Noctua NF-A9x14 HS-PWM chromax.Black.swap, Premium Quiet Slim Fan, 4-Pin

I didn't always pay -that- much attention to what fans I used. Most of the time, I'd rescue them out of retired builds and cases, and recycle them into new systems as a sort of "tribute" to the predecessor. When I set out to build my Skyreach PC, which was my console-killer wet dream, I knew each part going in needed to be the best possible in it's class. I initially bought the NH-L9i in Chromax Black and was so impressed by it, I decided to go full Noctua in this system. I replaced the GPU fans (noisy, kinda whiny and frankly too tall to fit) with these fans, and it's been great.I was actually surprised at how well they performed at low-speeds in tasks where noise was a concern. That said, they can get LOUD. ASUS Fan Xpert allows you to crank all connected fans to max speed and this little box becomes a jet engine. Add to that the vortexing issue with this case and things became unbearable. However, flipping the fans worked splendidly (from push to pull) and the avg temp jumped only 5c. With a mild undervolt and some fine-tuning, I had a quiet, high pressure fan that did a decent enough job repelling dust and keeping components cool.In comparison to other fans I have used over the years, I find the pitch and tone of the fan sound to be more pleasant to the ear. You'll find that most fans don't have -that- much different fanning abilities from their immediate competition, but you will HEAR the difference. I do prefer these greatly.The added bonus? No more puke brown, although I do have a slight fondness for that hilariously-outdated color scheme. I imagine the brand recognition factor is also there. And in the RGB era, seeing a brand stand up against competition without the pretty lights to mask any quality defects is refreshing and inspiring.If I had to gripe about one thing it'd be the price. You pay a -little- more than you would from competitors but honestly, you get something truly special with this company. Quality European engineering at it's best.All in all, these are incredibly well-engineered fans with the pedigree to boot. I will be using Noctuas in future situations that require low-noise, high static pressure fans. These are great. And they're kinda blingy, in their own cool way. Definitely a quiet flex.

Great replacement for any 92mm fan. Cooled the thermalright axp90-x47 like a charm. Didn’t have the same max speed as oem fan on cooler, but the noise profile of the noctua is just more pleasant, it’s hard to describe it but it just sounds better and cools the same if not better. It won’t ever happen, but there’s so many other brands that are catching up to noctua’s build quality and performance, so I hope the competition can bring some of these prices down a bit. But I get it, you get what you pay for and the warranty and pedigree of noctua is top notch. Minor gripe, I didn’t like how there’s adhesive colored rubber pads that I had to install, I get the customization aspect, but if one build I want it black the next build I want red, if I ever want to revert back to black pads, I can’t because it’s not a reusable pad.

Nice and quiet fan.Love it!

I have a Radeon R9 Nano, and I accidentally cracked the cheaply-made fan the other day when I was swapping out some SATA cables. I tried to fix it with duct tape, but it was just too unstable at higher RPMs. Made the loudest racket as it wobbled and touched part of the heatsink cover! So I looked around and found this Noctua case fan. I read all the specs to make sure it voltage, amps, and RPMs would all be fine and have a high chance of working. Then I snipped the connector off an old graphics card, soldered it to the extension cable that came with this new fan, and successfully got power, fan speed, etc. all working fine. I ran a few benchmarks and didn't see any alarming temps, and the card was not even running the fan at 1500RPMs. I've been playing Warzone DMZ and some other versions a lot without any issue. The RPMs would get up to 1500 or so, and temp less than 75c. Interestingly, the fan sensor would report as using less than half RPMs, which would put the more accurate upper max 3000RPMs, not 2500RPMs, as stated on this product page. Tonight was interesting though. I played BF4 on Ultra quality, and the temps would have gone higher had the fan not ramp to over 3000RPMs! You can see on my TechPowerUp GPU-Z screep cap the section that I boxed in blue which shows 100% fan speed and RPMs @ 3000 or so. GPU temp remained less than 78c. I am very pleased with the results of this hackjob! This fan is amazing!UPDATE: Added another screenshot showing temp and RPMs while playing BF4.