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

These are my initial impressions; note added at the end after almost daily use for two years.

I like this fan so far. It's much quieter than my stock ones and, unlike some other "regular" SPL ones I tried, this one is close to impossible to hear. I bought it off amazon for about $20 NF-P12 @ Amazon.ca.

  • The first chassis fan header I tried wouldn't even start the fan sometimes. It would if I spun it with my finger though. I switched to another and it was fine. This may be a function of how little power it uses at low RPM?
  • For the first week (maybe a bit longer) at low speed it made a quiet clicking noise. This went away completely. The first day I was pissed because of this and going to return it.
  • At some speeds between low to mid it seems loud, like it shouldn't have come on. Sometimes it's a little burst i.e. as soon as a compiler starts, then it slows down. I think this may be controlled by my motherboard as the CPU fan does the same thing. Apparently a windows program that came with my mobo will let you tune it Gigabyte system tweaking just need to find out how to do it on linux
  • In a case with a moderately loud CPU fan and a single 7200rpm 2.5" disc I never hear this Noctua one at all.
  • Over time the CPU/PSU fans always eclipse this one (2 years later still using it)