Noctua NF-S12A FLX 120mm Cooling Fan Review

 

Installation and Testing

 

Next is installation and it’s simple as I’m using it with my Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler which uses clips to mount the fan.

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The cooler is mounted on my Intel Core i7 2600K CPU on an Asus Z68 based board.

Noctua actually released three fans in the NF-S12 series and I will be comparing the NF-S12A FLX to the NF-S12A PWM fan as well as the popular NF-F12 PWM fan.

The NF-F12 PWM runs at 1500rpm top speed, while the NF-S12A PWM runs at 1200rpm and 900rpm with the low noise adapter in use. The NF-S12A FLX runs at 1200rpm, 900rpm with the low noise adapter and 700rpm with the ultra low noise adapter.

For testing I used Orthos Stress Prime to get load on the CPU and the ambient room temperature during testing was 24.5C (+/- .3C).

I tested the NF-S12A FLX fan using it just connected to the fan header of my motherboard and then with both of the adapters.

So here’s a nice chart for you showing the temperatures of the fans on the cooler:

 

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The idle temps are all fairly close, but at load and the FLX fan on full speed we see the NF-S12A FLX drops the temp by about two degrees, which is pretty good and could mean the difference between a successful overclock and not.

At full speed the S12A FLX only runs at 1200rpm which is fairly slow I think and it doesn’t product any more noise than any of the other fans I used for testing. I noticed no additional noise added to my system using the NF-S12A FLX at any speed.