Seems a little revealing that they tout the clearance and not the difference in efficiency.
The people demanding black versions of their fans for their color matched builds already know they’re the best fans in their class.
Granted, there may be other places in which the molding precision may matter, which would make this an impractical solution.
Noctua talks about it on this page: https://www.noctua.at/en/expertise/tech/sterroxr-liquid-crys...
Even if it is the case, and not simple an omission to focus the narrative, does it matter? Case fans pull what 4 watts? 5 watts? Who cares if it pulls 200 milliwatts more than a competitor when it's cooling a GPU and CPU that consume more than a hundred times what it can consume
Yes, exactly. The high precision is marketing, not something needed in the product.
FWIW, in my setup (10th gen i5, RTX 5070 Ti in an old Define R3 case), the 12 cm Noctua G2 fans run quieter and have a much less obnoxious noise than the old P/F series, which wipe the floor with the Arctic fan I bought for a computer that lives in the basement and sounds like it's about to take off.
A lot of Noctua sales come from their brand value. People put Noctua fans into their gaming PC's, use headphones while gaming on them, and then turn off the PC. You don't really need the most silent fan for that, but people buy them anyway for the looks & premium quality.
I do love Noctua's coolers though, I appreciate the well thought design, manuals and free upgrade kits when you upgrade your system to a new socket type. But for case fans I'll jut buy Arctic and save money, except for things like server systems that run 24/7 in my bedroom where noise and durability are top priority.
... which is why I only have a few of them, rather than replacing the fans in everything I own. But for the things that need them, there's just nothing else as good.
This is an enthusiast product, as evidenced by the premise that you care about color-coordinating the inside of your computer.
They do have the most insane pricing. I could see myself buying some in the 15€ range but not 35€.
They go above and beyond.
I thought the primary gain in efficiency came from the large blades, with the blade shape the next most important factor. Gaps between the blade and housing feels like a single-digit percent effect.
That's really high. Like usually they are 100-150mA (so sub 2W) Lots of controllers would be 1A max.
The tolerances are for noise mostly. I'd consider the noise (and longevity) the single most important part of fans (else most fans can spin close to 3k rpm and cool)
Transcoding multiple video streams, running a VM and running various other tasks, mine rarely passes 10, and is currently sitting at 7 (only 2 transcodes at this time).
It’s 30 day average is 5.
One is heat, heat is not great, it puts more stress on components, mechanical and electrical, reducing longevity.
Another, maybe more important is noise. The power that goes into making noise is power that is wasted, noise is inefficiency, and reducing noise is an efficiency problem.
I run dual 36w Delta fans at 100% in my computer case. I use the outflow as positive pressure forced exhaust for my enclosed CO2 laser, which itself has an ultra-weak venting fan.
It isn't that loud. A simple no box does the trick.