Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM (120mm, Black)

I know you, because you're me. You have a shiny new radiator which came with one or more perfectly functional fans, but you're now wondering if you can get an extra two or three degrees of performance out of your machine. So you started looking into the wonderful world of fans. You now know that there are many types of fans and you figure that if you're gong to do this, you're going to do this right. So you want static pressure fans. Somehow you learned about Noctua: well-engineered, quiet fans that your favorite YouTubers rave about. They're ugly as sin, but you've come to appreciate their ugliness as a mark of exquisite Austrian quality. THESE fans are not THOSE fans. They're well-engineered, yes. But unlike their retail sisters, they come in a classy black color. And they certanly are not quiet at 3000 RPM. I agree with the guy below who said he could barely hear himself think. I have two of these mounted in push-pull on a Corsair H60 AIO radiator. Anything above 1800 is kind of annoying. Anything above 2000 RPM is obnoxious. At 3000 RPM my PC sounds like a like a Ferrarri, which is nice, but I can't imagine running them at full speed for any period of time. But let's be honest: you really shouldn't expect a static pressure fan at 3000 RPM to be "quiet." That said, at 1500 RPM the fans are pretty much silent -- comparable to the retail version. Austrian engineering wins again. Performance? They work as advertised. At full speed they move a lot of air. But if you've studied any thermodynamics you know heat transfer into moving air very quickly hits the law of diminishing returns. Put simply: more speed does not necessarily equal more heat transfer. At 1500 RPM it's about 1-2 degrees cooler than two stock fan at full speed (not bad) and is much quieter. There isn't much of a temperature improvement when ramping up to 2900 RPM, but it does get much louder (see above). So if you insist on buying these, you might as well run them at 1500 RPM. But on the other hand, if you're going to keep them below 1500 RPM at load then why bother with the server-grade iPPC version? Why not get the iPPC 2000 RPM version? Why not buy the retail version which is a couple bucks cheaper? You've already dug this far into a stack of Amazon reviews, so you're still seriously considering it. You know why and I know why. You're impressed by the numbers: THREE THOUSAND RPM. >100 CFMs. > 7 mm H2O of static pressure. 150K hour lifespan (that's 17 YEARS of continuous operation). And IP52. I'm not sure what that means but I suspect the fans will outlast the apocaylpse. Is it worth it? Probably not. But you want these fans for the same reason you installed the water cooler and for the same reason you kept adding to your overclock. You want every ounce of performance. You want every degree of coolness. You want to press your machine to the limits. You can't imagine a situation where you'd need this kind of airflow but you like knowing that it's available. You can use #6 32 1-1/4" screws to mount them to your radiator. Don't forget the washers. You're welcome. edit: Ladies and gentlemen, I am writing from the future - May 2020. The apocalypse has, in fact, come. (Perhaps it is worth mentioning that I am a resident physician, and during these trying times gaming gives me some relief.) Many parts of the machine have been upgraded in the months since my original review, but the fans remain. And they still work. Stay home. Save lives. Be sure to wash your hands. edit 2: it is now December 2025. In the years of since my original post I have upgraded my machine multiple times. Most notably my i5-4790K was replaced by a i7-9700K in late 2020. Most recently I have left the small-form-factor SUGO SG05 and migrated to a roomy Silverstone FARA R1. Of course, this means I was able to upgrade my aircooler to the new champ, the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Digital. Temperatures improved, but I was unsatisfied. Do you think I replaced the PA120's stock fans with my iPPC 3000s? YOU BETTER BELIEVE I DID. (Did you ever doubt?) With the iPPCs on the PA 120, idle temperatures are slightly above room temp (21 C), which is about five degrees cooler than stock. At full OCCT load, with fans running at full power, the CPU sits at 72 C - a full 10 C BETTER than the PA 120's stock fans. I remain impressed. However! Since 2018 I have gotten married and now share an office with my lovely bride. And loud fans are actually a significant concern. I will therefore be upgrading to NF-A12s at the earliest convenience. Hats off to Noctua for an excellent product that continues to impress. I stand by my original review. If you want MAXIMUM POWER, these fans will give it.

I have a high-end Workstation (purchased in 2020) that has a Threadripper 3960x, 3080 FE GPU, m.2 SSD expander and 1600W power supply. When I bought the system, I really didn't consider the fans/ cooling because the cooling for the CPU was a ENERMAX solution which came with fans as well as the case a Lian Li Mesh Cool II and used those. This was the first desktop I've had since early 2000's and had been using laptops (workstations) for the past 8 years +/- since I graduated college/ grad school. Last week the ENERMAX cooler gave signs it was dying, had the pump ramped up to max and all fans to max and my CPU was still hot at 70-90C... Because I remember the attendant at Micro Center saying ENERMAX AIO had issues, but it was the only cooling solution in store that would be adequate with the CPU, I rolled the dice. It lasted me 3 yrs, I honesty thought it would have died earlier, so I wasn't caught off guard completely. So I decided to go all out with air coolers and found that the best was a Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3, Premium-Grade CPU Cooler for AMD sTRX4/TR4/SP3 (140mm, Brown) which brought me to research the Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM (120mm, Black) for the case as I wanted new and better ones that had no RGB. I considered the NF-F12 over the other Noctua alternatives for the sheer power, 3000 RPM and the volume of air it pushed just was un matched. I rather have the power and not needed than need it and not have it. So my biggest concern was that to keep all this hot hardware cool, all fans would have to run at high speeds and this would mean noise. To my delight after installing them, the entire system runs at 40C and below and the noise is not an issue as I can run these at 1k RPM and no real noise. I have 6 of these fans, 3 at the front (push-config - 800-1200 RPM +-300), 2 on top (push-config- 800-1200 RPM +-300) and 1 at the back (pull-config - 700-1000 RPM +-300) as well as having the NH-U14S with a 2x fans push-pull config 1500/1200 RPM. I probably get temps even further down if I tweak it further. But as it is... I'm very happy with the results in terms of both performance and noise levels. Yes if you run these at full 3000 RPM they are loud (not as bad as I feared either, but obviously loud) but the volume of air is also incredible. One little difference is because these are "industrial" the fans only come with 4 screws and that's it. I believe it was a good investment, specially because this machine is my daily driver for work (I'm a Data Scientist & Developer for SAS solutions). I got reliability and simplicity of air cooling as well as the brute power of massive air-flow if I need. I will definitely consider using Noctua cooling solutions on my next build when I decide to upgrade this machine sometime in the next couple of years.

A bit expensive, unfortunately, but worth every cent — 6 years of manufacturer warranty, outstanding static pressure and airflow, truly the elite of fans. Sadly, many people don’t like it because it’s not “RGB,” but it’s a champion.

This fan moves a ton of air and delivers excellent performance, especially at 50% where it’s much quieter but still very effective. At 100% it gets pretty loud, but that’s expected for something this powerful. Overall, great quality and performance from Noctua as usual.

Used two of these on a deshrouded 3090 to help with the Australian summer - shockingly, very effective. Apex Legends running at 60C under load and its not even THAT deafening! Despite their reputation, these fans are actually fairly quiet until 65-70 odd percent load - after that, you begin to enter the jet take off zone.

built quality is great.

Really loud! If you adjust the fan curve...it works perfectly!