Noctua NF-A14 iPPC-3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM

UPDATED 10-22 : Fan-Tastic!!! Pun intended! Amazing fans.. They're so awesome and powerful, you can stand behind my PC and feel air blowing on you from a foot away. Absolutely love them. Right now I have 2 of these Industrial 3000's, 1 intake 1 outtake accompanied by 4 more fans (140mm Phanteks), 2 intakes and 2 outtakes. I plan to switch out the other 4 Phanteks with 2 more of these. Excited to get the next 2 over the coming months.I would like to state, they aren't that loud, way too many people over exaggerated the noise, even at full speed! Yes, they are louder than your average case fan so if a normal case fan bothers you, these will but take into account were also moving 10K cfpm of air with these vs 500-1K cfpm from your typical case fan. That's ALOT of air! But yea, I don't have to yell at my spouse when they're on when we are near the PC, I don't hear them when they're running from another room (some said it woke up the neighbors!), they don't shake my desk, levitate my PC or sound like a plane landing in my house ect.. I almost canceled buying these because of the really bad misinformation out there, luckily I stuck with my gut.With these fans I am securing the longevity of the investment made in my PC, already just swapping 2 of these in place of 2 of my Phantek fans, everything is 5-10 celscius cooler than before. They are PVM so in my BIOS I programmed them to run at basically 50% idle (20-30 celscius), 70% mid load (30-40 celscius) and 100% full CPU load (50 celsius and above) ensuring my hardware stays cool and my case ventilated. I have better tempts on everything, GPU, CPU, PSU and MOBO. They're expensive but the life they'll add to my components by keeping them cool will pay off ten fold I am sure. If your serious about taking care of your PC, adding longer lifespans to your expensive hardware and want the assurance of being able to run your PC for long times without fans catching flame, then buy these. That was another reason I got these fans, I do lots of downloading/uploading and my PC is on for long periods of time, these fans give me peace of mind that I won't wake up to a house fire.Initially gave these fans 4 stars for the poor packaging and I am still not overly happy with the way they were packaged but the performance they give far outweighs the packaging and so 5 stars is what they are to receive now that I've used them and seen the drastic tempt changes. Very impressed! Not too loud, incredibly efficient and are easy on the eyes too. Highly recommend these fans for serious enthusiast or those who want to throw a PC in a closet/underground for server type applications, it covers all aspects of use and is backed with unsurpassed assure and quality. A+++ 10/10.Noctua: Thank you Noctua, for surprising me again with your incredibly high quality fans. I love you guys and is why I chose your NH-D15 over a AIO/Closed Loop Liquid cooler for my CPU, which by the way rivals them in tempts. And why I buy your expensive fans, you guys are the best in the business and I am a proud supporter of your products. Just wanted to say thanks. I appreciate everything you guys do. Keep up the hard work! One thing I would like to ask is, please consider making a 200MM fan (industrial/redux/ect.) for us and give us the option to have black and brown fans for your coolers over the beige lol Thank you! Bye------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I'll update this again shortly but I ordered 2 of these fans and 1 of the fans was missing 1 rubber vibration pad on the corner. I had to remove one from the other side and put in so that when I attached the fan to my case all the vibration pads were snug into place. Disappointed and not sure who's fault it was, you spend 25+ dollars on a single case fan, you would expect it to have everything it's advertised to have. All I got was a box, the fan and 4 screws, the fans weren't even secured into the boxes nor did they come with any type of paperwork or anything other than a fan and screws. The other thing that turned me off was the screws that came with my 2 fans. They were very odd having a huge gouge on the tips almost like that of a flat head screw driver that as it goes up turns into a full screw and because of that, difficult to screw them in as they wanted to cross thread.I'll update this after I power them up and see how they run. Still waiting on some other parts to arrive later today before I can turn on my PC. As of right now, they lost a Star from the packaging/screws. I was expecting more from Noctua honestly but if they perform as advertised then I am more than happy. Just thought I would share my disappointment. I'll report back later. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.

Previously, I had an NF-P14 that was pulling double-duty in the middle of my old NH-D14 heatsink (the other fan that was originally with it currently resides in the case's exhaust slot directly aft of the heatsink). This setup worked fine during winter months, but in recent weeks has resulted in intermittent overheating due to the warmth of the room.Rather than restore the heatsink's stock configuration, I opted to simply beef up the heatsink's fan and move the NF-P14 to the case front to supply it; I'd been intending to replace the low-end Cooler Master fan I had there anyway. As both high airflow and high static pressure were needed...this fan was a bit of a no-brainer, even if it is pricy.First off: if you too have an NH-D14, rest assured that this fan will fit. It won't fit as intended (the original mount kit was designed for 120mm-mount fans, the NF-A14 has 140mm mounts), but the heatsink is wide enough to support the fan, and you'll have a bottom overhang for RAM/VRM/etc cooling as with the original NF-P14. Just make sure that there aren't any components extruding from the board that will interfere with the corners. See attached pictures for my super-exotic mounting method.Secondly: despite Noctua's best efforts, this fan is definitely not quiet at higher speeds. Even throttled at 50%, it's quite noticeable, though it's not unbearable. At 100% (which comes to ~2750rpm on my board...something I find slightly worrying actually), as noted in other reviews, it sounds akin to a small vacuum cleaner. If you plan to run it in a gaming PC, make sure you figure out what speed you need for adequate cooling, and stick to that under load. Look up your CPU to find its maximum safe temperature, and set your fan curve to have it kick up to 100% ~5 degrees before that. The fan has PWM control for a reason...use it! There's no reason to deafen yourself under light or no load.Noctua's site lists the minimum speed as 800rpm, however, my board's minimum PWM setting is able to run it at ~400rpm. I wasn't able to test at what point it becomes "silent", but it certainly is at the lower end. I'd expect it to be no louder than the NF-P14 up to 1300rpm, and I never had a problem with that fan's noise.Finally...it's a solid fan. Noctua, in my experience, makes high-quality stuff; this fan is no exception. The price of it made me handle it carefully, but it didn't feel fragile at all. Even the blades, thin as they are, feel solid...I would recommend not putting your fingers anywhere near them while the fan is running.The box is quite nice, but what you actually get is just barely above OEM-level; the fan and wide-thread screws for plastic fans, nothing more.I imagine that the common user would be disappointed by lack of low-noise adapter and/or splitter, but consider: the fan is PWM (a control method far superior to resistive/voltage-based control), and is rated for more than half an amp at full load. It seems to be commonly accepted that motherboard headers shouldn't be loaded above 1 amp, which would be easily exceeded by pairing two of these at full speed on a single header. I would guess that the cost of including a splitter in every box is a drop in the bucket for Noctua, but they chose to not include one to protect themselves if users decided to overload motherboard headers and potentially burn them out.They can't be held responsible if the user finds a splitter elsewhere and decides to risk it, after all.In summary,It's an expensive fan, costing as much as an 8gb stick of DDR3. But for the price you get a fan that performs well and quietly for day to day use, and unlike Noctua's consumer-grade offerings, can go full-out balls-to-the-wall if high levels of static pressure and airflow are needed. It can be made to fit an NH-D14 with the mildest of adaptation, and (according to reviews and Noctua specs) will directly fit an NH-D15. The included accessories are...well, non-existent, but with a proper setup you won't need them anyway.

I bought a couple of these because I wanted a couple of decent, reliable fans that could push a lot of air into my PC chassis if it was needed, and be controllable to slower, quiet speeds when major airflow wasn't needed. Very controllable, solid and very well made, great airflow, quiet under normal usage, and coloring is not as bad as some of the other Noctua fans (the are hidden from view so cosmetics didn't matter to much).While these fans sound like jet engines at full speed (3000 RPM), running at lower speeds they are just as capable of airflow and quiet as the best fans that max out at the lower RPMs. The actually have a great dBA/cfm ratio at normal working speeds and they handle air pressure well. I am not running them through a radiator, but the do have to suck air in through an air filter and push it through the HDD card cages. They also have rubber mounts to reduce any vibration noise.I almost got the 2000 RPM model, but through research I realized that the 3000 RPM model has exactly the same dBA and CFM curves in the 0-2000 RPM range. Since I use PWM to control their speed there was no reason not to get the 3000 RPM model for "just in case". The typical non-stressed speed I have these run at is about 1000 RPM and they are effectively silent. I have one fan curve speeds up as the CPU gets hot and the other fan curve speeds up as the PCI-Express under the GPU gets hot to make sure there is plenty of cool fresh air in the case for the CPU/GPU fans to do their job. The CPU or GPU pretty much have to be on fire for these to ever actually reach 3000 RPM in my system.