Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm
Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown)
Highly optimised P/Q curve for all applications
The NF-A12x25’s sophisticated aerodynamic design allows for a pressure to airflow (P/Q) curve that is extremely strong in the critical mid-section. This means that the NF-A12x25 offers excellent performance in both static pressure demanding and airflow demanding applications.
 |  |  |  | |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connector | 4-pin PWM | 3-pin | 3-pin | 4-pin PWM | 3-pin | 4-pin PWM |
| Voltage | 12 V | 12 V | 12 V | 5 V | 5 V | 12 V |
| RPM | Max: 2000 / Min: 450 | 2000 | 1200 | Max: 1900 / Min: 450 | 1900 | Max: 2000 / Min: 450 |
| RPM with L.N.A. | 1700 | 1700 | 900 | – | – | – |
| RPM with U.L.N.A. | – | 1350 | – | – | – | – |
| Acoustical Noise | 22,6 dB(A) | 22,6 dB(A) | 12,1 dB(A) | 21,4 dB(A) | 21,4 dB(A) | 22,6 dB(A) |
| Acoustical Noise with L.N.A. | 18,8 dB(A) | 18,8 dB(A) | 7,6 dB(A) | – | – | – |
| Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A. | – | 14,2 dB(A) | – | – | – | – |
| Size | 120x120x25 | 120x120x25 | 120x120x25 | 120x120x25 | 120x120x25 | 120x120x25 |
| Colour | Brown & Beige | Brown & Beige | Brown & Beige | Brown & Beige | Brown & Beige | Black with swappable coloured anti-vibration pads |
| Weight: | 360 g |
| Dimensions: | 12 x 12 x 2.5 cm; 360 Grams |
| Brand: | Noctua |
| Model: | NF-A12x25 PWM |
| Colour: | Brown |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | NOCTUA |
| Dimensions: | 12 x 12 x 2.5 cm; 360 Grams |
Had 2 cheap fans before this that ended up making loud grinding noises.
Decided to just replace them with these and very happy with these fans, definitely a top pick if you are willing to spend a bit extra.
Bought this to use as intake fan. Running stock cooler on 3600x. 3 fans at front plus this intake that’s it and temps are great and this fan is superb. Absolutely whisper quiet cant hear a thing , beautiful performance and using the silent adapter which drops max down to 1700rpm. Build quality is best I have seen , lovely packaging and all around just a wonderful product. 28 might be expensive for a fan but this is definitely a case of you get what you pay for. 10/10
These ugly little fans have so much power that it becomes a flex to have them ruining the internal aesthetics of your PC. They can run quietly and automatically ramp up when you need that extra cooling. I bought 2 (intake and outtake) and my components feel in safe, cold hands.
As always noctua products are great would gey more if for they weren’t on average 30/35 each
Great fan , took my gpu temps down 5degrees when placed in the front of my pc replacing a generic fan of the same size.
Only thing I will say is the colour is a bit weird
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t magic. But a finely tuned PWM curve on one of these will see absolutely silent running at low temps and decent airflow at high. The greatest fan I’ve used and I bought 4 of them in the end.
I can run all 4 at a decent speed without even being able to hear them.
I installed three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans in my home server as an intake. These fans are incredibly quiet and have significantly lowered the temperatures inside the server.
Even under heavy load, the Noctua NF-A12x25 fans operate quietly and reliably.
While the color scheme may not be to everyone’s taste, the performance of these fans is simply outstanding. I have noticed a significant reduction in noise and temperature inside my server since installing them.
I would highly recommend the Noctua NF-A12x25 fans to anyone looking to improve their server’s or PC’s cooling performance. The quiet operation and impressive airflow make them an essential addition to any server setup.
That’s it it’s a god tier fan. I didn’t want to put it in my computer because it’s made to such a high quality that it felt so nice to hold.
But seriously, it moves a heap of air for the speed and is very forgiving with noise. Don’t expect it to be silent at full speed, but it is a noise you can deal with for sure. Love that fact you get so many accessories with it by default. The mounting rubber “screws” are a breeze to use and the additional cables are so useful. Especially the low noise cable that caps the speed at 1700rpm. This speed is optimal for the amount of air it moves to the amount of noise it produces. I used this fan to replace a noise OEM fan in a Dell T320 server, and 1700rpm with this Noctua fan keeps everything equally cool at half the volume.
This is without a doubt the best quality PC fan I have ever owned/used in my gaming PC case. It is so quiet I can hardly hear it unless I get up close to the case, and even then it is super quiet. It also has 9 blades instead of the more usual 7 or less, it is made from Sterrox which is a liquid crystal polymer which is stronger and more stable than ABS and other plastics normally used for this sort of thing. I know the price is a little higher than other fans but there is no doubt in my mind that this is totally worth it. If you want the best for your pc gaming rig then this IS the one to get if you can afford that little extra.
Used new Corsair LED fans in a PC build – 2 of the 6 fans ‘buzzed or high pitch vibes’ after a few months disappointing loud a high-cost PC build spoiled by fan vibe noises,
– removed the 2 Corsair fans that were annoying.
installed in their place 2x Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM and wow what a huge difference!
forgot how powerful and whisper quite they are at 1700rpm you can just hear them powerfully pushing air,
reduce this to 1500rpm and complete silence! (This btw not at the expense of a powerful air current
the Noctua fans push out a noticeably strong air flow that’s easily stronger than the Corsair fans at the same rpm .. but zero noise
Noctua fans for me are the best money can buy, the build quality is outstanding which reflects their premium price
I bought this to replace a noisy cooler fan that came part of an AIO kit.
The fan comes with rubber gromits and dampening material along with a noise reducer and splitter cables.
It works great, moves a lot of air and is very quiet.
Great fans and dropped my temps as can be seen from the pic. Fitted to a EK 360×60 XE rad, and have dropped my temps idle and gaming. Very nice fans.
These fans you can tell are very well made, they are very quiet and they deliver a lot of cooling, i use Noctua fans on every build i do for that very reason.
I would love to see them do an rgb fan one day as i love rgb but that should tell you how much i value Noctua fans that i would sacrifice rgb for them. I have the NHD12 air cooler for my CPU as well which in my opinion is still the best you can buy even though it is huge.
If noise is why you are here don’t forget to enter bios and make sure fans are set to pwm not dc and also install fans with the rubber mounts rather than screws. These fans do not whine so you will be hard pressed to hear them.
The picture above shows them along side 2 other noctua fans i already had, still a build in progress but this is in a d7000 corsair case and they are used for a side vent, the rest of my fans are noctua 140mm fans
The build quality is the first thing that hits you. Nice and heavy. Robust. Even with 9 9f them turned up,its not a nasty server room sounding noise. Strong static pressure means you have no temp changes when using filters infront of the fans. Customer support is great directly from Noctua. These fans even hold their value if you need to down size or change some out.
Just embrace the brow
Delivery came quickly. Fans box was nice and pretty thick so would be hard for the fan to get damaged in delivery.
Good Quality fans with some good weight to them so not cheap plastic. install was super easy and looks great in my case. Even at full speed the noise is acceptable would recommend
Colour isn’t for everyone, they do make then in black, but the brown/beige seems to be their original design.
But the noise levels, or rather lack of, and the fans ability to cool the case are fab.
Honestly never thought a PC fan could feel so well made! I’ve had a Zalman z11 case for about 10 years and only now the fans were starting to get noisy (fair play to Zalman). I was going down the route of looking for another case but after much deliberation I thought sod it and went down the route of upgrading the fans.
I bought 3 x 120mm’s and 2 x 80mm’s. I had to cut away one of the inside walls of the case with a dremel to get the right hand fan to fit due to it being thicker than the stock Zalman fan, but it was definitely worth it.
With how much mileage I got out of the Zalman fans I honestly think I’ll be running these Noctua fans for ever.
Do yourself and your tower a favour and get these, if you end up disappointed that’s more an issue with you and not the fan 😀
I wanted to buy some fans for my new RTX 3080Ti graphics card. The stock radiator fans on my Hybrid card were atrociously loud so I needed something which would push enough air whilst being very quiet.
I decided to get these due to previous experience with Noctua fans. I overlooked the expense as I know Noctua fans are always good quality and have impressed me in the past. Installing them was easy, and now my RTX 3080Ti has quieter fans at a set speed. Letting the card ramp up the fans they still get fairly loud so a custom curve has to be set up. I am not sure whether the value matches the performance if anything I am not really impressed but they definitely do the job. These have nothing on my old Gentle Typhoons.
The product is flawless, as other people have said.
One thing to watch out for though is returned products from Amazon. I bought 2x fans (sold and dispatched from Amazon), and received opened boxes. One was a corsair fan, and the other had a second watercooling gasket (instead of the 4 corner gaskets) and a corsair y-cable. The previous buyer clearly swapped their old fans and pulled a return scam. Amazon was negligent in checking their returns so they didnt catch this.
Luckily, the return process is quick and easy so I re-bought the fans (sold by Noctua, dispatched by Amazon) and they came with everything and were brand new
After experiencing very loud noise form OEM fans mounted in Dell Alienware Aurora Ryzen (super loud at full load e.g. Lightroom Export) and reviewing few forums I decided to give a try and replace both of my fans, front one and radiator one with Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM.
After 30-45 min (including internal cleaning) and switching PC on for a while I suspected that something went wrong and there is no power. It was soooo quiet. No fan noise at all. Additionally, CPU temperature dropped by >20C and >10C at idle and full load respectively.
Some users reported BIOS fan errors with Alienware and Noctua fans . In my case no BIOS errors whatsoever.
I originally disregarded fans as an unimportant part of my setup, and opted for the absolute cheapest ones I could find. I couldn’t stand the very loud noise they created, and so I took a gamble and went right to the other end of the spectrum. Of course, it cannot be denied that these fans are pricey, but they are absolutely exceptional.
Unlike many people, my PC sits underneath my desk, and with 3(!) of these in my system they are effectively inaudible in an virtually silent room at 45% load (that’s 1000 rpm each). I have various preset fan speed configurations, and under the highest performance setting, where each fan is running at 1500 rpm, they are still quiet, in my opinion. At full speed, they are loud (not louder than the competition, my point is simply that they aren’t absolutely miraculous, they do still get loud sometimes), but due to their incredible performance you should never need to put them at full speed. They come in some of the nicest packaging I’ve seen in a while, with all the accessories you could need, and just generally feel very premium.
Whether they are right for you or not depends on your priorities, as they are expensive, and other fans at considerably lower price points do a sufficient job. However, I like the peace of mind of knowing that my PC is being kept nice and cool and healthy, and for that these fans do a brilliant job. Them being whisper quiet is also, of course, a great bonus. Would highly recommend.
First things first, yes its expensive for one Fan.
Secondly, yes the color puts you off. And if you have a windowed case. Unless you like such colors, get the black versions cause your colors will always clash on the brown beige that these comes with.
Now for the main bit. Yep expensive but hot daummm son. This fan is as premium as it can get and is very advance vs the competition.
The box alone has 2 flappable sides secured by 2 velcros. Insane right?
The fan also comes with other accessories to suit your needs.
Overal the fan is quiet. And moves massive air.
I have it installed on my Scythe Big Shuriken 3 rev3 and dropped the temperatures significantly without the horrendous noise. Pn an SFF build.
Overall, if you do not mind the color. Its the best fan you can ever get.
Or wait for black version of these sexy X25 fans.
These fans are really something special. I now have four in my system. Two handling the exit airflow from my NZXT H500 case, and two on my NH-D15 Chromax, which cools my 3900x. Each of them is as silent as a fan can possibly be. There’s no actual “fan” noise – just the sound of air moving, and even that is completely imperceptible unless I subject the system to very heavy workloads such benchmarks or encoding within handbrake, in which case there’s a gentle “whoosh” sound but no buzzing or clicking or vibration.
It’s clear that a lot of consideration and engineering has been put into these fans, and it shows.
I have no criticisms at all. Yes, they are expensive, but they are worth it. If silence is a goal then it isn’t going to come at a low price.
For the future, I hope that Noctua are able to produce the fans in other colours and sizes. I have some requirements for fans in black and in 140mm, but I am reluctant to buy “normal” fans after using these.
I have a Fractal Design Define C TG case. It comes with 2X Fractal design X2 GP-12 fans. I put them both at the front of the case as intake and bought a Be Quiet fan for exhaust at the rear.
In the recent hot weather and while playing extended game sessions I found my GPU and CPU getting extremely hot.
I performed the following personal test
Room temp 23.2c (measured with a basic digital thermometer) at the side of the case.
I ran Folding at home for 30mins which uses both CPU and GPU at the same time.
With the X2 GP-12
CPU 78C (read from Ryzen Master software)
GPU 71C
Junction Temp 87C (I’m not sure what this is but it’s taken from Radeon software, I assume memory).
With Noctua NF-A12x25
Room temp 23.6c (0.3c higher than before)
CPU 74C
GPU 69C
Junction temp 85C
Also I didn’t realise that the X2-GP12 fans are not PWM so I believe they were running at 100%.
Even putting my hand in front of these Noctua fans you can feel a huge difference. They also come with handy cables, one to make them silent (basically stops them from running at higher speeds), and a double fan connector, so I bought 2 of these fans I was able to use that one cable and connect them both to that and then just connect that cable to one slot on my motherboard.
They are a bit more noisy than the X2-GP12 however when playing games the GPU fans are a lot louder.
I was also thinking would it be better to buy 2x 140mm fans for better cooling and sound. It’s a shame these aren’t available in 140mm (yet) or black (yet).
i got this for my radiator for my liquid cooled GPU and it worked wonders right from the start i noticed a 5c difference when it idle from the EVEA fans that came with the GPU. and it a lot quieter on full speed to the stock fan. i am slowly upgrading all my fans to noctua one every few weeks i buy a new fan as it is pricey but for what you get is about right for the price there are loads of things extra in the box that is in the description. people complain about the colour of it the brown but i dont mind it as shows people what fan it is as am not in to the full on RGB just have the case flashing red that is it i dont like the fans with RGB on it so this is a must buy if you dont care about RGB.
Just built my first PC where I decided to buy the bits I wanted (and within reason, f the cost) – so Noctua fans (and as a traditionalist, only brown ones will do)
I bought one A12x25 for the front to go with my NH-D15 on the CPU.
Had a slight issue with the NH-D15 as one of the CPU fans wouldn’t fit over the sockets on the mobo, but then after a bit of googling realized I could use another A12x25 instead – worked perfectly with the same mounting clips.
It’s a tiny case, I’ve not even tried to optimize anything – but all cores on 3900X stay over 4.1Ghz on full load and the fans just about break to an audible 50% purr.
Noctua packaging, accessories & instructions are faultless as always. Genuinely couldn’t ask for more and almost feels like a privilege to be able to buy something so beautifully made.
I’m reviewing these more in a void as even noctua’s other offerings are more value for the money; the price of these is high.
I wouldn’t recommend, or use, these as the go to as they are expensive and some applications may be better with a different fan; the airflow noctua’s might push more air in an open scenario, and the P-12s have more static pressure per RPM (though on my radiators the A12x25s aren’t worse per RPM, and also go to a higher rpm).
The A12x25s really seem, and are marketed as, a middle ground fantbst does everything well. With that, the sound signature is a lower pitch than the noctua P12s and they are generally easier to tune out at higher rpms. I idle these at 1000 rpm and they don’t interfere with listening to music quietly.
“Presentation” would be a 5/5: The box, accessories, feel of the box and fan, and the initial woosh of air just feels rewarding. However, that in turn drives the price up, packaging materials, potential waste (you probably won’t use all the accessories, especially if you buy multiple), and slow unboxing (you can’t just rip the box apart and grab the fan like in the redux lineup) make it feel like noctua tried too hard and don’t mind being wasteful.
I bought the standard Noctua’s previously, which is very well made and performed great. The only issue is that it can get loud if you run high revs. But with the low noise adapter, it’s nicely quiet but at the cost of thermal performance.
The Premium ones cost a lot more, and I can wholeheartedly say the extra price is well worth it in immediate results. They are attached to my GPU, the static air pressure blowing into the heatsink. Mounting required the Y cable which is conveniently given in the box (a REALLY extra nice quality box by the way. It’s prestige as hell in presentation, no compromises by Noctua not even for a single fan.) I also thought to use the low noise adapter attaching it to a 4 pina adapter directly to the GPU. The fans max out at 1450rpm with the low noise adapter.
So I set the speed at a single 100% because it makes no noise. It is a soothing hum if you tried to hear it. A lovely feeling to benchmark the card at the highest possible settings and no sudden fan ramping up and down, just a whisper-quiet hum. The acoustics are wonderfully developed with a lot of thought into its design. Some fans might be quiet in decibel levels, but they could also hum a tone that might not be particularly pleasant. The Noctua’s fan, when you can hear it, it has a sort of acoustical design language that only produces a quiet, somewhat relaxing and soothing hum, like smoothed brown noise but without much low-end frequency, kinda like a summer light breeze as corny as that sounds it’s the best way to describe it. This is at maximum speed with low noise adapter.
Thermals are as expectedly outstanding. Where the blower cooler would run at 40-50 idling, 70 degrees gaming, throttle at 84 degrees and pushes 90c stress testing. Two Noctua’s has changed that to
IDLE: 32c
Average: 38c
Intensive Gaming: just about 55c on average
Stress testing: Just about touches 68c
Note that this is with the low noise adapter, which specifically restricts 25% of your fan speed. On a GTX1080ti FE, this is fantastic. I know these temps might be somewhat normal in stock fan cooling GPUs, but they cannot do it in near silence like this.
Downside: I spent 50 on two fans and 55 on the heatsink. So it’s a 105 modification to what was supposed to be a 345 auctioned used GPU. Some could argue the total price and the performance it produces is well within its value.
After a couple of weeks of internal struggle I decided to put down 80 for a set of 3 fans and give them a go. Figured hey its amazon I can always send them back if they don’t blow my socks off.
All I can say is if you like silence these are the one. I upgraded from 3 ML120 pros and I still can’t find my socks 1 month on. The ML pros were only silent at about 800-900 rpm and anything above 1400 was pretty awful. With these you get the same noise levels of 900rpm ml pros at about 1300-1400 rpm. Even running them at max although audible is completely fine due to the tone and pitch of the hum they make.
If your running a water cooled build I highly recommend these for your radiators. Of all my recent upgrades (2080ti/8700k etc) this is the purchase I’ve been most impressed by. If noise level matters to you give them a go!
i read up about these particular fans and every verdict was the same (bloody brilliant) i took the plunge and ordered 6, they arrived promptly as ever and boy i want dissapointed i can belive the airflow they produce at the noise level they are at. It boggles my mind at 1500rpm they are slient but more a enormous amount of air.
i proceeded to attach 3 of them to a test radiator a ek xe 60mm, 360mm unit and at 1000 -2000 rpm with these fans the airflow was extremily good, to the point i could feel the exaust around a foot a way from the rad, thats no mean feet as i have corsair ml 120 rgb’s and at 1500rpm there is no exaust conducting the same test, plus the corsair fans are horribly loud compared to the noctua’s.
yes they are expensive but if you want the best airflow for watercooling rads especially thick ones noctua wins hands down, they move a tremendus amount of air and the noise they produce is so little its hard to describle, trust me they are really quiet 🙂
I’m on my fourth pc build now, and the Cryorig Lumni cpu cooler, although very good, was being let down by the factory installed fan. Simply put, the Cryorig fan had developed a very irritating undulating whine, that was at such a frequency range as to be heard even when wearing headphones – even at speeds varying from 800rpm – 1000rpm. Any faster and it would drone.
Now the Noctua seen in the pictures runs at 1300rpm and is whisper quiet, and for someone who loves a quiet pc when browsing, gaming or working on tee shirt designs, this is sheer heaven. Asides from the aesthetic aspect of colour clash, I’m more than happy to compromise. This review is being written on the same day of delivery and installation (which is the following day from placing my order – thumbs up there) so I have yet to run this on full load during online gaming, or designing and music playing. But a quick check on Core Temp as I write this shows it running at 31 deg C. So very happy.
In conclusion, from my own personal perspective, if you can handle the odd colour scheme buy without hesitation is you want near silent performance combined with effective and efficient cooling. A great purchase and worth the price.
Well, that’s Noctua, what really to say? Totally worth its asking price.
Packaging is nicely designed and protects inside nicely while giving a lot of information about product.
Included accessories are plentiful, you receive fewer accessories with some cases or motherboards.
Fan itself is gorgeous. Blades are extremely well balanced, there are virtually no vibrations from this fan throught entire operating range, this fan doesn’t really need anti-vibration gaskets/mounts as it doesn’t create any vibration, yet both of these are included into the box.
Noise is awesome. Below about 900-1000 RPM you can’t hear this fan spinning at all from 10cm (and this is in system where all other fans are stopped and no only SSDs are installed). At the maximum RPM (2050 on my sample, 1650 with included ULN adapter) you can obviously hear that small tornado howling but bearing remains dead silent throught entire operating range.
Cooling performance is exceptional. This fan beats all other 120mm fans out of the water in temrs on performance while staying way more silent.
It’s the only noctua fan I’ve ever had issues with, but a significant issue at that. Infact its the first fan I’ve had “burn out” on me.
UPDATE: The replacement I received is still going strong 2 years on, so definitely got a dud the first time around. This single fan manages to cool a system consisting of a GTX 1060 and i5 9400f w/ L9i cooler. This is in a Lian-Li TU100B, which is smaller than most shoeboxes, whilst also keeping the system extremely silent even under load.
This is with the noctua set as the intake, but I can imagine swapping it to an exhaust (only 1 fan mount in this case) would remove even more heat at the expense of more dust.
CPU averages 70c, GPU maxes at around 75c. Can’t ask for any more than this. The previous S12B was good but a lot louder.
Comparison:
1) EK Varder 120mm. Good static pressure. Quite noisy. Terrible quality control. (1 fan defective out of 7 ordered. Fans do not rotate on axis “level” – easily visible).
2) Noiseblocker eLoop 120mm. Fairly weak static pressure. Fairly quiet. Excellent quality. (Note you should only use these in “push” not “pull” against a radiator, because of the design).
3) Corsair ML140 140mm. Very good static pressure. Fairly quiet. Good quality. Overall a good product.
4) Noctua NF-A12x25. Excellent static pressure (better than the very good ML140). Excellent silence (quietest of all at same each rpm). Excellent quality. 7 fans ordered. None defective. Great build quality and consistency.
The only problem with the NF-A12x25 is the price. I can get 2 ML140 for the price of one of the Noctua fans. I wish Noctua would sell the NF-A12x25 at a cheaper price without the bundled accessories, most / all of which are pretty useless to me and immediately get thrown into a spares box.
Note on my system: Currently I have 4x NF-A12x25 against one 480mm radiator. 4x ML140 against a 560mm radiator and 3x NF-A12x25 used as case intake fans. I am an experienced custom PC modder / builder.
I can’t wait for NF-A14 fans to get updated to Sterrox standards. When they get released (maybe 2019) I will retire the ML140.