The NF-S12B is a next generation quiet fan featuring Noctua’s advanced SCD2 technology as well as a new blade geometry with Beveled Blade Tips that improves its predecessor’s airflow efficiency by up to 10%. Topped off with Noctua’s time-tested SSO-Bearing, 6 years warranty and versatile 1200/900/600 rpm speed settings, the NF-S12B FLX is looking like it will be a premium quality fan that offers full flexibility in quiet to ultra-quiet case cooling depending on what fan speed you choose. Now let’s have a look at the NF-S12B.
Provided By: Noctua
Price: $24.99
Closer Look:
The fan comes in a nice box with a window for you to see the fan. On the back of the box it opens up and there are some nice illustrations of the fan and its design.
In the box we can see the fan, rubber mounts, 3-4 pin power adapters, mount screws, and the low noise adapters. The low noise adapters are basically inline resisters that cut the voltage for the different settings, from stock 1200rpm 18.1dB(a) to the 900RPM 10.6 dB(a) Low Noise or 600RPM 6.2 dB(a) Ultra Low Noise settings.
The fan its self is a 7 blade design with an interesting tip design. It’s this tip that changed from the S12 to the S12B. In the design of their fans, Noctua says that the three aerodynamic parameters of airflow, pressure and noise play a major role. The proper mix of the three for the given application resulted in the S12 and P12 series.
Features & Specifications:
The NF-S12B sports a further refined version of the original NF-S12’s Straight-Blade-Design that broke new ground in the realm of quiet PC cooling in 2006 and quickly became renowned for its excellent airflow/noise ratio, making the NF-S12 one of the last years’ most successful fans in the PC cooling market.
Building on the proven basis of the award-winning NF-S12’s impeller, the design goal for the NF-S12B was to further improve its predecessor’s much acclaimed airflow/noise ratio and to increase static pressure in order to allow for a broader range of application. These goals have been achieved by reducing the tip clearance at the leading edge and adding Bevelled Blade-Tips, a feature first introduced with the NF-B9 92mm fan.
Reducing the tip clearance by increasing the length of the blades allows for a bigger blade surface area as well as improvements both in airflow and static pressure. This measure though tends to come at the expense of increased noise emission due to critical rotor-stator interaction. For the NF-S12B, this issue has been dealt with by only increasing the length of the blades at the leading edges and adding a bevelled structure (Bevelled Blade-Tips). By increasing the distance between the impeller and the frame at the outermost areas of the fan where the impeller achieves the highest velocities, Bevelled Blade-Tips help to reduce critical rotor-stator interaction. As a result, the NF-S12B’s modification of the original NF-S12 blade geometry combines the benefits of a reduced tip clearance with those of a bigger distance between the tip of the trailing edge and stator parts, achieving up to 10% improvement both in airflow to noise and pressure to noise ratio.
At 1200rpm, the NF-S12B FLX produces 18% more airflow and 14% more static pressure than its predecessor at 1300rpm. Running at 100rpm slower, the NF-S12B is almost 1dB(A) quieter at the same time!
At 700rpm, the NF-S12B ULN produced 13% more airflow and 16% more static pressure than its predecessor. Despite of this impressive boost in performance, the NF-S12B runs just as quiet as the NF-S12!
Conclusion:
The Noctua NF-S12B FLX fan is insanely quiet while moving a fair amount of air; aside from the color, I have nothing bad to say about the fans. The NH-S12B FLX case fan is $24.99; this may seem high priced for a case fan for some, but worth every penny for the sound of silence.
