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The build quality is very decent for such an inexpensive fan, without significant imperfections, which are sometimes seen due to saving on injection moulds. However, don’t expect any extra extras or accessories – the frame is simple, with no anti-vibration pads in the corners. But how come the rotor is above standard height then? There is very little spacing on the other side, between the rotor and the stator slats. It’s very tight there (which you’ll notice even with minimal deflection, typically when cleaning by wiping the blades), but in practice it doesn’t matter. In addition, all the stator slats except the one that runs the cable have an aerodynamic shape, their tips taper towards the blades. We are reporting the absolute temperature on the graph. The testing is done on an open-air bench system. Once inside the chassis, the temperatures are expected to rise and would largely depend upon the optimal airflow inside the chassis. Not every run of the stress test may yield the same result. This could well be due to many factors like mounting pressure, thermal paste application, and varying ambient temperature. Not to mention the silicon differences even among the same category of chips. Hence, it is pertinent to mention the testing methodology along with the specifics. The fans at 100% of their speed were doing approximately 53 dB(A) at an ambient of 32 dBA. One of the fans was making 76 dB(A) due to bad bearing. We have to mention this since we are testing these fans. Conclusion The anemometer was placed close to the fan. Since we measure all 120mm fans the same way, the error of margin would apply to all. Acoustic
They are beast's at getting airflow through mesh filtration! I use them in my 011-Air as a test once other RGB fans costing 3x failed and I'd recommend them in any application. Then it’s very strange. We use spectrograms instead of sound recordings for sound analysis precisely because we do not want a dispute to arise at the level of subjective perception of individual frequencies. Everyone sees their intensity in spectrograms in the same way and the results of NF-A12x25 PWM clearly show that there is practically no noise that can be perceived by a person when using PWM control. Or if you can hear some sound in the frequency band we are talking about, you should also hear it with Silent Wings 3. For being only a 6-euro fan, the precision of production is extremely high. It’s only at the level of really fine detail that you’ll find that the P12 has slightly looser manufacturing tolerances than Arctic fans with a similar rotor. There will be a tiny unevenness here and there on the P12, but it will have virtually no impact on the performance. And at this price range, it’s also a bit unfair to point it out, as similarly priced fans often fare considerably worse. Unlike the P12 PWM fans which use Fluid Dynamic Bearings, the P12 MAX fans are using Double-Ball Bearings. We know that double ball bearings can handle the axial and radial loads in both directions which would mean installing these fans vertically or horizontally would not affect the performance in the long run and will provide durability. ARCTIC has employed bearings from Japanese manufacturer NMB. However, there is a catch. Running these fans at high speed would make more noise compared to fluid dynamic or sleeve bearing. These fans have MTTF of >500,000 hours thanks to these bearings. Due to sinus-magnetizing the new motor only creates about 5 % of the vibration from the commutation of a regular DC motor without a filter. Testing
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We’ve already tested one 120mm fan with a reduced profile (to 15mm) – the Alphacool SL-15 PWM– this one from Arctic (the P12 Slim PWM PST) differs significantly in its design. The rotor has “only” seven blades, which is relatively small for this fan format, but it is not so surprising for Arctic. It uses fewer blades than usual even on larger fans. Anyway, the important thing is that even a smaller number of blades significantly fills the available cross-sectional area. These fans feature 0dB mode as these would stop spinning at or below 5% PWM cycle. Please note that you would need a supporting motherboard and would also need to enable the Auto Stop or what settings your motherboard’s UEFI BIOS provides. This would come in handy when the system is idling or at no load. However, these fans don’t have ARCTIC PST technology. Simply put you can’t daisy-chain these fans. This is what PST is all about – a fancy name. These fans are powered by a 4-pin PWM connector cable. These cables are flat in design. There are two small arrows on one side of the frame. These provide a visual clue to the users in determining the direction of airflow through the fans and the direction in which blades will spin.
ARCTIC with their P12 PWM fans has been at an advantage when it comes to noise performance and we have seen that P12 MAX fans at roughly 50% of their speed are now doing what regular P12 PWM fans are doing at their full speed (100% PWM cycle). This has provided P12 MAX a thermal headroom of 3°C (as per our testing) coming from going above 50% PWM cycle. This is one way of doing it. We did not see any benefit of going below 43 B(A) as fans are silent at this range. This tells us that the thermal performance of P12 MAX fans is quite good albeit at a high noise output. The signal quality of the motherboard/hub should not make a difference in noise, it is determined by the NE-FD1 IC inside the fan. Noctua often has complaints about the PWM signal quality of third party devices and states that it can be misinterpreted at lower speeds. But this is not the case with Noctua fans and it should not affect the noise level anyway, as long as the fan is running stable at the given speed. The misinterpretation of PWM that Noctua mentions is that the fan operation may not correspond to the set PWM duty cycle ( we have discussed this in more detail in this article, where we also discuss the key features of the new Noctua NA-FH1 hub). The P12 PWM PST fan (hereafter referred to as the P12, but we’re still talking about the PWM PST variant) has a 5-blade axial rotor, which is typical of Arctic’s current “P” series models. Because of the small number of blades and the intention to achieve high static pressure, each blade must be large. If the blades were smaller, a lot of air would escape through them, which would reduce the airflow the more resistance the fan would have to overcome. Thus there is a considerable cross-sectional area covered by the blades, so that the airflow does not decrease excessively even if the fan is operating on restrictive obstacles. Only thing better are the Noctua redux for the price. Don't fall for the RGB hype. I've had 3 Silverstone AIO fans fail with the one below these 2 on it's way out! It'll be replaced by a p12 once it fails!
Starting out, it’s still worth noting that the Arctic P12 compares with the previously tested BioniX P120 A-RGB, although it has seemingly the same rotor – it doesn’t. And there are more than enough differences, including a shorter tunnel (P12) with less rotor clearance from an obstacle, but let’s start the analysis as usual from the top.
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with this statement even now. The extra details that Noctua has often stand out more with relatively higher speeds. Whether it’s Flow Acceleration Channels, Stepped Inlet Design, a significant narrowing of the gap between the blade tips and the frame or Inner Surface Microstructures. These elements counteract the shortcomings that become stronger with increasing pressure. The fact that the NF-A12x25 gives excellent results at low speeds is largely due to the fact that the operation of the motor and blades does not create any noise, so at this level there are no such pronounced limitations as with other fans, and the NF-A12x25 fits into the same noise level at higher speeds. I do not claim that NF-A12x25 PWM is at 787 rpm (i.e. the speed in our “31 dBA” mode) a noiseless or soundless fan, I am just trying to balance it a bit. At this speed you write about industrial noise or use in noisy technical rooms, which is misleading. I respect that in your idea of quiet operation the NF-A12x25 PWM has an even lower speed. So I must admit that I missed that there are also different revisions of the P12 PWM PST. In this case, ours, tested, will be the rev. 1. – 0.08 A and without the revision specified next to the EAN code. That’s how Artcic usually does it when it’s the first revision… There are a lot of droning or downright rumbling fans out there, but none have been as popularized by this sound profile as the Arctic P12. Probably also because this acoustic deficiency is really pronounced here and has pushed the manufacturer to make design changes in newer models that are aimed at suppressing critical tonal peaks. But even so, the base model P12 PWM PST is a remarkable fan and is unbeatable in its price range. We can already conclude that operating at about 850 rpm is very inconvenient. The fan hums significantly (at 380 Hz), and the airflow is quite low in this setting, disproportionate to the high noise level. Upwards or downwards, however, the high noise level subsides, although resonant frequencies do occur quite often, at different speeds, but you won’t encounter a worse scenario than the one we pointed out above.
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Now I know, 600 rpm, okay, and as a sign that I appreciate that we have such demanding readers, I promise you that sooner or later we will create another mode, which will be twice quieter than the quietest mode that we have now. In addition, we will select fans that will have the highest airflow in the 31 dBA mode and there will be room for further noise reduction. Some fans cannot be slowed down even to 31 dBA mode and of the remaining ones, half of them have a speed of 600 rpm or lower. The NF-A12x25 PWM here allows setting some of the highest speeds mainly because it is PWM controlled, and now I’m not afraid to use the word extremely quiet running of the motor and bearings. This is also visible in the spectrograph, where in the frequency band of these components the noise is extremely low. Noctua deserves all the respect in the world here for going into such details as smoother/quieter PWM waveforms with a slanted left-hand side of the pulses.
Spend money on the things that matter. 1. PSU 2.mobo 3. The highest end CPU you can afford 4. A GPU that will leap frog the next gen(don't upgrade each release!) and last but not least.... Don't fall for the "PCI Express Gen 4" hype. There is no need to be prejudiced against slim fans. If you find a fan with a half profile height fits your small case or on a cooler, feel free to put it there. Figuring out how to get a “standard” one in there after all, even at the expense of a smaller cooler heatsink, may turn out to be a worse option in the end. Here is a table showing RPM range and corresponding airflow and speed measurements of the ARCTIC P12 MAX fan:The rotor itself is taller than average for a 15mm profile fan. Support with nylon filters is nevertheless maintained. The height difference between the frame and the rotor is sufficient at the fan intake, even if you use a filter with an unreinforced mesh. But the worse ones, which collapse significantly, can already collide as with all fans. One of the differences from the BioniX P120 A-RGB that is also good to notice when judging the results is the smaller offset of the rotor from the frame. The P12 has a half centimeter narrower tunnel, so the rotor is closer to the obstacle, which changes the airflow velocity in addition to the noise. So there is actually a similar effect that the Noctua NA-IS1 frame is supposed to provide.
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