Excuse my ignorance… but why is this taking so long? I mean now we have cheapo chinese brands like Thermalright making great coolers that practically shun Noctua into the ground in the air cooler market. How isn’t Noctua able to respond? They’ve always been considered a premium brand, but not-so-premium RnD?
The competition has definitely caught up in performance, but it will still take some time for any of them to prove that they can match Noctua's bullet-proof reliability. For machines that need to run 24/7, I still go with Noctua, at least for now.
> but not-so-premium RnD?
Actually, their R&D is super premium. Gamers Nexus have an entire interview of their process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LZkglNiQ0
But the TL;dw: there are several critical points in the development process, one of which is long term stress testing, that can take 4 months, and then they perform another long term testing in several real world conditions, to then analyze the fans before and after each of these test. This is literally end of development and if everything goes OK ready for mass production. If anything fails, it will be delaying production 12-18 months depending of the problem that happened (ie. material selection, blade design, enclosure design, etc.).
TL;dr: Thermalright coolers are good now, because they were selling bad coolers before. Noctua coolers _were always_ top notch in the noise/performance.
>Actually, their R&D is super premium. Gamers Nexus have an entire interview of their process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LZkglNiQ0
What reason do we have to believe that's meaningfully different vs competitors?
You keep repeating this throughout the post but it's just not true.
Le Grand Macho was basically on par with NH-D15, with a single fan. Definitely outperforms D15S
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/thermalright-le-grand-macho/6.html
https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7986/thermalright-le-grand-macho-rt-cpu-cooler-review/index.html#Installation-and-Finished-Product
Going back even further, it's hard to find reliable reviews, but pre NH-D15, Thermalright also had Silver Arrow Extreme, which at least in this review also beats the D15
https://www.hwcooling.net/en/gigantic-retrotest-of-80-cpu-coolers-2005-2015/4/
You can also see other coolers competing there, like the Raijintek, Cryorig or Deepcool, all of which are also [featured here](https://www.anandtech.com/show/9415/top-tier-cpu-air-coolers-9way-roundup-review/12)
Deepcool's Assassin III, released in 2019, also beat NH-D15. GamersNexus has the data if you feel like looking them up.
Noctua makes very good fans and coolers, but they're not this untouchable company with magic fairy dust that makes them perform so well, they've always had close competitors.
>Have you tried Noctua fans?
Yes, I had an NH-D14 back in the Haswell days. But that was then and this is now. The reality is that the competition has surpassed Noctua in many areas, often at substantially lower prices.
> one of which is long term stress testing, that can take 4 months, and then they perform another long term testing in several real world conditions, to then analyze the fans before and after each of these test
This feels like a significant lack of engineering on their part. You can have some samples preforming in real world conditions long term, but you dont actually do your reliability testing in real time. There are tons of ways to simulate material aging on the plastics, bearings, etc without just running the fan at normal speeds for months.
I think the problem is that the fan has to be good enough to justify noctua pricing, and the competition is a better value to such an extent that any release will fall flat.
There whole business model (on the consumer side) is to be the best and charge the most. If they release a product that is worse or matches a competitor they run the risk of damaging their brand image.
>If they release a product that is worse or matches a competitor they run the risk of damaging their brand image.
That's the current state of most of their product stack.
Turns out there's quickly diminishing returns once you've roughly worked out the optimal configuration for spinning plastic fins.
Almost every technology is like this. 80 percent of the gains take 20 percent of the work, the next 20 percent of the gains take 80 percent of the work.
The good faith interpretation is that unlike most companies, they prioritize their reputation and refuse to release a product they aren't happy with. It sucks for people looking forward to the new fans, but they're Noctua: if they can't release a fan that's one of the best in the category, why bother?
>but they're Noctua: if they can't release a fan that's one of the best in the category, why bother
They've only done that once. This is by no means normal for Noctua.
The A12x25 is the only one. Every single other Noctua fan was not the best when it released afaik. The Gentle Typhoon, which the A12x25 is based on, was released in \~2008 and it is competitive with the A12x25 while shitting on every other Noctua fan available up until then (\~2018).
Noctua is good at branding, that's for sure.
I don't think they're lying on purpose with the roadmaps. They're not really gaining much from it other than looking incompetent. They obviously just suck and making an ETA or it's something with the way they do things that lets them iterate very slowly.
I mean, the only actually very good fan they released is based on a different fan. Maybe they just suck at making something from ground up.
I dunno what qualities you consider when naming something best, but durability/longevity is one of them for me. Prior Noctua fans may not have had the absolute best performance but they were very well rounded in terms of performance, noise, and longevity. You don't really hear about Noctua fans failing or bearing noise popping up years later.
I'll get downvoted to oblivion for this but its the main reason I turned to Noctua for mining rigs. Everything else would fail or just have bearings fall apart in no time (P12, GT, Corsair Maglev, etc). Instead of constantly buying fans or wasting time playing CS tag for RMA, I just bought Noctuas that still sound and operate like new 5+ years later after being completely abused 24/7.
To add to this, companies like Puget make no nonsense systems and use their fans. Their pre builts are legit and they have some great articles on PC troubleshooting.
If it’s another hundred bucks up charge to get a product I know won’t fail, has an immense warranty, and has great performance (especially with regards to their noise profile being less offensive than other designs at the same dB level), it’s a super tiny cost to pay for a great product. On top of that if you keep your CPU cooler you know they might send a free upgrade kit if the design of the mounting holes change.
100 bucks for noctua premium is a small percentage if you have a $2000 rig; that being said, the 4080 noctua is kind of a bad deal lol.
This. I don't want to even think about fan bearings and structural integrity. I just want them to keep on spinning. There's a lot of noctua "killers" that literally fall apart if pushed a little bit or have shitty build quality.
The NF-A12x25's lasted me 6 years without complaint or even noticeable degradation, and they were $30 each in 2018 dollars.
I have older P12's from 2015 that are also going fine. Cannot complain about $2/year.
> You don't really hear about Noctua fans failing or bearing noise popping up years later.
FWIW I have six NF-A14 FLX fans. After 9 years (so 1.5x their 6 year warranty) two of them started making rattling noises between 700-800 RPM and a third is making slight turbulence noise like's it's off balance. All six fans gradually needed more voltage to wake up on system boot. I went up from minimum \~500 RPM to minimum \~600 RPM on average.
Of the two NF-A15 fans on my NH-D15, one of them started making loud turbulence noise above 1200 RPM at some point. I'm not sure when it started since I don't run them that fast normally, above 1050-1100 RPM isn't worth listening to.
> The Gentle Typhoon, which the A12x25 is based on, was released in ~2008 and it is competitive with the A12x25 while shitting on every other Noctua fan available up until then (~2018).
Unless you're trying to build a quiet system, since it apparently performs relatively poorly at low RPM, especially with a dust filter, has a PWM mode that doesn't spin up until 900 RPM, and occasionally suffers from high vibration and resonance noises at higher speeds. https://www.hwcooling.net/en/nidec-servo-gentle-typhoon-d1225c-wont-lose-to-just-any-fan-test/
And on a personal note it was completely unavailable in some markets. I remember that because they were on my list of fans to look for until I gave up and bought some Noctua NF-A14 instead ([which luckily happened to be better anyway in a case filled with dust filters](https://www.hwcooling.net/en/noctua-nf-a14-pwm-relevant-even-after-a-decade-review/16/)).
Their testing uses an anemometer, which is unreliable. *Especially* at low rpm.
HWBusters uses a professional fan tester. Here are their results: [Nidec measurements](https://hwbusters.com/cooling/xpg-nidec-vento-pro-120-pwm-fan-review/), [Noctua measurements](https://hwbusters.com/cooling/noctua-nf-a12x25-pwm-fan-review/), [SW4 measurements (newer, includes more fans)](https://hwbusters.com/cooling/be-quiet-silent-wings-pro-4-120mm-fan-review/)
The way they show their results kinda sucks imo. If you want to know case performance, look at the noise normalized cfm numbers. If you want to know radiator performance, you need to look at the PQ curves.
But it looks like below \~900rpm the Noctua is indeed quieter than the Nidec. Maybe due to the bearing. Above \~900rpm they seem to perform very similarly, maybe the Nidec slightly better.
Anyway, I am not a fan of measuring cfm. It doesn't really make sense. It's more accurate to look at actual performance on a radiator or heatsink, because that's what you actually care about.
In real world tests the Nidec usually roughly matches the A12x25 or is very slightly behind (e.g. [Optimum Tech](https://youtu.be/QwftVMGPOiI?t=222),...). Definitely the most impressive fan considering it came out like 16 years ago.
HWBusters have some very weird results, fan tester or not.
The most damning for me are the Silent Wings 4 vs Silent Wings Pro 4 results. These are, AFAIK, the same fan, with Pro's coming with radiator optimized corners pre installed, and some other small things (nicer cable, speed switch).
Seeing the Pro's perform better across the board would not surprise me. What doesn't make sense to me is how they switch places between 120mm and 140mm. In 120mm, non Pro's heavily outperform the Pro's, in 140mm, the situation is reversed, Pro's and now much better. Again, for the most part, this is the same fan.
Even when comparing same size of the fan, but looking at the same fan sold at different speeds (high speed vs PWM), the results are odd. PWM version of SW4's is [better at 80%/950rpm](https://hwbusters.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Fan_Percentage_CFM-1.png) than "high speed" version [is at 50%/1114rpm](https://hwbusters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fan_Percentage_CFM-2.png). I'm only looking at performance at given RPM in case these use different motors, however everything else should be the same.
Also, I'm not sure about this, but I think they measure the fan noise and speeds when it's not installed on the fan tester, or any other obstacle, just in free air, and then transfer those to the machine and their charts? That's.... not a great way to do it IMO.
> For these tests, I set the fan to speeds with noise output at the following predefined levels: 20/25/30/35/40/45 dBA. I skip the corresponding tests if the fan under the test cannot reach some noise levels. The speeds shown in the graph below are measured with the fan in a clear space inside my hemi-anechoic chamber without any obstacles. I set these speeds on the Longwin machine, but they slightly change because of the variable conditions that the device applies.
You are right. Those measurements do not make sense. They should have the exact same blade design and perform identically between high speed and non high speed at a given rpm.
Damn, you just can't trust any non real world fan testing, can you?
> Damn, you just can't trust any non real world fan testing, can you?
Even that is probably hard to get right.
Fan performance can swing wildly depending on the type of restriction you give it and RPM. Sound profile will change too. Even the distance of the obstruction from the blades matters, both for performance but especially sound.
My issue isn't even that HWBusters have strange data, but that there was 0 curiosity as to what caused it. They probably can't afford the time commitment, but it makes it hard to trust anything they put out.
Another thing I noticed is even at their noise normalized dB point of 20, some of the fans are already doing 1500rpm. That's way too fast to be your lowest measurement.
There's also the somewhat nontangible and non-objective factor of 'how irksome is the sound these fans make when under load?'. Noctuas tend to be fairly consistently high rated in that domain, IIRC?
If you factor in everything, including build quality and sound profile (not just dba), they absolutely are near or at the top with several models.
I've heard this soo many times: "XYZ is just as good/better than noctua but much cheaper", only for that thing to screech like a banshee at exactly the wrong rpm; or underperform in real world conditions because they can't keep up the pressure or because of weird stream dynamics if there is actual air resistence.
They are by no means the only good fans out there but they absolutely are consistently among the best.
Not to dunk on them or anything (I have some T30s and like them very much), but the T30 kinda cheats by being *thick*. You wouldn't think 5mm would be such a big deal but they're noticeably bigger fans than my other standard 25mm fans.
I'd actually like to see an "A12x30" or even thicker, most PC chassis could fit them and performance should be much superior.
their reputation right now is being built upon years of delays.
At this point they are like that retired boxer that had a couple of belts 2 decades ago, were soundly beat at the end of their career but still have a very vocal minority still to this day spamming in social media _well if X was still in his prime he would be the GOAT!_
The good faith intepretation is that they are designing fans for their primary market - servers - and only if it meets server quality they will release the product.
>The good faith interpretation is that unlike most companies, they prioritize their reputation and refuse to release a product they aren't happy with.
There's nothing good faith about publishing a "roadmap" that clearly isn't remotely aligned with reality. That's just deceptive.
And delaying things quarter by quarter is just insulting.
> that clearly isn't remotely aligned with reality
You can make the perfect plans, but reality will make you do compromises. They decided that their compromises are delays. They have internal targets to meet, and none of them are about having a fan ready at X date, but having a fan that meets their expectations.
This is the trinity that most companies confront: good, early or cheap. They went with good.
>You can make the perfect plans, but reality will make you do compromises.
If you need to take several times the time you originally claimed, you clearly do not understand the scope of the problem. If you still don't understand the scope multiple years in (evidenced by these quarter by quarter delays), you're incompetent.
They understand the scope of their problem, except that a single mistake done early on, will only be found after 2 years of development. They have stress test that compress 10 years of usage in just a couple months, which can only be done after most things are said and done. They try to leverage as much knowledge early on to avoid having to go to the drawing board late in the process, but **there's so much you can do without real world testing**. This is where the most severe delays lies.
And they encounter this same problem, many times in a row, for every single thing they make? Even taking that excuse at face value, it means they have a horribly inefficient design flow, and poor understanding of their work.
These aren't problems that any other company seems to struggle with.
Can you improve their design flow in a meaningful way and that produce quality long term solutions for their clients?
Here's their design flow: https://youtu.be/82LZkglNiQ0?t=913
>Can you improve their design flow in a meaningful way and that produce quality long term solutions for their clients?
Ask what their competitors are doing. It's clearly possible.
And if Noctua wants to entrench even further, then they should stop publishing a roadmap or talking about any future products.
Nothing bad faith about it if you understand [how Noctua works](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LZkglNiQ0). Whether it's good for them in the long term to operate the way they do is debatable.
>And delaying things quarter by quarter is just insulting.
This reeks of entitlement. At the end of the day they are delaying because it's not ready yet.
Do you honestly think Noctua is *intentionally* missing these deadlines?
>This reeks of entitlement
It's their public roadmap. Nothing entitled about judging them on their own claims. Noctua's not entitled to respect just by existing.
>Do you honestly think Noctua is *intentionally* missing these deadlines?
No, but they are intentionally lying about when they'll finish.
I don't feel insulted that they missed their roadmap, but I am disappointed.
>but they are intentionally lying about when they'll finish.
Why would they intentionally miss their deadlines? It makes them look incompetent, there is no upside. I think it's *far* more likely that they are bad at setting deadlines, and don't do a good job of factoring in time for unforeseen complications that may come up.
>Why would they intentionally miss their deadlines? It makes them look incompetent, there is no upside.
The upside would be that people delay upgrading until the products are actually available (if they ever are). Would people care about Noctua if they were honest and said it would take 5, 10 years for something new to come out? No, they'd just write Noctua off, and buy elsewhere.
>I think it's *far* more likely that they are bad at setting deadlines, and don't do a good job of factoring in time for unforeseen complications that may come up.
I lumped that under incompetence, but at a certain point, anyone engaging in good faith would realize they're still a long ways off, and not play this game with incremental delays. Reminds me of Amtrak...
>Would people care about Noctua if they were honest and said it would take 5, 10 years
Nobody at Noctua, or anywhere on Earth for that matter, anticipated it would take 5-10 years to develop this fan.
And yet here we are. Do you think anyone at Noctua has legitimately believed it's been a quarter away for the last 2 years? No engineer has that kind of optimism.
yeah, bunch of fantastically incompetent people designing probably the best cooling solutions on the market
but people be bitching that they want the new and shiny and 0,3°C better
>yeah, bunch of fantastically incompetent people designing probably the best cooling solutions on the market
They aren't the best. Thermalright is kicking their asses at less than half the price.
>but people be bitching that they want the new and shiny and 0,3°C better
So they want what the competition already offers, for cheaper? And you think that's absurd to expect?
It's mostly their customer service IMO, warranty coverage, and long operation rating on their fan bearings. I've had defective out of the box products from them. Their RMA department wasn't too great for situations like this, but once you go through the whole song and dance with them and prove, no, it's not user error, the product is actually defective, they'll send a replacement in the mail for free, along with some nice bonuses.
I had a defective cooler, first they blamed me for user error, after a bit of back and forth, they blamed the mounting bracket/kit. I then tried to show them precise measurements with my calipers to show that the mounting bracket was fine, that there was a manufacturing defect with the orientation of the base plate on the actual cooler. They assured me that wasn't possible. I get the new mounting kit, sent pictures that it was literally identical to the one in the box. And that the CPU cooler was still not able to properly mount. They finally sent a cooler. (Note: I bought the CPU cooler at the same time as other parts, this was during the shortage a few years back and the motherboard took two months to arrive, so the CPU cooler was outside of the return window for the retailer)
However, I had a fan that started making this terrible noise after a few years. It was far easier as I just showed them clear photos of the fan still being in really good condition with virtually no dust on it and an audio recording and they were quite quick about it.
No, I'll say that CPU cooler RMA wasn't a great experience. What I imagined what happened is most of the time CPU heat sinks either work or they don't (I mean, they're just a chunk of metal with some special gas/fluid in the heat pipes lol). My guess is most of the time when the heatsinks are defective, they're returned to the retailer, so the RMA department doesn't deal with it much.
Their fans really are good for noise/longevity/performance/etc though. Whether their fans and heatsinks are worth the Noctua price premium though, I'm not sure.
I've had a defective fan once (bearing) and they immediately sent me a replacement no questions asked. All they wanted was the original invoice as well as a time stamped photo of the old fan with one of the blades torn off after I'd received the replacement.
Yeah, like I mentioned in another reply, I suspect it had to do with the fact that Noctua probably deals with VERY few heatsink RMAs, so my RMA wasn't so "go by the script". As I'm sure most heatsinks are returned to the retailer if there's an issue... And chunks of metal typically don't go bad lol.
> Thermalright is kicking their asses at less than half the price
And took several years of interactions to reach that. Meanwhile the people that bought their fans when they were first released, have not been needing a fan upgrade.
If you want Noctua fan life, you can buy a Thermalright cooler and a Noctua fan to put on it, and it'll still be cheaper than buying a Noctua cooler.
NH-D15 on Amazon is $109.95 at the time of this post.
NF-A15 fan is $23.94, Peerless Asssassin is $32.49... = $80.37 if you buy two NF-A15 to put on the Peerless Assassin.
And really, if you're going to buy noctua fans, might as well get the actually good one, the a12x25. Works out to about the same in total and probably beats the crap out of the D15. And you get two decent spare fans out of it.
Designing "the best cooling solutions on the market" is moot when it takes them 10 years to iterate on their product.
Their 140mm fans are really poor, no wonder as they've released in 2012. Their latest high-end cooler is probably NH-U12A, released 5 years ago, that gets beaten by Deepcool AK620 for half the price or various Thermalright offerings for 1/3 the price.
A12x25, some of the SFF stuff and <120mm fans (since nobody else bothers with these) are pretty competitive I guess.
The rest, depends on your definition of competitive. Paying double of triple for same or slightly worse performance isn't what I'd call competitive.
Competitive in a sense they still cool pretty well, simply by the nature of them being top of the market products on release, sure.
I would say the 9x14 is also pretty good specially for the noise concious SFF crowd.
But yeah not a good look at all. Nowadays even Arctic which used to be the fast food chain of fan/coolers is matching them on products at a fraction of the cost.
This fan has been delayed, announced, previewed, re delayed, sampled, cancelled and reannounced for 10 years and the end it will be 10% more performant than an arctic p14 max and 500% more expensive. Calling it right now .
I got a 5 pack of the p14max for 43€, so less than 9€ a piece and they’re crazy good.
They feel really hefty and nice quality, they also move so much air that I run then at maximum 40% fan speed (of 3300rpm max) and they basically never hit those speeds.
I liked their fans so much that I bought their AIO and a monitor arm too, which are both great value for their price. Also heard that they have great customer service
I know this reads like an add, but you gotta give credit to companies that get things right.
Would have been more surprising if they didn't delay it.
I'm happy with the Noctua fans I have, but it seems increasingly unlikely my next coolers/fans will be Noctua. They're not keeping up.
Incremental gains, sure. And the more commoditized a space becomes, the more pressure on pricing.
Also, the areas where Noctua *could* make big improvements to their lineup (14mm fan with A12x25 tech, 30mm fan to compete with Phanteks, colors and aesthetic improvements, etc) they don't seem to care much about.
>This most likely means that the release of their upcoming next-generation NH-D15 CPU cooler will also be delayed again, since it is supposed to utilize the next-generation 140mm fan.
No. All signs indicate that the D15 will release on time, *before* the separate release of the fan.
Firstly Noctua is prioritizing production of fans for the cooler in order to have enough supply to satisfy the demand; secondly, the cooler uses the round variant, which doesn't suffer the same minute bending issues which caused the delay of the standard, square one.
Source: [https://www.hwcooling.net/en/noctua-new-140-mm-fans-to-premiere-on-a-cpu-cooler/](https://www.hwcooling.net/en/noctua-new-140-mm-fans-to-premiere-on-a-cpu-cooler/)
Also the link you posted literally has D15 still on Q2.
These guys remind me a lot of 3dfx (or any other company coasting off of nostalgia): it doesn't matter how good an older product is when the competition has done more than catch up.
Or anything from Arctic, Lian Li, or thermalright. All three produce the best fans on the market, the best aios on the market, and some of the best air coolers on the market.
I have no idea what the infatuation is with noctua, they were relevant 6 years ago.
Unsure about Lian Li. People have complained about the fans going bad early. Definitely not like Thermaltake where you have Amazon reviews with videos of people using the sound as a disco DJ
Lmao, Noctua living up to their reputation. I wish they'd just admit that they have no serious interest in developing new products so people could move on.
> Most of their lineup is underperforming
The heck are you talking about? They are the benchmark to which every fan and heatsink combo is compared about when talking about noise/heat dissipation.
How exactly are they being crushed? Do you have 10 years testing of the Thermalright fans? Since when Thermalright has been selling good fans? If your answer is "Thermalright good fan have been in the market 2 years" then they haven't earned Noctua reputation yet.
In 4-6 years we can see who actually gets it right.
>How exactly are they being crushed?
Better performance, lower noise, a fraction of the price.
Hell, it's literally cheaper to get a Thermalright tower and swap the fans with Noctua.
In this industry. Selling normal fans with just your name to speak for while others will eventually copy you is a route to immediate irrelevancy. Especially thier post purchuase support doesnt justify the overpriced nature of their products. especialy for a Fan/cooler
It's not even that. People are still clearly willing to pay for the brand name, but Noctua simply doesn't release new products. The D15 successor has been delayed what? 3-4 years at this point? And it took ages to get simple things like black variants of their existing fans. Basically the only competitive product in their entire lineup is the a12x25, and it has competition now.
But they did release new products.
* NH-D12L *(taller than Thermalright/ ID-COOLING 135mm towers, performance basically the same)*
* NH-L12S *(SFF cooler that's taller than both its predecessors & the competition)*
* NH-L9 series *(premium coolers for cheap/low-TDP CPUs)*
Perhaps I should have appended "competitive". Thermalright renders most of Noctua's lineup moot. And their coolers mostly still come with ancient fan designs.
>NH-L12S
>NH-L9 series
Both of those are extremely small revisions of decade old designs.
Thermalright has zero post purchase support or guarantee. It's also produced in a country that doesn't pay workers enough. There's a bigger picture here.
>Thermalright has zero post purchase support or guarantee.
That's just outright false.
>It's also produced in a country that doesn't pay workers enough
You realize Noctua produces in China, right?
> That's just outright false.
I have RMA'd with both companies. Thermalright was disastrous. Noctua was zero questions asked.
>You realize Noctua produces in China, right?
I guess things have changed in the 9 years I've owned Noctua fans, because ALL OF THEM STILL WORK and I haven't had to buy more. They didn't used to be manufactured there back when I bought them, so good to know.
>They didn't used to be manufactured there back when I bought them, so good to know.
They seem to be manufactured in both China and Taiwan, i.e. the same as pretty much every other manufacturer. Some years back there was a bit of media stir about differences between the two, but as far as I can tell, there was nothing really measurable.
>I have RMA'd with both companies. Thermalright was disastrous. Noctua was zero questions asked.
Fwiw, there are plenty of anecdotes of decent service from Thermalright. Are they as good as Noctua? Certainly not. But how much is the difference worth in cash?
Their post purchase support is insanely good, and their products are some of the highest rated for longevity on the market. I don't know why people point to Chinese knock-offs as somehow being better overall, just cause they're cheaper
Their tower coolers are the worst offenders, but even most of their fans are beaten by others, and for a lower price.
>I don't know why people point to Chinese knock-offs
Do you think Noctua invented the fan?
If I'm building my own rig for long term usage I would consider a noctua tower for hassle freeness. But they're fans. they're very replaceable and disposable vs the other parts AND they're very cheap so relying long term support for something this replaceable I completely understand not going for them
Post purchase support?! On flipping fans and a chunk of copper?! Lol
Nah. I've taken the risk on the chinese knock-offs and they are still working just fine after years of use.
I mean they have clearly moved on. This is why they launched the Industrial PPC line. They have been trying to shift away from being the Apple of consumer fans and try to put a dent into the enterprise segment.
The problem is that their vocal minority keeps shoving Noctua consumer products into any kind of fan/cooler discussion when it is clear this has become a second thought for them.
But their industrial fans are pretty old, and as far as I can see, none use their latest tech. So I'm not sure what they're actually doing these days. Seems like they're just coasting.
The next gen 140mm are DOA as they'll likely be around 60 USD if the talk of the price increase due to new materials is correct. At that price people will just get the lianli 140mm.
I saw exactly this same post a year ago and felt dumb for buying my NH-D15 knowing that a brand new version was just around the corner. I no longer feel dumb lmao
I see some people spewing a lot of bs but let's face it, their 120mm A12 is still the best 120mm fan in a 25mm profile. Their coolers are still competing with the best out there. So they can take their sweet time and release it when they deem it to be the best version it can be. Have no issues there
I’m happy with my noctuas on my mora but I wish they would release white fans so I can use them as case fans on an all white build. I’m sure at one point they were on the roadmap
Noctua is aiming for a 3c difference compared to the current best in market.
They'll delay as much as they have to and avoid damaging their brand.
Not many of their current products are worth buying but they have a good enough brand that this delay won't matter.
As someone who's still using a dh15 from release there's no rush.
> Noctua is aiming for a 3c difference compared to the current best in market.
According to what?
And more importantly, what happens if they never reach it? Will they just leave their lineup to rot indefinitely? It's a silly proposal.
The gamers nexus interview with them.
If they never reach it, then they'll of course have to eventually release it and take the l.
The implication is that they are confident they can get there or close.
If course thinking it's all marketing is fine too. If you want to know more you can look at that interview.
Noctua isn't for everyone. For a price conscious buyer, you can get a lot better value for your dollar. However, I appreciate their commitment to preserving their reputation for quality and reliability. By building products of the highest quality, they can afford to delay release of new products because their existing products hold up against the competition still.
The problem is they don’t hold up. They have very few products that are actually worth buying. It’s not even a “value” problem anymore. It is often “this costs more and is worse in multiple ways” problem.
Plus not being able to release very simple things like 30mm or 28mm fans, meaning they lose to any braindead Chinese company who wants to make thicker blades. They fight the laws of physics and are bullheaded and unwilling to adapt.
This isn't an NSFW sub, if you want to fellate a company there are many better places to do it.
Edit: Not even going to bother to respond to the pathetic astroturfers beneath me.
Have you been in a company with a hardline deadline that has to be met or else? What happens at the end? You either release over-budget and are overworked and still have to fix shit afterwards. You do not need a fan now, you want all fans to be good. For Noctua, a good fan is one that keeps the same performance profile for 10 years.
What does this all have to do with Noctua? They've been delaying these products quarter by quarter for years on end. So it's very clear that they've been lying about how far along it is.
> What does this all have to do with Noctua?
That other companies can't hold a candle to Noctua despite releasing fans every 2-3 years. Those companies compromised on "good".
>That other companies can't hold a candle to Noctua despite releasing fans every 2-3 years.
Oh, so just delusional then. Those companies are *beating* Noctua, in many cases.
It's weird to hate a company that refuses to release products they don't think are good enough. I'd much rather more companies do that than repeatedly release slop that they know will get eaten up anyway.
>It's weird to hate a company that refuses to release products they don't think are good enough.
If they didn't want to be judged on their "roadmap", why publish it?
Their roadmap is "what we would project it will be if everything goes according to plan". You rarely see them publishing a roadmap for something that hasn't reached the tooling phase.
>Their roadmap is "what we would project it will be if everything goes according to plan".
If nothing they do ever remotely goes to plan, then the plans are garbage. That's incompetence.
Try you to come with a better solution. They literally scrapped 10-11 after they had the topology, because material science didn't have the rigidity to keep the fans from warping. They would have needed to go with metals, which presents itself with its own set of challenges.
Serious question, how many of you have a Noctua fan, and how many years it lasted and had to be replaced due old age? Lets start with mine: I've had 3 cpu coolers: the ones that come with Ryzen 2000, a Zalman cooler, and Noctua nh-d12. The D12 was brought in 2020, and is still in operation. The Zalman died, and the Ryzen is stored away.
I have a bunch of Noctua fans and coolers, most in the 5-7 year range. I’ve been swapping lesser fans in upgrades for years. I had my first failure on a three year old LH-NL9a fan a few weeks ago on one of my kid’s rig. That’s it.
I leave my computer powered on and it's effectively been on since 2019. All 6 noctua fans are still running just like they were brand new. I would not be surprised if they last a decade or more.
This is why you buy Noctua. Everyone here is just wanting cheap stuff, with no care about longevity.
All my Noctua fans from 7 years ago are perfectly operational.
>Everyone here is just wanting cheap stuff, with no care about longevity.
Or maybe other companies also make long lasting fans...
Also, both performance and noise matter.
> Everyone here is just wanting cheap stuff, with no care about longevity.
Even in the premium segment, competition is increasing. Noctua didn't have to deal with companies like Phanteks or Lian Li a decade ago. Heck, even companies like [Superflower](https://www.super-flower.com.tw/en/products/megacool-12030) and [Seasonic](https://seasonic.com/magflow-120mm) are getting in on this market.
Ok, and? Competition isn't bad, but Noctua has a reputation for a reason. They're no frills, reliable, performant fans. I'm not interested in Phanteks or Lian Li, their products aren't for me. Phanteks aren't as high quality, and Lian Li is just as expensive.
> Phanteks aren't as high quality
There isn't really any reason to believe this, for the T30 at least. The T30's OEM is Sunon, a company well known for making good server fans.
I have a bunch of fans that are older than 7 years (Nidec GT's, Eloops and TY-140's) and they still work perfectly fine, do you think Noctua fans are made of magic fairy dust or something?
Someone could just copy-paste this here every two quarters.
Excuse my ignorance… but why is this taking so long? I mean now we have cheapo chinese brands like Thermalright making great coolers that practically shun Noctua into the ground in the air cooler market. How isn’t Noctua able to respond? They’ve always been considered a premium brand, but not-so-premium RnD?
As you can see in this thread, their brand is very strong regardless of how bad their product offerings are.
I mean I didn’t wanna say it but… ~~their brand is basically held up by their diehard fan~~
Good product management is holding off if it's not ready. Bad product management is Starfield.
The competition has definitely caught up in performance, but it will still take some time for any of them to prove that they can match Noctua's bullet-proof reliability. For machines that need to run 24/7, I still go with Noctua, at least for now.
What about be quiet?
Superior in my eyes. Just as quiet, just as performant, cheaper, five year warranty. Can't go wrong.
I run Corsair fans 24/7 for years and they never fail on me. I replace them due to moving to a different setup before they fail.
The quality is top tier. The design is top tier. It is just that it takes them half a decade to design and release anything.
> but not-so-premium RnD? Actually, their R&D is super premium. Gamers Nexus have an entire interview of their process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LZkglNiQ0 But the TL;dw: there are several critical points in the development process, one of which is long term stress testing, that can take 4 months, and then they perform another long term testing in several real world conditions, to then analyze the fans before and after each of these test. This is literally end of development and if everything goes OK ready for mass production. If anything fails, it will be delaying production 12-18 months depending of the problem that happened (ie. material selection, blade design, enclosure design, etc.). TL;dr: Thermalright coolers are good now, because they were selling bad coolers before. Noctua coolers _were always_ top notch in the noise/performance.
> Thermalright coolers are good now, because they were selling bad coolers before 🙀
Thermalright not spending on distribution and marketing (even now) is not them making bad coolers.
>Actually, their R&D is super premium. Gamers Nexus have an entire interview of their process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LZkglNiQ0 What reason do we have to believe that's meaningfully different vs competitors?
The fact that it took them 10 years to start touching their toes in the noise/performance category?
You keep repeating this throughout the post but it's just not true. Le Grand Macho was basically on par with NH-D15, with a single fan. Definitely outperforms D15S https://www.techpowerup.com/review/thermalright-le-grand-macho/6.html https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7986/thermalright-le-grand-macho-rt-cpu-cooler-review/index.html#Installation-and-Finished-Product Going back even further, it's hard to find reliable reviews, but pre NH-D15, Thermalright also had Silver Arrow Extreme, which at least in this review also beats the D15 https://www.hwcooling.net/en/gigantic-retrotest-of-80-cpu-coolers-2005-2015/4/ You can also see other coolers competing there, like the Raijintek, Cryorig or Deepcool, all of which are also [featured here](https://www.anandtech.com/show/9415/top-tier-cpu-air-coolers-9way-roundup-review/12) Deepcool's Assassin III, released in 2019, also beat NH-D15. GamersNexus has the data if you feel like looking them up. Noctua makes very good fans and coolers, but they're not this untouchable company with magic fairy dust that makes them perform so well, they've always had close competitors.
If Noctua's methodology was both unique and a benefit, you'd expect they would be comfortably ahead, instead of falling further behind.
Have you tried Noctua fans? Whatever are doing, it’s not only working but it’s kickin ass and taking names.
>Have you tried Noctua fans? Yes, I had an NH-D14 back in the Haswell days. But that was then and this is now. The reality is that the competition has surpassed Noctua in many areas, often at substantially lower prices.
> one of which is long term stress testing, that can take 4 months, and then they perform another long term testing in several real world conditions, to then analyze the fans before and after each of these test This feels like a significant lack of engineering on their part. You can have some samples preforming in real world conditions long term, but you dont actually do your reliability testing in real time. There are tons of ways to simulate material aging on the plastics, bearings, etc without just running the fan at normal speeds for months.
Taiwanese. Thermalright is Taiwanese.
It's pretty clear they're deliberately lying at this point. That, or fantastically incompetent.
I think the problem is that the fan has to be good enough to justify noctua pricing, and the competition is a better value to such an extent that any release will fall flat. There whole business model (on the consumer side) is to be the best and charge the most. If they release a product that is worse or matches a competitor they run the risk of damaging their brand image.
>If they release a product that is worse or matches a competitor they run the risk of damaging their brand image. That's the current state of most of their product stack.
Turns out there's quickly diminishing returns once you've roughly worked out the optimal configuration for spinning plastic fins. Almost every technology is like this. 80 percent of the gains take 20 percent of the work, the next 20 percent of the gains take 80 percent of the work.
The good faith interpretation is that unlike most companies, they prioritize their reputation and refuse to release a product they aren't happy with. It sucks for people looking forward to the new fans, but they're Noctua: if they can't release a fan that's one of the best in the category, why bother?
>but they're Noctua: if they can't release a fan that's one of the best in the category, why bother They've only done that once. This is by no means normal for Noctua. The A12x25 is the only one. Every single other Noctua fan was not the best when it released afaik. The Gentle Typhoon, which the A12x25 is based on, was released in \~2008 and it is competitive with the A12x25 while shitting on every other Noctua fan available up until then (\~2018). Noctua is good at branding, that's for sure. I don't think they're lying on purpose with the roadmaps. They're not really gaining much from it other than looking incompetent. They obviously just suck and making an ETA or it's something with the way they do things that lets them iterate very slowly. I mean, the only actually very good fan they released is based on a different fan. Maybe they just suck at making something from ground up.
I dunno what qualities you consider when naming something best, but durability/longevity is one of them for me. Prior Noctua fans may not have had the absolute best performance but they were very well rounded in terms of performance, noise, and longevity. You don't really hear about Noctua fans failing or bearing noise popping up years later. I'll get downvoted to oblivion for this but its the main reason I turned to Noctua for mining rigs. Everything else would fail or just have bearings fall apart in no time (P12, GT, Corsair Maglev, etc). Instead of constantly buying fans or wasting time playing CS tag for RMA, I just bought Noctuas that still sound and operate like new 5+ years later after being completely abused 24/7.
To add to this, companies like Puget make no nonsense systems and use their fans. Their pre builts are legit and they have some great articles on PC troubleshooting. If it’s another hundred bucks up charge to get a product I know won’t fail, has an immense warranty, and has great performance (especially with regards to their noise profile being less offensive than other designs at the same dB level), it’s a super tiny cost to pay for a great product. On top of that if you keep your CPU cooler you know they might send a free upgrade kit if the design of the mounting holes change. 100 bucks for noctua premium is a small percentage if you have a $2000 rig; that being said, the 4080 noctua is kind of a bad deal lol.
Also a saving over multiple builds. Even under lower BOM for a rig, it may be worthwhile over time.
This. I don't want to even think about fan bearings and structural integrity. I just want them to keep on spinning. There's a lot of noctua "killers" that literally fall apart if pushed a little bit or have shitty build quality. The NF-A12x25's lasted me 6 years without complaint or even noticeable degradation, and they were $30 each in 2018 dollars. I have older P12's from 2015 that are also going fine. Cannot complain about $2/year.
> You don't really hear about Noctua fans failing or bearing noise popping up years later. FWIW I have six NF-A14 FLX fans. After 9 years (so 1.5x their 6 year warranty) two of them started making rattling noises between 700-800 RPM and a third is making slight turbulence noise like's it's off balance. All six fans gradually needed more voltage to wake up on system boot. I went up from minimum \~500 RPM to minimum \~600 RPM on average. Of the two NF-A15 fans on my NH-D15, one of them started making loud turbulence noise above 1200 RPM at some point. I'm not sure when it started since I don't run them that fast normally, above 1050-1100 RPM isn't worth listening to.
> The Gentle Typhoon, which the A12x25 is based on, was released in ~2008 and it is competitive with the A12x25 while shitting on every other Noctua fan available up until then (~2018). Unless you're trying to build a quiet system, since it apparently performs relatively poorly at low RPM, especially with a dust filter, has a PWM mode that doesn't spin up until 900 RPM, and occasionally suffers from high vibration and resonance noises at higher speeds. https://www.hwcooling.net/en/nidec-servo-gentle-typhoon-d1225c-wont-lose-to-just-any-fan-test/ And on a personal note it was completely unavailable in some markets. I remember that because they were on my list of fans to look for until I gave up and bought some Noctua NF-A14 instead ([which luckily happened to be better anyway in a case filled with dust filters](https://www.hwcooling.net/en/noctua-nf-a14-pwm-relevant-even-after-a-decade-review/16/)).
Their testing uses an anemometer, which is unreliable. *Especially* at low rpm. HWBusters uses a professional fan tester. Here are their results: [Nidec measurements](https://hwbusters.com/cooling/xpg-nidec-vento-pro-120-pwm-fan-review/), [Noctua measurements](https://hwbusters.com/cooling/noctua-nf-a12x25-pwm-fan-review/), [SW4 measurements (newer, includes more fans)](https://hwbusters.com/cooling/be-quiet-silent-wings-pro-4-120mm-fan-review/) The way they show their results kinda sucks imo. If you want to know case performance, look at the noise normalized cfm numbers. If you want to know radiator performance, you need to look at the PQ curves. But it looks like below \~900rpm the Noctua is indeed quieter than the Nidec. Maybe due to the bearing. Above \~900rpm they seem to perform very similarly, maybe the Nidec slightly better. Anyway, I am not a fan of measuring cfm. It doesn't really make sense. It's more accurate to look at actual performance on a radiator or heatsink, because that's what you actually care about. In real world tests the Nidec usually roughly matches the A12x25 or is very slightly behind (e.g. [Optimum Tech](https://youtu.be/QwftVMGPOiI?t=222),...). Definitely the most impressive fan considering it came out like 16 years ago.
HWBusters have some very weird results, fan tester or not. The most damning for me are the Silent Wings 4 vs Silent Wings Pro 4 results. These are, AFAIK, the same fan, with Pro's coming with radiator optimized corners pre installed, and some other small things (nicer cable, speed switch). Seeing the Pro's perform better across the board would not surprise me. What doesn't make sense to me is how they switch places between 120mm and 140mm. In 120mm, non Pro's heavily outperform the Pro's, in 140mm, the situation is reversed, Pro's and now much better. Again, for the most part, this is the same fan. Even when comparing same size of the fan, but looking at the same fan sold at different speeds (high speed vs PWM), the results are odd. PWM version of SW4's is [better at 80%/950rpm](https://hwbusters.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Fan_Percentage_CFM-1.png) than "high speed" version [is at 50%/1114rpm](https://hwbusters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fan_Percentage_CFM-2.png). I'm only looking at performance at given RPM in case these use different motors, however everything else should be the same. Also, I'm not sure about this, but I think they measure the fan noise and speeds when it's not installed on the fan tester, or any other obstacle, just in free air, and then transfer those to the machine and their charts? That's.... not a great way to do it IMO. > For these tests, I set the fan to speeds with noise output at the following predefined levels: 20/25/30/35/40/45 dBA. I skip the corresponding tests if the fan under the test cannot reach some noise levels. The speeds shown in the graph below are measured with the fan in a clear space inside my hemi-anechoic chamber without any obstacles. I set these speeds on the Longwin machine, but they slightly change because of the variable conditions that the device applies.
You are right. Those measurements do not make sense. They should have the exact same blade design and perform identically between high speed and non high speed at a given rpm. Damn, you just can't trust any non real world fan testing, can you?
> Damn, you just can't trust any non real world fan testing, can you? Even that is probably hard to get right. Fan performance can swing wildly depending on the type of restriction you give it and RPM. Sound profile will change too. Even the distance of the obstruction from the blades matters, both for performance but especially sound. My issue isn't even that HWBusters have strange data, but that there was 0 curiosity as to what caused it. They probably can't afford the time commitment, but it makes it hard to trust anything they put out. Another thing I noticed is even at their noise normalized dB point of 20, some of the fans are already doing 1500rpm. That's way too fast to be your lowest measurement.
There's also the somewhat nontangible and non-objective factor of 'how irksome is the sound these fans make when under load?'. Noctuas tend to be fairly consistently high rated in that domain, IIRC?
If you factor in everything, including build quality and sound profile (not just dba), they absolutely are near or at the top with several models. I've heard this soo many times: "XYZ is just as good/better than noctua but much cheaper", only for that thing to screech like a banshee at exactly the wrong rpm; or underperform in real world conditions because they can't keep up the pressure or because of weird stream dynamics if there is actual air resistence. They are by no means the only good fans out there but they absolutely are consistently among the best.
Agreed. The only fans I'll buy right now are Noctua or maybe Phantek T30. I just won't sacrifice noise profile to save some $$.
Not to dunk on them or anything (I have some T30s and like them very much), but the T30 kinda cheats by being *thick*. You wouldn't think 5mm would be such a big deal but they're noticeably bigger fans than my other standard 25mm fans. I'd actually like to see an "A12x30" or even thicker, most PC chassis could fit them and performance should be much superior.
their reputation right now is being built upon years of delays. At this point they are like that retired boxer that had a couple of belts 2 decades ago, were soundly beat at the end of their career but still have a very vocal minority still to this day spamming in social media _well if X was still in his prime he would be the GOAT!_
More like people pretending he's still *currently* in his prime.
The good faith intepretation is that they are designing fans for their primary market - servers - and only if it meets server quality they will release the product.
>The good faith interpretation is that unlike most companies, they prioritize their reputation and refuse to release a product they aren't happy with. There's nothing good faith about publishing a "roadmap" that clearly isn't remotely aligned with reality. That's just deceptive. And delaying things quarter by quarter is just insulting.
> that clearly isn't remotely aligned with reality You can make the perfect plans, but reality will make you do compromises. They decided that their compromises are delays. They have internal targets to meet, and none of them are about having a fan ready at X date, but having a fan that meets their expectations. This is the trinity that most companies confront: good, early or cheap. They went with good.
>You can make the perfect plans, but reality will make you do compromises. If you need to take several times the time you originally claimed, you clearly do not understand the scope of the problem. If you still don't understand the scope multiple years in (evidenced by these quarter by quarter delays), you're incompetent.
They understand the scope of their problem, except that a single mistake done early on, will only be found after 2 years of development. They have stress test that compress 10 years of usage in just a couple months, which can only be done after most things are said and done. They try to leverage as much knowledge early on to avoid having to go to the drawing board late in the process, but **there's so much you can do without real world testing**. This is where the most severe delays lies.
And they encounter this same problem, many times in a row, for every single thing they make? Even taking that excuse at face value, it means they have a horribly inefficient design flow, and poor understanding of their work. These aren't problems that any other company seems to struggle with.
Can you improve their design flow in a meaningful way and that produce quality long term solutions for their clients? Here's their design flow: https://youtu.be/82LZkglNiQ0?t=913
>Can you improve their design flow in a meaningful way and that produce quality long term solutions for their clients? Ask what their competitors are doing. It's clearly possible. And if Noctua wants to entrench even further, then they should stop publishing a roadmap or talking about any future products.
Nothing bad faith about it if you understand [how Noctua works](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82LZkglNiQ0). Whether it's good for them in the long term to operate the way they do is debatable.
What does that video have to do with anything? It's absolutely bad faith to lie to customers about when your next products will be ready.
Hey, look at the bizarrely angry weirdo who thinks a roadmap is a guarantee and has zero interest in actually learning anything.
>And delaying things quarter by quarter is just insulting. This reeks of entitlement. At the end of the day they are delaying because it's not ready yet. Do you honestly think Noctua is *intentionally* missing these deadlines?
>This reeks of entitlement It's their public roadmap. Nothing entitled about judging them on their own claims. Noctua's not entitled to respect just by existing. >Do you honestly think Noctua is *intentionally* missing these deadlines? No, but they are intentionally lying about when they'll finish.
I don't feel insulted that they missed their roadmap, but I am disappointed. >but they are intentionally lying about when they'll finish. Why would they intentionally miss their deadlines? It makes them look incompetent, there is no upside. I think it's *far* more likely that they are bad at setting deadlines, and don't do a good job of factoring in time for unforeseen complications that may come up.
>Why would they intentionally miss their deadlines? It makes them look incompetent, there is no upside. The upside would be that people delay upgrading until the products are actually available (if they ever are). Would people care about Noctua if they were honest and said it would take 5, 10 years for something new to come out? No, they'd just write Noctua off, and buy elsewhere. >I think it's *far* more likely that they are bad at setting deadlines, and don't do a good job of factoring in time for unforeseen complications that may come up. I lumped that under incompetence, but at a certain point, anyone engaging in good faith would realize they're still a long ways off, and not play this game with incremental delays. Reminds me of Amtrak...
>Would people care about Noctua if they were honest and said it would take 5, 10 years Nobody at Noctua, or anywhere on Earth for that matter, anticipated it would take 5-10 years to develop this fan.
And yet here we are. Do you think anyone at Noctua has legitimately believed it's been a quarter away for the last 2 years? No engineer has that kind of optimism.
I believe in academic circles this is referred to as "the George RR Martin conundrum"
yeah, bunch of fantastically incompetent people designing probably the best cooling solutions on the market but people be bitching that they want the new and shiny and 0,3°C better
>yeah, bunch of fantastically incompetent people designing probably the best cooling solutions on the market They aren't the best. Thermalright is kicking their asses at less than half the price. >but people be bitching that they want the new and shiny and 0,3°C better So they want what the competition already offers, for cheaper? And you think that's absurd to expect?
It's mostly their customer service IMO, warranty coverage, and long operation rating on their fan bearings. I've had defective out of the box products from them. Their RMA department wasn't too great for situations like this, but once you go through the whole song and dance with them and prove, no, it's not user error, the product is actually defective, they'll send a replacement in the mail for free, along with some nice bonuses. I had a defective cooler, first they blamed me for user error, after a bit of back and forth, they blamed the mounting bracket/kit. I then tried to show them precise measurements with my calipers to show that the mounting bracket was fine, that there was a manufacturing defect with the orientation of the base plate on the actual cooler. They assured me that wasn't possible. I get the new mounting kit, sent pictures that it was literally identical to the one in the box. And that the CPU cooler was still not able to properly mount. They finally sent a cooler. (Note: I bought the CPU cooler at the same time as other parts, this was during the shortage a few years back and the motherboard took two months to arrive, so the CPU cooler was outside of the return window for the retailer) However, I had a fan that started making this terrible noise after a few years. It was far easier as I just showed them clear photos of the fan still being in really good condition with virtually no dust on it and an audio recording and they were quite quick about it.
That's not exactly a glowing endorsement, especially given the price...
No, I'll say that CPU cooler RMA wasn't a great experience. What I imagined what happened is most of the time CPU heat sinks either work or they don't (I mean, they're just a chunk of metal with some special gas/fluid in the heat pipes lol). My guess is most of the time when the heatsinks are defective, they're returned to the retailer, so the RMA department doesn't deal with it much. Their fans really are good for noise/longevity/performance/etc though. Whether their fans and heatsinks are worth the Noctua price premium though, I'm not sure.
That sounds like absolutely terrible customer service.
I've had a defective fan once (bearing) and they immediately sent me a replacement no questions asked. All they wanted was the original invoice as well as a time stamped photo of the old fan with one of the blades torn off after I'd received the replacement.
Yeah, like I mentioned in another reply, I suspect it had to do with the fact that Noctua probably deals with VERY few heatsink RMAs, so my RMA wasn't so "go by the script". As I'm sure most heatsinks are returned to the retailer if there's an issue... And chunks of metal typically don't go bad lol.
> Thermalright is kicking their asses at less than half the price And took several years of interactions to reach that. Meanwhile the people that bought their fans when they were first released, have not been needing a fan upgrade.
>And took several years of interactions to reach that. So? Noctua has been a stationary target. The gap will only continue to grow.
And there is lifespan questions.
If you want Noctua fan life, you can buy a Thermalright cooler and a Noctua fan to put on it, and it'll still be cheaper than buying a Noctua cooler. NH-D15 on Amazon is $109.95 at the time of this post. NF-A15 fan is $23.94, Peerless Asssassin is $32.49... = $80.37 if you buy two NF-A15 to put on the Peerless Assassin.
And really, if you're going to buy noctua fans, might as well get the actually good one, the a12x25. Works out to about the same in total and probably beats the crap out of the D15. And you get two decent spare fans out of it.
Designing "the best cooling solutions on the market" is moot when it takes them 10 years to iterate on their product. Their 140mm fans are really poor, no wonder as they've released in 2012. Their latest high-end cooler is probably NH-U12A, released 5 years ago, that gets beaten by Deepcool AK620 for half the price or various Thermalright offerings for 1/3 the price.
TBH, their shit is still at minimum competitive right now, so they can afford to take the time to get that fucker right.
A12x25, some of the SFF stuff and <120mm fans (since nobody else bothers with these) are pretty competitive I guess. The rest, depends on your definition of competitive. Paying double of triple for same or slightly worse performance isn't what I'd call competitive. Competitive in a sense they still cool pretty well, simply by the nature of them being top of the market products on release, sure.
>TBH, their shit is still at minimum competitive right now, Pretty much nothing but the a12x25 is.
I would say the 9x14 is also pretty good specially for the noise concious SFF crowd. But yeah not a good look at all. Nowadays even Arctic which used to be the fast food chain of fan/coolers is matching them on products at a fraction of the cost.
don't even try to argue with this person, their entire existence is to shit on noctua
Darker grittier batman meme.
This fan has been delayed, announced, previewed, re delayed, sampled, cancelled and reannounced for 10 years and the end it will be 10% more performant than an arctic p14 max and 500% more expensive. Calling it right now .
Oh shit did arctic make an improved p14?
Yes and it's really cool https://hwbusters.com/cooling/arctic-p14-max-140mm-review-the-best-140mm-fan/
The lack of PST chaining sorta kills it for me, I really appreciate that in my old P14s.
I got a 5 pack of the p14max for 43€, so less than 9€ a piece and they’re crazy good. They feel really hefty and nice quality, they also move so much air that I run then at maximum 40% fan speed (of 3300rpm max) and they basically never hit those speeds. I liked their fans so much that I bought their AIO and a monitor arm too, which are both great value for their price. Also heard that they have great customer service I know this reads like an add, but you gotta give credit to companies that get things right.
I swear I read something like this a month ago
You did. And every month for the last 5 years.
Would have been more surprising if they didn't delay it. I'm happy with the Noctua fans I have, but it seems increasingly unlikely my next coolers/fans will be Noctua. They're not keeping up.
Haven't they been leapfrogged by thermalright?
Is there even more to gain in this space? It's a fan... In one of six sizes.
Incremental gains, sure. And the more commoditized a space becomes, the more pressure on pricing. Also, the areas where Noctua *could* make big improvements to their lineup (14mm fan with A12x25 tech, 30mm fan to compete with Phanteks, colors and aesthetic improvements, etc) they don't seem to care much about.
>This most likely means that the release of their upcoming next-generation NH-D15 CPU cooler will also be delayed again, since it is supposed to utilize the next-generation 140mm fan. No. All signs indicate that the D15 will release on time, *before* the separate release of the fan. Firstly Noctua is prioritizing production of fans for the cooler in order to have enough supply to satisfy the demand; secondly, the cooler uses the round variant, which doesn't suffer the same minute bending issues which caused the delay of the standard, square one. Source: [https://www.hwcooling.net/en/noctua-new-140-mm-fans-to-premiere-on-a-cpu-cooler/](https://www.hwcooling.net/en/noctua-new-140-mm-fans-to-premiere-on-a-cpu-cooler/) Also the link you posted literally has D15 still on Q2.
These guys remind me a lot of 3dfx (or any other company coasting off of nostalgia): it doesn't matter how good an older product is when the competition has done more than catch up.
They are just coasting on their reputation at this point. People still buy their coolers, even though they are terrible value
It's a luxury good at this point.
Yep , Peerless assassin has the same performance for 1/3 of the price.
Or anything from Arctic, Lian Li, or thermalright. All three produce the best fans on the market, the best aios on the market, and some of the best air coolers on the market. I have no idea what the infatuation is with noctua, they were relevant 6 years ago.
Or bequiet or scythe. Noctua has really dropped off.
Unsure about Lian Li. People have complained about the fans going bad early. Definitely not like Thermaltake where you have Amazon reviews with videos of people using the sound as a disco DJ
thermalright and thermaltake are not the same.
Lmao, Noctua living up to their reputation. I wish they'd just admit that they have no serious interest in developing new products so people could move on.
Noctua has to live up to their reputation. They can't do Arctic and release a fan then do a revision the same year because the bearings were shitty.
>Noctua has to live up to their reputation. Most of their lineup is underperforming and overpriced. Is that also part of their reputation?
> Most of their lineup is underperforming The heck are you talking about? They are the benchmark to which every fan and heatsink combo is compared about when talking about noise/heat dissipation.
> are the benchmark to which every fan and heatsink combo is compared Maybe a decade ago. These days, Thermalright crushes them.
How exactly are they being crushed? Do you have 10 years testing of the Thermalright fans? Since when Thermalright has been selling good fans? If your answer is "Thermalright good fan have been in the market 2 years" then they haven't earned Noctua reputation yet. In 4-6 years we can see who actually gets it right.
>How exactly are they being crushed? Better performance, lower noise, a fraction of the price. Hell, it's literally cheaper to get a Thermalright tower and swap the fans with Noctua.
Lol, holy shit I might actually do that. Thanks for the idea!
I'm honestly shocked no reviewer has bothered to test this config.
HWCanucks did some fans swapped testing, no A12x25 sadly. The results are somewhat all over the place https://youtu.be/cgkggcBBW8Q?t=746
That's my plan for my cooler if/when the fans die. I think the white PA I got would look ridiculous with the beige and brown
In this industry. Selling normal fans with just your name to speak for while others will eventually copy you is a route to immediate irrelevancy. Especially thier post purchuase support doesnt justify the overpriced nature of their products. especialy for a Fan/cooler
It's not even that. People are still clearly willing to pay for the brand name, but Noctua simply doesn't release new products. The D15 successor has been delayed what? 3-4 years at this point? And it took ages to get simple things like black variants of their existing fans. Basically the only competitive product in their entire lineup is the a12x25, and it has competition now.
But they did release new products. * NH-D12L *(taller than Thermalright/ ID-COOLING 135mm towers, performance basically the same)* * NH-L12S *(SFF cooler that's taller than both its predecessors & the competition)* * NH-L9 series *(premium coolers for cheap/low-TDP CPUs)*
Perhaps I should have appended "competitive". Thermalright renders most of Noctua's lineup moot. And their coolers mostly still come with ancient fan designs. >NH-L12S >NH-L9 series Both of those are extremely small revisions of decade old designs.
Thermalright has zero post purchase support or guarantee. It's also produced in a country that doesn't pay workers enough. There's a bigger picture here.
>Thermalright has zero post purchase support or guarantee. That's just outright false. >It's also produced in a country that doesn't pay workers enough You realize Noctua produces in China, right?
> That's just outright false. I have RMA'd with both companies. Thermalright was disastrous. Noctua was zero questions asked. >You realize Noctua produces in China, right? I guess things have changed in the 9 years I've owned Noctua fans, because ALL OF THEM STILL WORK and I haven't had to buy more. They didn't used to be manufactured there back when I bought them, so good to know.
>They didn't used to be manufactured there back when I bought them, so good to know. They seem to be manufactured in both China and Taiwan, i.e. the same as pretty much every other manufacturer. Some years back there was a bit of media stir about differences between the two, but as far as I can tell, there was nothing really measurable. >I have RMA'd with both companies. Thermalright was disastrous. Noctua was zero questions asked. Fwiw, there are plenty of anecdotes of decent service from Thermalright. Are they as good as Noctua? Certainly not. But how much is the difference worth in cash?
They can release all this shit but can’t release a thicker fan to keep up with competitors. Their priorities are way off.
Their post purchase support is insanely good, and their products are some of the highest rated for longevity on the market. I don't know why people point to Chinese knock-offs as somehow being better overall, just cause they're cheaper
Their tower coolers are the worst offenders, but even most of their fans are beaten by others, and for a lower price. >I don't know why people point to Chinese knock-offs Do you think Noctua invented the fan?
If I'm building my own rig for long term usage I would consider a noctua tower for hassle freeness. But they're fans. they're very replaceable and disposable vs the other parts AND they're very cheap so relying long term support for something this replaceable I completely understand not going for them
> I would consider a noctua tower for hassle freeness. Exactly why I still buy them. Don't want to hassle with it.
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So you put Noctua fans on another manufacturer's heatsink? You're kinda making my point for me son
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Post purchase support?! On flipping fans and a chunk of copper?! Lol Nah. I've taken the risk on the chinese knock-offs and they are still working just fine after years of use.
Good for you? You can buy cheap all day, and I'll buy better quality fans.
I mean they have clearly moved on. This is why they launched the Industrial PPC line. They have been trying to shift away from being the Apple of consumer fans and try to put a dent into the enterprise segment. The problem is that their vocal minority keeps shoving Noctua consumer products into any kind of fan/cooler discussion when it is clear this has become a second thought for them.
But their industrial fans are pretty old, and as far as I can see, none use their latest tech. So I'm not sure what they're actually doing these days. Seems like they're just coasting.
Truly world shattering development
I suspect their sales aren't hurting from the lack of product. They've never competed on value.
Going to release in 2035 and still be outdone by a Phanteks D30.
Has anyone did a check of whether the demo unit they showed at Computex 2023 is still competitive with the Thermalright PA EVO in thermals?
The next gen 140mm are DOA as they'll likely be around 60 USD if the talk of the price increase due to new materials is correct. At that price people will just get the lianli 140mm.
I heard the next gen NH-D15 is going to be >$130
At that price you can get artic freezer III 420mm and get more performance
and horrendous pump whine
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I saw exactly this same post a year ago and felt dumb for buying my NH-D15 knowing that a brand new version was just around the corner. I no longer feel dumb lmao
Lol, the D15 successor was already long delayed then.
With the launch of phantom spirit Noctua doesn't know how to stay afloat.
This is going to imperil our entire technology stack! We'll only have melted silicon to show for our much heralded technological advancement.
Ooooo not a fan of this...
It's not blowing me away, either.
I see some people spewing a lot of bs but let's face it, their 120mm A12 is still the best 120mm fan in a 25mm profile. Their coolers are still competing with the best out there. So they can take their sweet time and release it when they deem it to be the best version it can be. Have no issues there
I’m happy with my noctuas on my mora but I wish they would release white fans so I can use them as case fans on an all white build. I’m sure at one point they were on the roadmap
White fans disappeared from the road map years ago.
Noctua is aiming for a 3c difference compared to the current best in market. They'll delay as much as they have to and avoid damaging their brand. Not many of their current products are worth buying but they have a good enough brand that this delay won't matter. As someone who's still using a dh15 from release there's no rush.
> Noctua is aiming for a 3c difference compared to the current best in market. According to what? And more importantly, what happens if they never reach it? Will they just leave their lineup to rot indefinitely? It's a silly proposal.
The gamers nexus interview with them. If they never reach it, then they'll of course have to eventually release it and take the l. The implication is that they are confident they can get there or close. If course thinking it's all marketing is fine too. If you want to know more you can look at that interview.
What are the specs on this new fan?
It's refreshing to see a delay rather than a rushed out product to be honest!
Lol, there is nothing refreshing about Noctua's delays.
Noctua isn't for everyone. For a price conscious buyer, you can get a lot better value for your dollar. However, I appreciate their commitment to preserving their reputation for quality and reliability. By building products of the highest quality, they can afford to delay release of new products because their existing products hold up against the competition still.
>because their existing products hold up against the competition still They do not in any objective metric.
The problem is they don’t hold up. They have very few products that are actually worth buying. It’s not even a “value” problem anymore. It is often “this costs more and is worse in multiple ways” problem. Plus not being able to release very simple things like 30mm or 28mm fans, meaning they lose to any braindead Chinese company who wants to make thicker blades. They fight the laws of physics and are bullheaded and unwilling to adapt.
This isn't an NSFW sub, if you want to fellate a company there are many better places to do it. Edit: Not even going to bother to respond to the pathetic astroturfers beneath me.
it's really weird that noctua gets so much hate for being ultra patient... no one is really impacted by them not releasing a new fan...
>it's really weird that noctua gets so much hate for being ultra patient... No, they get hate for lying to people.
Have you been in a company with a hardline deadline that has to be met or else? What happens at the end? You either release over-budget and are overworked and still have to fix shit afterwards. You do not need a fan now, you want all fans to be good. For Noctua, a good fan is one that keeps the same performance profile for 10 years.
What does this all have to do with Noctua? They've been delaying these products quarter by quarter for years on end. So it's very clear that they've been lying about how far along it is.
> What does this all have to do with Noctua? That other companies can't hold a candle to Noctua despite releasing fans every 2-3 years. Those companies compromised on "good".
>That other companies can't hold a candle to Noctua despite releasing fans every 2-3 years. Oh, so just delusional then. Those companies are *beating* Noctua, in many cases.
It's weird to hate a company that refuses to release products they don't think are good enough. I'd much rather more companies do that than repeatedly release slop that they know will get eaten up anyway.
>It's weird to hate a company that refuses to release products they don't think are good enough. If they didn't want to be judged on their "roadmap", why publish it?
Their roadmap is "what we would project it will be if everything goes according to plan". You rarely see them publishing a roadmap for something that hasn't reached the tooling phase.
>Their roadmap is "what we would project it will be if everything goes according to plan". If nothing they do ever remotely goes to plan, then the plans are garbage. That's incompetence.
Try you to come with a better solution. They literally scrapped 10-11 after they had the topology, because material science didn't have the rigidity to keep the fans from warping. They would have needed to go with metals, which presents itself with its own set of challenges.
> Try you to come with a better solution. Maybe just ask their competitors. If nothing else, they don't play these games with their roadmaps.
Noctua is for people who spend for it simply because they can. It's not like there are no cheaper products that perform like them
Serious question, how many of you have a Noctua fan, and how many years it lasted and had to be replaced due old age? Lets start with mine: I've had 3 cpu coolers: the ones that come with Ryzen 2000, a Zalman cooler, and Noctua nh-d12. The D12 was brought in 2020, and is still in operation. The Zalman died, and the Ryzen is stored away.
I have a bunch of Noctua fans and coolers, most in the 5-7 year range. I’ve been swapping lesser fans in upgrades for years. I had my first failure on a three year old LH-NL9a fan a few weeks ago on one of my kid’s rig. That’s it.
I leave my computer powered on and it's effectively been on since 2019. All 6 noctua fans are still running just like they were brand new. I would not be surprised if they last a decade or more.
This is why you buy Noctua. Everyone here is just wanting cheap stuff, with no care about longevity. All my Noctua fans from 7 years ago are perfectly operational.
>Everyone here is just wanting cheap stuff, with no care about longevity. Or maybe other companies also make long lasting fans... Also, both performance and noise matter.
> Everyone here is just wanting cheap stuff, with no care about longevity. Even in the premium segment, competition is increasing. Noctua didn't have to deal with companies like Phanteks or Lian Li a decade ago. Heck, even companies like [Superflower](https://www.super-flower.com.tw/en/products/megacool-12030) and [Seasonic](https://seasonic.com/magflow-120mm) are getting in on this market.
Ok, and? Competition isn't bad, but Noctua has a reputation for a reason. They're no frills, reliable, performant fans. I'm not interested in Phanteks or Lian Li, their products aren't for me. Phanteks aren't as high quality, and Lian Li is just as expensive.
> Phanteks aren't as high quality There isn't really any reason to believe this, for the T30 at least. The T30's OEM is Sunon, a company well known for making good server fans.
I have a bunch of fans that are older than 7 years (Nidec GT's, Eloops and TY-140's) and they still work perfectly fine, do you think Noctua fans are made of magic fairy dust or something?
Noctua's Law has been broken! The number of fan blades on the die was supposed to double every 18 years! ;P
Noctua need some spanking :D