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.

I love these fans! I was hesitant to order them because of some reviewers saying they're horribly loud and others saying they were quiet. I was willing to take the risk and bet on the fact that those complaining they were too loud just didn't take any time to configure them, and I am so glad I did! I installed 4 of these 140mm fans and 3 120mm in my new rig and I absolutely love them. I have 2 140's as front intake, a 140 as rear exhaust, a 140 as bottom intake next to PSU, 2 120's on my H100i radiator and a third 120 next to the radiator as exhaust. They all come with rubber brackets and I installed all but the radiator fans with Cosmos rubber rivets. Super easy! They all come with rubber sleeved cables that aren't too short and aren't too long. I did have to run a y-splitter for my two front fans because I ran out of pins on my motherboard, and it was enough of an extension to help them make it across the huge case to get them plugged in. If you have a large case and intend to put these near the front of your chassis, you will most definitely need extensions so plan ahead! I'd rather have to extend one set of fans than have 7 fans with super long cables cluttering things up. After the quick and easy installation, I powered everything on and I was shocked at how loud it was. It was loud enough that my 10 year old and I had to raise our voices to hear each other clearly when sitting 4-5 feet away. HOWEVER, using ASUS' UEFI on the Maximus VII Hero motherboard, I was able to use the built in Qfan to quiet them down enough to the point that I could tolerate sitting near it while I installed the OS. Once Windows was installed, I installed AI Suite (included with my motherboard, you may need to locate another fan controller if you don't have an ASUS board) and went into fan setup. It has 4 predefined modes to choose from with further customization possible if desired. Silent mode literally turns off all fans except the CPU fan, which it turns down considerably and the entire rig is dead quiet. Standard mode is a step up but still extremely quiet, even when sitting only 2-3 feet away. When on the other side of the room playing games on the TV, I don't hear it at all. The other two settings include turbo (around 1500 rpm) and full power. When all fans are running at top speed (about 2700-2800 rpm), it is extremely loud. Turbo is tolerable. The sweet spot is around 900rpm, which is enough to keep an EVGA GTX 980 Ti under 60 degrees while gaming and keeps my i7-4790k under 40 degrees, even under load. The result is a very stable, quiet and cool rig. I haven't found anything that can cause this system to break a sweat and I attribute it largely to these fans. I am so very pleased with these fans, I can't say enough good things about them. They are roughly twice as expensive as other popular fans, but I'd much rather take the cool, quiet performance of Noctua fans than have fancy loud LED fans in my rig. I'll definitely be picking up more Noctua's when I build my husband's rig next month.

These things, these absolute units of fans, can and have turned any sort of CPU cooler into close to a noctua brand cooler. Are they noisy? Not really, only just louder than a box fan on low when they go to MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE! For some, that's too loud. For me? I want my PC to scream the battle cry of its people as it goes into the data stream. And scream it does. These fans, compared to the fans I've had before, keep my CPU 7 degrees cooler on average, and I can only imagine that with a full set mounted on the case, the temps would drop further as fresh, cool air is forced into the case at rates only a mad man would have dreamed of on a personal computer. Yet, as she roars, I know that above all else, my CPU is cool. Noctua, the only thing I could ever ask of you is to do high flow GPU fans, or your own GPU cooling block. That'd just be swell.

Even though they're about as loud as a leaf blower (yeah, that's a tiny exaggeration), yes, they are loud when on high speed. But I have been using these fans for a few years now, and when they normally sell on their website for $54 a fan, I was like, how could I pass up this deal at $32? Also, they are hard to find because they are always sold out. So when I saw these here, I just knew I had to get them as fast as possible, even though I don't need them right now, and I always like to have some backup for my other seven fans in total just in case one or two goes out. I will have my favorite fans at my disposal. These are some great fans. They perform well. They might be expensive, but they can put out some leaf blower air, enough to blow your hair back. These are very, very highly recommended..

Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM (120mm, Black). After previous excellent experience with 2000 RPM Industrial fans from Noctua, I purchased two of these for bottom mounting on the Lian Li 011 dynamic case. Even with the bottom magnetic mesh dust cover installed in the case, these two fans crank air easily through the system. The 4 pins connected directly to the MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC motherboards with no issue. Fan PWM controls in the motherboard's bios allowed precise control of the fans at various temps. The fans are typically less than 25 RPM apart from each other at the same settings (e.g. 50% at 50C). System reads fan max RPM at 2934 and 2909 at 100% power. Fan noise starts becoming noticeable in the Lian Li case at around 1600 RPM and quite loud at 2000 and above. These are MUCH louder than the 2000 RPM versions of these fans. The Noctua website shows plenty of details with airflow and noise levels. At max RPM, these fans are MUCH louder than the Geforce RTX 2080ti blower fan, which was previously the loudest component in the case. At 1000 RPM and less, these still move a good amount of air without any noise; a good fan profile will help keep your PC quiet, if used as a case fan. I could also see these being used as an All-In-One water cooler fan replacement/upgrade. I already use the 2000 RPM version for a 120mm AIO Cooler fan replacement. I would have considered using the 3000 RPM version if it was available at the time. Overall quality of the fan is impressive. Silicon padded corners ensure there won't be any rattling or vibrations. The 4 included mounting screws fit tightly in the holes. The fan cable is covered in a braided material black wrap which makes it easy to manage or hide; it even looks good if you are not trying to hide the cable. I expect this fan will outlive the computer's 240mm Cooler Master AIO fans, the Apevia case fans, and all components of the generic power supply. At $25.95 USD, if I don't replace these fans in 9 years, I will have saved myself the pain replacing lower quality fans, multiple times. 9 years is the longest I've seen a 120mm fan survive, which was from previously mentioned 120mm AIO cooler. If this last 10 years, I will feel that the Heavy Duty price is justified for this Heavy Duty fan. I'd like to think I'll get at least 15 years, since I'm not driving them at 100% all the time. If you care about noise and price, Noctua has other reasonable options, which will probably also have a long lifespan. In 10 years, I'll let you know if this was worth the price.

Really like these fans, they are silent while still working well at low speeds and move a ton of air at high speeds. With PWM controls, these fans mounted on a 240 radiator make it easy to cool off my mini-itx watercooled rig, since I can set custom fan curves via software and have them running silent most of the time and ramp up as necessary. They can get very loud above ~1,500rpm and the 3,000rpm model probably isn't necessary for anyone outside of an industrial setting. 3,000 rpm sounds like a large vacuum on these, and while it's not completely unbearable, the efficiency (cfm/rpm) appears to taper off after about 2,000 rpm anyways. I only opted for the 3,000 rpm model because I wanted to be able to push air through my radiator to my motherboard and other components if they started to get hot. Due to the high speeds these run at unregulated, you need to be sure your motherboard supports true PWM and allows you to control it via software like speedfan. Some motherboards have PWM (4-pin) headers but have the controls locked or don't actually support PWM. Noctua also does not include a "silencer/low rpm adapter" with this fan (the ones from Noctua's other fans are incompatible), so if you're unlucky enough to have poor PWM support and don't want 3,000rpm at all times, you will be disappointed with these fans. Only knock I have against these fans is that unlike the Noctua's regular brown/cream fans, these don't include any of the accessories, even though they are more expensive. To be fair, they aren't really necessary in an industrial application, which these fans are branded for.

High airflow, reasonable noise levels. There is a faint hum or buzz that does not go away even at lower speed compared to the brown/biege Noctua low noise fans. These iPPC-series fans are also overkill for most desktop PCs and recommend the low noise brown/biege fans for desktops instead. The faint hum or buzz is annoying even if not very loud. These are great for servers or workstations that need high airflow. I'm using several in a 4U rack (Rosewill 4500) machine learning workstation and they're perfect for that. Quieter and higher airflow than the garbage fans the case came with. Expensive, but I trust they will outlast the useful life of the PC components they're currently cooling. Buy once, cry once.