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Macao, Norman
1 Level
730 Review
43 Karma

Review on Noctua NF F12 Chromax Black Swap Premium Grade Quiet by Jim Martin

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Quiet and cools effectively under load.

There are no dry numbers or boring things like idle temperature in this test. I honestly don't care. I only care about the performance. I bought a Fractal Meshify C case in January 2020 and built a Ryzen 3600 system. I recently upgraded to an EVGA FTW 3060ti which is factory overclocked and tends to overheat under load. The Fractal sleeve came with branded Fractal fans on the front and back (one each). CPU cooler Noctua. The two case fans turn up very loud under load. Also of note is that the 3060ti's fans ran at high speeds to try and shed the heat while playing Doom Eternal in mostly high graphics at 1440p. This suddenly made the system very noisy. I later upgraded to a 27-inch Dell 1440p 165Hz monitor, and under load the graphics card fans were spinning very hard to keep up with the extra graphics overhead. bought 3 Chromax 120mm - two in the front and one in the back. After installing them, I ran through the same spot in Doom where I was stuck and finally defeated this boss after nearly 100 tries on ultra-hard difficulty. If you've played Doom Eternal, you know what fight I'm talking about. This is the one that made people angry (DLC1 with improved Marauder, location of the purple rune). I listened to the fan noise levels with my ears and all of the fans were relatively quiet and ran at slower speeds than the stock fans. Yes, even a factory overclocked 3060ti ran at roughly normal speeds. I couldn't believe I had played an hour or so so there was enough room for the heat to build up. The Chromax fans didn't seem to spin as much, and when they did, I didn't hear any difference. I put my hand on the back of the computer and it radiated heat. I can't say for sure that these Chromax fans did the trick, but in my experience they make a huge difference and I think it's definitely a better deal than stock fans. Maybe it was my imagination but the gameplay got a little smoother to take advantage of 165Hz and maybe that improved my gameplay enough to finally beat that damn level. What can I say? Is it my imagination? I should have said no. Try it!

Pros
  • Acceptable
Cons
  • Senior