Noctua NF-P12 120mm 300-1300RPM PWM fan review longterm update

Nov 20, 2019

This is an update to my Review. I switched cases and temporarily had two PCs running. I forgot to switch the fans back after - so I had been using a Noctua Redux briefly. I didn't use it long enough to review it, it seemed to basically work the same as the normal model. Because of a surprise switch to a Fractal case that came with many low-RPM fans in it I never switched back to the NF-P12. But then a fan broke in a home server machine and I ended up putting it in there. It has been running 24/7 for months now without issue. Some notes:

• On this different motherboard even with everything set to the slowest/lowest PWM in the BIOS, the fan always spins up. I think my first motherboard had some bug or general lack of power there. (I didn't use extensions or adaptors on either).
• Out of interest to see if I could stall it I stopped it with my finger a few times. It did one out of five tries. But it never failed to spin during a power-up. I checked it a few weeks later and it always spins up even at the lowest setting.
• Its incredibly quiet. This other machine I put it in is beside the loudest UPS I've owned (APC Back-UPS office it's not that loud but it gives you an idea of how quiet this fan is). To my surprise it actually drowns the Noctua fan and the CPU fan usually. The Noctua replaced a decent Antec fan that you could hear enough to judge if the machine was on.
• Durable - it outlasted other fans I replaced around the same time that had similar usage patterns.