Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM

Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM (120mm, Black).After previous excellent experience with 2000 RPM Industrial fans from Noctua, I purchased two of these for bottom mounting on the Lian Li 011 dynamic case. Even with the bottom magnetic mesh dust cover installed in the case, these two fans crank air easily through the system. The 4 pins connected directly to the MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC motherboards with no issue. Fan PWM controls in the motherboard's bios allowed precise control of the fans at various temps. The fans are typically less than 25 RPM apart from each other at the same settings (e.g. 50% at 50C). System reads fan max RPM at 2934 and 2909 at 100% power.Fan noise starts becoming noticeable in the Lian Li case at around 1600 RPM and quite loud at 2000 and above. These are MUCH louder than the 2000 RPM versions of these fans. The Noctua website shows plenty of details with airflow and noise levels. At max RPM, these fans are MUCH louder than the Geforce RTX 2080ti blower fan, which was previously the loudest component in the case. At 1000 RPM and less, these still move a good amount of air without any noise; a good fan profile will help keep your PC quiet, if used as a case fan. I could also see these being used as an All-In-One water cooler fan replacement/upgrade. I already use the 2000 RPM version for a 120mm AIO Cooler fan replacement. I would have considered using the 3000 RPM version if it was available at the time.Overall quality of the fan is impressive. Silicon padded corners ensure there won't be any rattling or vibrations. The 4 included mounting screws fit tightly in the holes. The fan cable is covered in a braided material black wrap which makes it easy to manage or hide; it even looks good if you are not trying to hide the cable. I expect this fan will outlive the computer's 240mm Cooler Master AIO fans, the Apevia case fans, and all components of the generic power supply.At $25.95 USD, if I don't replace these fans in 9 years, I will have saved myself the pain replacing lower quality fans, multiple times. 9 years is the longest I've seen a 120mm fan survive, which was from previously mentioned 120mm AIO cooler. If this last 10 years, I will feel that the Heavy Duty price is justified for this Heavy Duty fan. I'd like to think I'll get at least 15 years, since I'm not driving them at 100% all the time. If you care about noise and price, Noctua has other reasonable options, which will probably also have a long lifespan. In 10 years, I'll let you know if this was worth the price.

I love these fans! I was hesitant to order them because of some reviewers saying they're horribly loud and others saying they were quiet. I was willing to take the risk and bet on the fact that those complaining they were too loud just didn't take any time to configure them, and I am so glad I did!I installed 4 of these 140mm fans and 3 120mm in my new rig and I absolutely love them. I have 2 140's as front intake, a 140 as rear exhaust, a 140 as bottom intake next to PSU, 2 120's on my H100i radiator and a third 120 next to the radiator as exhaust. They all come with rubber brackets and I installed all but the radiator fans with Cosmos rubber rivets. Super easy! They all come with rubber sleeved cables that aren't too short and aren't too long. I did have to run a y-splitter for my two front fans because I ran out of pins on my motherboard, and it was enough of an extension to help them make it across the huge case to get them plugged in. If you have a large case and intend to put these near the front of your chassis, you will most definitely need extensions so plan ahead! I'd rather have to extend one set of fans than have 7 fans with super long cables cluttering things up.After the quick and easy installation, I powered everything on and I was shocked at how loud it was. It was loud enough that my 10 year old and I had to raise our voices to hear each other clearly when sitting 4-5 feet away. HOWEVER, using ASUS' UEFI on the Maximus VII Hero motherboard, I was able to use the built in Qfan to quiet them down enough to the point that I could tolerate sitting near it while I installed the OS.Once Windows was installed, I installed AI Suite (included with my motherboard, you may need to locate another fan controller if you don't have an ASUS board) and went into fan setup. It has 4 predefined modes to choose from with further customization possible if desired. Silent mode literally turns off all fans except the CPU fan, which it turns down considerably and the entire rig is dead quiet. Standard mode is a step up but still extremely quiet, even when sitting only 2-3 feet away. When on the other side of the room playing games on the TV, I don't hear it at all. The other two settings include turbo (around 1500 rpm) and full power. When all fans are running at top speed (about 2700-2800 rpm), it is extremely loud. Turbo is tolerable. The sweet spot is around 900rpm, which is enough to keep an EVGA GTX 980 Ti under 60 degrees while gaming and keeps my i7-4790k under 40 degrees, even under load. The result is a very stable, quiet and cool rig. I haven't found anything that can cause this system to break a sweat and I attribute it largely to these fans.I am so very pleased with these fans, I can't say enough good things about them. They are roughly twice as expensive as other popular fans, but I'd much rather take the cool, quiet performance of Noctua fans than have fancy loud LED fans in my rig. I'll definitely be picking up more Noctua's when I build my husband's rig next month.