Reviews & awards

I was not surprised by the results, as we all kind of know the quality of Noctua fans. The chart below shows that the Noctua fans outperformed the Cooler Master fans that came with the AIO Coolers, but not by much. On the 360 AIO, we gained 1 degree of better cooling, but we saved a lot on the hidden factors.

At idle, the stock and Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 produced the same temp of 31c, but the stock fans ran at 1160 RPM, while the NF-A12x25 G2 ran at only 790 RPM for a quieter result, but produced the same cooling. At load, the Cooler Master fans had a top speed of 2100 RPM while, again, the Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 fan ran slower at 1840 RPM, but gave better cooling.

The 140mm Noctua NF-A14x25 G2 PWN fans increased the cooling over the Cooler Master fans by 2c at full load, but this time the Noctuas were running at a higher RPM at 1525, while the Cooler Master fans came in at 1370 RPM. This little boost in fan speed and an unnoticeable noise level difference resulted in a good temperature decrease. What was really nice was that there was also a 1-degree win for Noctua at idle.