Noctua Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 2000 RPM

At roughly 25 dollars a fan, or even more if you want to replace the brown rubber pads (fortunately I already had black ones from earlier purchases), these are not cheap fans. There is no RGB (if that matters to you), like mentioned before the included pads are brown, and the fan is not capable of growing legs and dancing to the song hello my baby hello my honey hello my ragtime girl.However they have incredible static pressure, best in class even. As the title says limited to 1500 rpm are incredibly quiet, I clocked seven of them at 40-45 whole dbs measured at an exhaust port. They are black not brown, beige, or even gray. The internal components are all but dust proof, and water proof I guess but not planning to test that.... Lastly they can even go up to 2000 rpm if heat gets out of control, but you really shouldn't ever need them to go that fast.Simply put, if you want the best 120mm fan you can buy (especially for water cooling radiators), stop looking you just found it. There is a cheaper version of the same fan without the IP67 certification, and there is a non pwm version, but I would rather spend a few dollars more and get the full features. There is a brown and beige version too in case you really like ugly fans.You can also find this fan in 3000 rpm, but gonna be honest... you really shouldn't need a pc cooling fan to run higher than 2000rpm.... even that is probably indicative of a issue that needs addressing (low water flow, fans not properly installed, components overclocked too far, etc etc). Unless of course you live somewhere with insane ambient temps like 35+ celcius on a normal day, then maybe 2000rpm is a good idea.There is however one tiny complaint.The logo facing side (exhaust) on these fans have these curved plastic blades. They have a tendency to bend and warp very slightly if you are running fan cables around the body of the fan and have them installed right beside each other.... specifically on a radiator. This is a pretty standard thing to do to minimize excess fan cable length and keep a clean build. Performance wise there is no impact, but if the pressure is too great it might cause the blade to bend in and clip the fan rotors making a very unpleasant noise.Just something to be aware of, with careful install it's a non issue, and if you don't care about excess fan cable length it isn't even a thing.If you want RGB fans though.... my advice is get some Lian Li Uni fans if you can find them at retail non scalper prices, or go with EK Waterblocks Vardar fans.

In my new build, these never have to be set to high with the sytem fan-speed switch. They are fairly quiet on low, while moving a lot of air. (Processors idle 32c / 27c ambient) These will likely run forever on low. They are built like little brick houses. My other computer runs warm so I turn these on high when taxing the processors. They are indeed loud when on high but blow like Apes, and cool the system nicely. They almost cool the whole room. Ha. Their construction is robust compared to most other fans, and so, once again they will likely last and last. They are not silent when on low, but definitely quiet enough, especially when measured against how much air they move.

These differ a bit from the normal F12s in the fact that they're designed for more rigorous use (read: Servers).The IP67 designation means that these are sealed to be completely dustproof and can also be submerged up to 1 M in water! Normal F12s don't have these designations and the normal industrial ones have IP52, which means highly dust resistant, but only rated for 3mm of light rain. I honestly bought these over the regular industrial ones mainly because my CPU exists in a tight space on a carpeted room, meaning dust will accumulate greatly and this will help to prevent it.Currently, I have 4 of these all on radiators through push (the recommended method, as the pull is not as good) and compared to Phanteks MP120, which I previously used, these can run more RPMs before becoming noticeable.If you're going for silent cooling, the point isn't to run these at 2000 RPMs, although you can if you need the cooling. The point is to run them at lower speeds for almost inaudible cooling. Run these at 800 RPMs and you can't hear them. Even at 1000 you can't hear them. They become more audible starting at 1100 RPM. My radiators are designed for low speed (600-1200 RPM) fans, so these work quite well and I can even ramp them up if I really want to. My previous Phanteks would become noticeable around the 900 RPM mark and for some reason had really bad resonance once I started going up to their 1650 RPM limit. These don't create the noise even when starting up at 2000 RPM, but they are noticable louder than the Phanteks due to the RPM spinning. With 4 of these in your computer it's pretty easy to tell when you turn it on so if you're trying to start the computer up at night, you might be a little conscious with this.One thing I do like about these compared to Phanteks are that the rubber grommets are much thicker and thus prevent more vibrations of the fan compared to the Phanteks which use a sort of very thin foam.There is another version with more RPMs, the iPPC 3000. Honestly, I wouldn't get those unless you're going to be using them for some hardcore system that requires as much airflow as possible without regard to sound. My friend has it and while I thought my 2000s were loud, his 3000s sound like blenders all running at once. He even had to build a custom acrylic sound box around his case to dampen the sound but it's still crazy loud. Stick with these and you'll be just fine.

I rated it 5 stars even though I didn't like it. It performs as-advertised (maybe better), but it wasn't the right product for me. I can't knock off stars because I read their description and ignored it. I bought it because my case fan died (from dust) and I could get it next day.What it is: good build quality and air flow. Four-pin connector and PWM speed control works. Includes a cable extension (not sure how long) to be able to reach your far away fan headers but not having too much bulk to reach a close fan header.What it's not: They say it's not recommended for home computers, and I bought it anyhow It's not leaf-blower loud, but it's definitely the loudest fan in my case (including my stock CPU fan and a GPU).Overall: they said what it does. It does what they said.