Frequency Plots
10% Fan Speed
There are no significant frequency spikes with the fan spinning at 10% PWM speed.
25% Fan Speed
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Strangely enough, the 125 Hz frequency is way lower than the others, at 25% PWM speed.
50% Fan Speed
The highest spike is at 160 Hz.
75% Fan Speed
At 75% PWM speed, the 160Hz spike remains.
100% Fan Speed
The frequency spike is at 250Hz at full speed, with the 160Hz frequency being also loud.
Signal Recordings
I have recorded the signals shown above, but please keep in mind that I’ve enabled Automatic Gain Control (AGC) to do so to make it easier for you to reproduce them. The provided recordings are only offered for aural identification purposes.
10% Fan Speed
25% Fan Speed
50% Fan Speed
75% Fan Speed
100% Fan Speed
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Strange that you mention that this one has a rifle bearing – I checked on their site and every fan has the same picture of the bearing. Seems either wrong picture or wrong specs?
correction: it is indeed a FDB & not a Rifle bearing. according to arctic & comparison with other rifle bearings (unless those bearings weren’t rifle bearings)
I wonder which is actually correct. They mention FDB in their spec sheet pdf file, not just on their site.
One would think that seeing as they actually have it written down in their actual sheets.
Furthermore I found this article that states the P14 Max is using FDB bearings – https://www.hwcooling.net/en/new-arctic-p14-max-anti-vibration-and-high-speed/
The early manufactured P12 MAX fans use dual ball bearings. The packaging of Arctic fans is very crude so that many ball bearings were damaged during shipping and make loud noise when using, leading to a lot of returns and complaints. So the factory decided to use FDB bearings, which is cheap, short lifetime but won’t make obvious noise if thrown down. Only few users know how to replace the bearings of a dual ball bearing fan. Users also lack sources of original ball bearings suitable for silent motors. So when the P14 MAX fans come out, they are all using FDB. I understand the manufacturer’s decision to use FDB bearings. But I will only consider buying P14 CO.
How do thes stack up against Noctua?
The best 140 fan now should be the 9RA1412P1G001 from Sanyo Denki (it is 38mm thickness, 25mm is too thin for a 14cm fan). You can get one from Digikey, Mouser or Chip1stop and some other Electronics sales websites(the price in Chip1stop is much more reasonable). The price is high but worth. Hope to see the review of 9RA1412, it is really a good fan for PC building. I think the coming new 14025 fan from Noctua is hard to compete with this product. You should be careful about the transportation when ordering, the ball bearings of this fan are easy to be damaged when shipping and become noisy. It might be a good idea to prepare new 623ZZ（R1030ZZ）ball bearings for silent motors to replace the damaged ones in advance.
Sanyo Denki is a top fan manufacturer.
maybe…but… Rated current [A] = 1.1 > 1.0
…is there some additional SATA connector except for PWM?
…and normalized for noise levels, I don’t think it will be as good as the new NF-A14…despite its advantageous thickness.
1.1A is safe for most motherboard as long as you only connect one fan to one socket. I don’t recommand the DC version since these versions may have additional motor drive noise. It is of course more reliable to supply power through an additional fan controller.
Some users commented that the noise experience of 9RA1412 at 1200 rpm is close to that of the A12X25 at 1000 rpm.
However，9RA1412 is designed for industrial application, which has strict standards and regulations for fan installation. For example, the fan inlet surface should be unobstructed, otherwise it will lead to an additional loud noise. For most cases nowadays with fan mounting bracket for both 12 and 14cm fans，the air inlet surface of the air inlet fan will be close to the bracket and result in additional noise. The problem is not significant for most consuming fans，but for 9RA the problem can not be ignored. When you decede to use 9RA fans for the best thermal and noise performance, you should choose your case carefully, or even design and build one by yourself（lol）.