The difference indeed so consistently perceptible, that if you can't notice a difference you might want to get your ears tested. Every single sample became dramatically softer with the spacer.
As optimum tech tested. They are best for case fans rather than for rad fans. The DB noise is also a bit irrelevant cause it is more the "pitch" of noise that gets more comfortable
Yep. I remember my old Corsaiir 600T with 200mm fans had turrbulance noise. I grinded out the front grill and it was gone! Spacers would definitely have a similar impact.
These are from the kind of accessories meant to improve acoustics in understanding of making them less annoying. Not lowering dBA, not improving dBA-normalized performance, but potentially solving acoustic problems which may randomly happen when pairing any fan with any restriction. Having such problem already is the reason to buy such stuff, so it's just great that Noctua sells such kind of things.
Yes. I have 3 in my front. They made a noticeable difference for the front fans. I did the good old pliers mod to make them compatible with every fan. Computer tech&more measured them and found a large difference, with a positive effect up to 1cm.
Thank you for showing us the recordings during the test. Yes, in some cases I could hear the difference (using EarPods, not sure open air sound), but def not getting these for my open frame built!
I actually bought 3 of these for my PC, when I built it two years ago. I use them to push air through and out the radiator at the top of my PC. I'm using a 420mm x 64mm thick radiator ( lol ). The reason is that I remember the days of using the frame of old fans as spacers, to help remove the dead-zone from the motor hub of a fan on a radiator. I don't have numbers to know if it's helping at all, but just by looking at the dust build up on the radiator, I can say that dust is forming more evenly under the fan, than I have seen in the past without any spacer. Honestly, I wish these were more like 10 or 15mm thick. Now, I understand that the farther away the fan is, I could run into pressure drop issues. But with a radiator this thick, the fins don't have to be as dense, so I believe an extra 5 or 10mm would help. But there is still less dust under the motor hub, than there is under the edges of the fan, But that will always be the case. But I like to know I'm getting as much performance out of this radiator as I can. Mostly when heavy loads hit, and It's nice to know that at even 100% cpu usage, My radiator isn't what is holding me back. But i'm also an edge case. I delidded my 7950X, and am using liquid metal thermal paste. So a person like me has zero issues spending a few dollars to get even the slightest bit more performance out of my CPU, especially with AMD's Precision Boost being so dependent on temps. Also, I bought the industrial version of Noctua's fans, that can reach 3,000 RPM's ( Rebooting my PC is LOUD! ). But i'm obviously not running them at that speed all the time ( or ever, really ). So using fan curves, these fans run at like 30 - 40% most of the time, and will speed up for temp spikes ( like when a game pre-loads shaders on boot ).
Dear STS, your audio samples show a very stark audible difference with the spacer attached. If you can't hear the difference, please get your ears checked. Seriously. It's that clear.
One benefit of using the spacer is that you get more useable surface area of the mesh, which should lower the overall pressure drop and increase performance a little bit. And in push applications you even free up the surface area of the back of the motor, as you said. Should be beneficial if the mesh is really restrictive for some reason, or maybe no benefit at all if it is relatively free flowing. Can't really imagine the spacer having any negative impact unless those 5 mm pushes the other side of the fan closer to something which would add resistance to flow.
a long time ago I connected the fans on my case using elastics. In addition it allowed me to put a distance between the fan and the case, and yes it had those hated stamped grills. Then I used some electrical tape to close the gap between the fan and the case. It worked as it removed all the noise caused by the grill being so close to the fan. Not a scientific way to do it, but it worked and changed the sound of the fans just like the spacer from Noctua. It was just something I did more than twenty years ago. That it might make the fan more effective was not something I had considered, and back then I didn't have the tools to test such a thing either way. Thinking back I did this "mod" to the fans for blowing into the case and the ones blowing out. But later tests has shown that having a grill immediately next to the sucking fan does increase noise quite a bit more than having it close to the blowing side. Or at least that's my experience. Fortunately noise is no more a problem for me. With ringing tinnitus in one ear ad being completely deaf in the other a bit of is noise hardly noticeable. Damn thinking about that I realized I "hear" constant whistling in my deaf ear. It seems that not even having the nerves to the ear severed completely stopps tinnitus.
Before watching the tests I want to say that I guess the spacers are more for improving the sound of the fan than improve the performance. I say that as the closer to the fan you put a grill or obstacle the louder it gets. Sure increasing the distance a little might improve the performance slightly, but I doubt it will be all that noticeable.
It seemed strange to me that Noctua noticed this incident after so many years. 10 years ago, when I was assembling a PC case, I made a device between the fan and the grill myself :)
For some the improvement in noises is really good... You just have to test the fan on the mount you have and if you clearly hear too much noise then buy this spacer and put it on. This is just something you will need if you have a grill that is not very well design. I think it's more required when you pull the air form a grill not very well design for air flow (not when you push it). Putting the fan a bit further will make the flow better in some case because in that case you create a tampon area with lower pressure that will. Of course the result will depends of lot of variable, for many case it won't be necessary. It's just a way to try to improve poor design in air flow. The best solution would always be to have a great design from the beginning, but some people do not really care about fluid mechanic, and for them, as long as there is a hole it will be OK. In some system already noisy it won't make any difference, but on very quiet ones it's another level and those improvement could make a difference. Of course if your system is already to notch, there is a very high probability that a good air flow will have been taken in consideration and this won't be required anyway, because it will work very good from the beginning.
You don't even need to clip anything when using SW4 Pro 140mm. Works like a charm and solved my intake fans and infamous meshify 2 hum problems. Now my bottom intake has no hum at low rpms and front intakes are quieter too. I was very surprised by the result.
I have found through personal experience that keeping the intake side of any fan at least 5 to 10mm from the exterior panel leads to a substantial noise reduction.
You can buy rubber fan gaskets that will do the same thing but cheaper and without those proprietary tabs. I prefer silicone rubber to minimize any VOC offgassing.
This used to be a common thing in the early 2000's. Most high end water cooling builds added spacers from 10 to 30 mm to get air past the center hub... and presumably cool the part of the rad that was blocked by said hub. I theory it sounds logical and would be a benefit, for less noise and more air hitting the rad fins. There are guys all over Etsy selling these 3d printed in all sizes. I might give it a try again. Also, if you're like me, I have so many old dead fans laying around you could just cut out the inside and use that as your spacer. I wonder why that is not a thing so much as it once was.??
When will the case manufacturers realize that they need to make the air vents very large? If there is no distance between the dust filter and the filter, it will make noise.
actually he said that these spacers would be more useful if used as a pull fan in a pull-push arrangement on radiators (standard thickness). he suggested me to use noctua a12x25. if I was going to do pull-push, he suggested that I use these on the pull fan side of the radiator. he said that thanks to these, a gap would be created between the radiator and the fan and the whistling problem would be eliminated. can you confirm this? do you have the chance to test this with a standard 27mm thick radiator and not a 60mm thick radiator? my other question is, if I were to use this spacer on the fan I will use on the exhaust side of the case (in a scenario of pushing the hot air inside out), would it be beneficial in terms of noise?
By the way, the case I am using is 7000d airflow. Would I see any benefit if I used these spacers on my front fans? Or would it be beneficial if I used them next to the motherboard? If it was useful as a case fan, which side of the fan should I attach it to?
im wondering if it will be worth getting the nf-a12x25 g2 when it comes out, and if they will be brining out a slim fan to compliment it, cuz right now im running the 12x25 with the 12x25
When you can't hear the difference you should visit a doctor. It is clear as glass that the soundprofile is way more pleasing with the spacer installed. I also don't know why you spell Noctua like Nokia. Is an accent thing?
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I could 100% hear a difference in your noise samples, for the better.
Yes! It seemed to slightly lower the average frequency. Or soften the higher frequencies.
The difference indeed so consistently perceptible, that if you can't notice a difference you might want to get your ears tested.
Every single sample became dramatically softer with the spacer.
I also, one of them came out of noisy sound to almost imperceptible
As optimum tech tested. They are best for case fans rather than for rad fans. The DB noise is also a bit irrelevant cause it is more the "pitch" of noise that gets more comfortable
Yep. I remember my old Corsaiir 600T with 200mm fans had turrbulance noise. I grinded out the front grill and it was gone!
Spacers would definitely have a similar impact.
Where can i see that test result? Can you give me a vid link ? I have hard time with choosing one of 140mm fan
@@rkrnddl5 Video is called: "Stealing Noctua's quiet airflow mod"
@@rkrnddl5 Stealing Noctua's quiet airflow mod is the video title
@@Walhor thank you
Those noise samples are all I needed to hear, going to order some right now.
The title of this video looks like your cat walked across your keyboard
Noctua's naming is pure poetry
These are from the kind of accessories meant to improve acoustics in understanding of making them less annoying. Not lowering dBA, not improving dBA-normalized performance, but potentially solving acoustic problems which may randomly happen when pairing any fan with any restriction. Having such problem already is the reason to buy such stuff, so it's just great that Noctua sells such kind of things.
The noise difference in your audio samples is extremely clear.
It's not just about the dB but also about the quality of the noise.
10/10 noise samples! Well done! Very useful
Interesting how it doesn't do all that much on round holes
I added these for acoustics and they work great. Much more pleasing to the ear.
Yes. I have 3 in my front. They made a noticeable difference for the front fans. I did the good old pliers mod to make them compatible with every fan.
Computer tech&more measured them and found a large difference, with a positive effect up to 1cm.
Thank you for showing us the recordings during the test. Yes, in some cases I could hear the difference (using EarPods, not sure open air sound), but def not getting these for my open frame built!
I actually bought 3 of these for my PC, when I built it two years ago. I use them to push air through and out the radiator at the top of my PC. I'm using a 420mm x 64mm thick radiator ( lol ). The reason is that I remember the days of using the frame of old fans as spacers, to help remove the dead-zone from the motor hub of a fan on a radiator. I don't have numbers to know if it's helping at all, but just by looking at the dust build up on the radiator, I can say that dust is forming more evenly under the fan, than I have seen in the past without any spacer. Honestly, I wish these were more like 10 or 15mm thick. Now, I understand that the farther away the fan is, I could run into pressure drop issues. But with a radiator this thick, the fins don't have to be as dense, so I believe an extra 5 or 10mm would help. But there is still less dust under the motor hub, than there is under the edges of the fan, But that will always be the case. But I like to know I'm getting as much performance out of this radiator as I can. Mostly when heavy loads hit, and It's nice to know that at even 100% cpu usage, My radiator isn't what is holding me back.
But i'm also an edge case. I delidded my 7950X, and am using liquid metal thermal paste. So a person like me has zero issues spending a few dollars to get even the slightest bit more performance out of my CPU, especially with AMD's Precision Boost being so dependent on temps.
Also, I bought the industrial version of Noctua's fans, that can reach 3,000 RPM's ( Rebooting my PC is LOUD! ). But i'm obviously not running them at that speed all the time ( or ever, really ). So using fan curves, these fans run at like 30 - 40% most of the time, and will speed up for temp spikes ( like when a game pre-loads shaders on boot ).
Dear STS, your audio samples show a very stark audible difference with the spacer attached. If you can't hear the difference, please get your ears checked. Seriously. It's that clear.
One benefit of using the spacer is that you get more useable surface area of the mesh, which should lower the overall pressure drop and increase performance a little bit. And in push applications you even free up the surface area of the back of the motor, as you said. Should be beneficial if the mesh is really restrictive for some reason, or maybe no benefit at all if it is relatively free flowing. Can't really imagine the spacer having any negative impact unless those 5 mm pushes the other side of the fan closer to something which would add resistance to flow.
a long time ago I connected the fans on my case using elastics. In addition it allowed me to put a distance between the fan and the case, and yes it had those hated stamped grills. Then I used some electrical tape to close the gap between the fan and the case. It worked as it removed all the noise caused by the grill being so close to the fan. Not a scientific way to do it, but it worked and changed the sound of the fans just like the spacer from Noctua. It was just something I did more than twenty years ago. That it might make the fan more effective was not something I had considered, and back then I didn't have the tools to test such a thing either way. Thinking back I did this "mod" to the fans for blowing into the case and the ones blowing out. But later tests has shown that having a grill immediately next to the sucking fan does increase noise quite a bit more than having it close to the blowing side. Or at least that's my experience.
Fortunately noise is no more a problem for me. With ringing tinnitus in one ear ad being completely deaf in the other a bit of is noise hardly noticeable. Damn thinking about that I realized I "hear" constant whistling in my deaf ear. It seems that not even having the nerves to the ear severed completely stopps tinnitus.
There is a huge difference what are you on about?!
Before watching the tests I want to say that I guess the spacers are more for improving the sound of the fan than improve the performance. I say that as the closer to the fan you put a grill or obstacle the louder it gets. Sure increasing the distance a little might improve the performance slightly, but I doubt it will be all that noticeable.
It seemed strange to me that Noctua noticed this incident after so many years.
10 years ago, when I was assembling a PC case, I made a device between the fan and the grill myself :)
Maybe this was a fractal terra thing, lol.
This is the coolest video! Thanks
For some the improvement in noises is really good...
You just have to test the fan on the mount you have and if you clearly hear too much noise then buy this spacer and put it on. This is just something you will need if you have a grill that is not very well design. I think it's more required when you pull the air form a grill not very well design for air flow (not when you push it). Putting the fan a bit further will make the flow better in some case because in that case you create a tampon area with lower pressure that will. Of course the result will depends of lot of variable, for many case it won't be necessary. It's just a way to try to improve poor design in air flow. The best solution would always be to have a great design from the beginning, but some people do not really care about fluid mechanic, and for them, as long as there is a hole it will be OK. In some system already noisy it won't make any difference, but on very quiet ones it's another level and those improvement could make a difference. Of course if your system is already to notch, there is a very high probability that a good air flow will have been taken in consideration and this won't be required anyway, because it will work very good from the beginning.
You don't even need to clip anything when using SW4 Pro 140mm. Works like a charm and solved my intake fans and infamous meshify 2 hum problems. Now my bottom intake has no hum at low rpms and front intakes are quieter too. I was very surprised by the result.
I ordered 4 for my a12x25 case config and the noise difference was so good.
I have found through personal experience that keeping the intake side of any fan at least 5 to 10mm from the exterior panel leads to a substantial noise reduction.
You can buy rubber fan gaskets that will do the same thing but cheaper and without those proprietary tabs.
I prefer silicone rubber to minimize any VOC offgassing.
Man I'm looking forward to the NF-A12x35
This used to be a common thing in the early 2000's. Most high end water cooling builds added spacers from 10 to 30 mm to get air past the center hub... and presumably cool the part of the rad that was blocked by said hub. I theory it sounds logical and would be a benefit, for less noise and more air hitting the rad fins. There are guys all over Etsy selling these 3d printed in all sizes. I might give it a try again. Also, if you're like me, I have so many old dead fans laying around you could just cut out the inside and use that as your spacer. I wonder why that is not a thing so much as it once was.??
🎄 Merry Christmas 🎄
When will the case manufacturers realize that they need to make the air vents very large?
If there is no distance between the dust filter and the filter, it will make noise.
I hope they make them in black when they launch the Chromax version
I'd rather 3d print something like that instead of buying them from any brand
actually he said that these spacers would be more useful if used as a pull fan in a pull-push arrangement on radiators (standard thickness). he suggested me to use noctua a12x25. if I was going to do pull-push, he suggested that I use these on the pull fan side of the radiator. he said that thanks to these, a gap would be created between the radiator and the fan and the whistling problem would be eliminated. can you confirm this? do you have the chance to test this with a standard 27mm thick radiator and not a 60mm thick radiator? my other question is, if I were to use this spacer on the fan I will use on the exhaust side of the case (in a scenario of pushing the hot air inside out), would it be beneficial in terms of noise?
By the way, the case I am using is 7000d airflow. Would I see any benefit if I used these spacers on my front fans? Or would it be beneficial if I used them next to the motherboard? If it was useful as a case fan, which side of the fan should I attach it to?
hi thanks for your work, can you reviwe antec nova fans thanks
bequite silent wing fans have specific mounting corners, one side flat and other side with bump for creating few mm gap
just 3d print a spacer
My only concern with these is that the fans themselves already cost quite a lot
You can add the spacers to any fan by cutting the tabs.
I am using a Phanteks T30 120mm for my intakes limited at around 63% max fan speed, would the 140 G2's be an upgrade?
Noise/pitch maybe, raw performance no.
im wondering if it will be worth getting the nf-a12x25 g2 when it comes out, and if they will be brining out a slim fan to compliment it, cuz right now im running the 12x25 with the 12x25
So this is their "30mm fan"
noctuah
they are designed for the front of the fan only
When you can't hear the difference you should visit a doctor. It is clear as glass that the soundprofile is way more pleasing with the spacer installed.
I also don't know why you spell Noctua like Nokia. Is an accent thing?
you need to visit your audiologist...
Buy 30mm Phanteks fans instead, problem solved.