's all good, but they leak around the edges of
radiators. So, there are better solutions such as the NFF12s
and uh yeah, P12s even. So, there's the
acceleration notches, there's the stepped inlet, there's the golf ball
dimples. Very high-tech stuff these guys put. They're they're like kind They're
kind of obsessive. They're one of those companies that takes something that sort
of no one else really cares that much about and just kind of obsess over it.
Like uh who would who would I even compare them to? Like someone like um
yeah, there's not really that many guys like this. They've really built their
brand on building fans that are ugly, but they work. It's like that uh it's
like that cough medicine. Tastes awful, but it works. So, there you go. Thank
you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the NF A15 PWM fan from
Noctua. It is ideal for heat sink applications. Don't forget to subscribe
to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.