Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM Fan Review

Epilogue

If the Phanteks T30-120 didn’t exist, the Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM would have the highest performance in the normalized noise tests, which matter the most. It is natural for a fan emitting high noise to perform better than a lower-noise fan. Still, most users don’t want noisy parts and don’t have their cooling fans running at full speed constantly. This is why the normalized noise tests matter the most. Because you force all fans to operate under the same noise conditions, hence you can easily compare their performance.

As Noctua promises, the NF-A12x25 PWM performs strongly in its mid-speed section. Noctua’s graph is a bit pessimistic for the NF-A12x25 PWM since although officially it claims to have 102,1 m³/h airflow, in Noctua’s chart, it only reaches close to 90 m³/h. Nonetheless, with the graphs above, the official and mine, I want to show that the PQ curves follow the same pattern, with a strong performance in the mid-section, which is crucial for most users. You need the fan to offer good performance without outputting high noise, so mid-section performance is the most interesting.

You can’t go wrong with a Noctua product; the NF-A12x25 PWM is a fine example. If only its price were lower. It would provide a strong advantage to prefer it over the Phanteks T30-120. You should consider that the latter is thicker with a 30mm depth, so it is not compatible with all usage scenarios. On the contrary, the NF-A12x25 PWM, with its standard 25mm depth, will fit everywhere.