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Once we turned down the PWM Speed to 50%, the P12 placed themselves just behind the Noctua NF-F12 's and Inter-Tech RS-14 (Yes a 140mm set)
P12 Slim PWM PST | Pressure-optimised 120 mm Slim - ARCTIC P12 Slim PWM PST | Pressure-optimised 120 mm Slim - ARCTIC
For being only a 6-euro fan, the precision of production is extremely high. It’s only at the level of really fine detail that you’ll find that the P12 has slightly looser manufacturing tolerances than Arctic fans with a similar rotor. There will be a tiny unevenness here and there on the P12, but it will have virtually no impact on the performance. And at this price range, it’s also a bit unfair to point it out, as similarly priced fans often fare considerably worse. While we installed the P12's we did notice a small thing that could have been better thought through. Even though the PST (Daisy-Chain) system was very useful while mounting them, the attached extra wire was way too short.And one addendum for the discerning reader who will scroll through the comments here and there and might ask the same question as one of the readers of this article in another language. Namely, why the BioniX P120, being more expensive, often achieves a lower airflow than the P12. We discussed a bit in the opening chapter that these fans don’t have the same rotors, but I didn’t want to pay any extra attention to that in the conclusion (these aren’t fans that are in any way competing or that you’ll be deciding between).
ARCTIC P12-120 mm Case Fan, Pressure-optimised, quiet motor ARCTIC P12-120 mm Case Fan, Pressure-optimised, quiet motor
Conclusion: The P12 PWM PST is a good, solid built fan. With only five blades I am confident that it will run quieter than those with seven or more blades. Of course, this will depend on the speeds. The fan is perfect for the "no frills" people. I know you can't believe it, but there are some out there that just have not embraced RGB and ARGB and that is OK! However, if you wanted the fan to have a little extra pizzaz, you could always use the Akasa Digital 120mm frame with RGB LED lighting to get the bling. I was not disappointedin it, and I don't think you will be. And in fact, our dB-meter and the Audio Recording of our Benchmarking both confirmed that there is absolutely no difference between having Anti-Vibration-Pads and not. (Or we unable to, no matter how loud we played the audio recordings)
well, it did once the noise became high enough to make all the finetuing Noctua does irrelevant, at 31dB(A) and below there’s no competition, and I hope we’ll see these lower noise targets soon”
Arctic P12 PWM PST Review | The Best Budget 120mm Case Fan? Arctic P12 PWM PST Review | The Best Budget 120mm Case Fan?
Now I know, 600 rpm, okay, and as a sign that I appreciate that we have such demanding readers, I promise you that sooner or later we will create another mode, which will be twice quieter than the quietest mode that we have now. In addition, we will select fans that will have the highest airflow in the 31 dBA mode and there will be room for further noise reduction. Some fans cannot be slowed down even to 31 dBA mode and of the remaining ones, half of them have a speed of 600 rpm or lower. The NF-A12x25 PWM here allows setting some of the highest speeds mainly because it is PWM controlled, and now I’m not afraid to use the word extremely quiet running of the motor and bearings. This is also visible in the spectrograph, where in the frequency band of these components the noise is extremely low. Noctua deserves all the respect in the world here for going into such details as smoother/quieter PWM waveforms with a slanted left-hand side of the pulses. There are a lot of droning or downright rumbling fans out there, but none have been as popularized by this sound profile as the Arctic P12. Probably also because this acoustic deficiency is really pronounced here and has pushed the manufacturer to make design changes in newer models that are aimed at suppressing critical tonal peaks. But even so, the base model P12 PWM PST is a remarkable fan and is unbeatable in its price range. The cable is “ordinary” but solid – flat, with the wires holding together nicely. There are two connectors at the end. One to connect the fan to the motherboard or hub/controllers, and the other to daisy-chain another fan. The cable is 40–45 cm in length. As we used the P12 PWM in their "PST" Version, we were able to make use of their "Power Sharing Technology". This PST Plug basically adds an additional 3-Pin Output to the cable of Each Fan. To our delightful surprise, the Arctic P12 PWM managed to beat absolutely every other Case Fan that we own.The Rest of this review focuses only on the P12 PWM PST fan, but you can expect the exact same results from the P12 PWM (as the only difference is the Daisy Chain). The P12 has larger blades compared to the BioniX P120, although it doesn’t seem like it unless one sees those fans side by side. So with the same size hub, the gaps between the blades are naturally smaller on the P12, so there is less room for airflow leakage and higher static pressure is achieved. This means that the airflow loss due to obstacle resistance is smaller with the P12 than with the P120. With 62°C on the CPU and 43.5 dbA, the P12 even managed to outrank the Noctua NF-F12 in both metrics, even though the Noctua's are almost double the price. Thanks to the 4-pin connector, the RPM can be regulated in a broad spectrum via PWM. In this way, noise is kept at a minimum while maximum cooling performance is guaranteed when needed. The P12 PWM PST is able to switch into silent passive mode when PWM signal is below 5 % due to its new motor. This allows working at your PC in complete silence without any unwanted noise. Additionally, the 120 mm versions of the new P-fans can be easily mounted to existing Freezer 32 and Freezer 33 models. The signal quality of the motherboard/hub should not make a difference in noise, it is determined by the NE-FD1 IC inside the fan. Noctua often has complaints about the PWM signal quality of third party devices and states that it can be misinterpreted at lower speeds. But this is not the case with Noctua fans and it should not affect the noise level anyway, as long as the fan is running stable at the given speed. The misinterpretation of PWM that Noctua mentions is that the fan operation may not correspond to the set PWM duty cycle ( we have discussed this in more detail in this article, where we also discuss the key features of the new Noctua NA-FH1 hub).
ARCTIC P12 Max - High-Performance 120 mm case fan, PWM
While the F12 Series is Airflow optimized, it spins way slower (1350 RPM) and produces way less air pressure, but can push a lot of air for such a slow-spinning fan. Starting out, it’s still worth noting that the Arctic P12 compares with the previously tested BioniX P120 A-RGB, although it has seemingly the same rotor – it doesn’t. And there are more than enough differences, including a shorter tunnel (P12) with less rotor clearance from an obstacle, but let’s start the analysis as usual from the top.
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P12 / F12 PWM PST => Has a PWN Connection + a Daisy Chain Connection to hook multiple Fans to one Fan Header Unfortunately, I cannot agree with this statement even now. The extra details that Noctua has often stand out more with relatively higher speeds. Whether it’s Flow Acceleration Channels, Stepped Inlet Design, a significant narrowing of the gap between the blade tips and the frame or Inner Surface Microstructures. These elements counteract the shortcomings that become stronger with increasing pressure. The fact that the NF-A12x25 gives excellent results at low speeds is largely due to the fact that the operation of the motor and blades does not create any noise, so at this level there are no such pronounced limitations as with other fans, and the NF-A12x25 fits into the same noise level at higher speeds. Additionally, they did manage to keep the noise level pretty low, and even be "un-noticeable" in the lower 50%s of their PWM Speed. At first, we assumed that this was one of the reasons why these Fans could be so cheap, but upon investigation, it turned out to be a feature. While Benchmarking, they managed to outperform everything we own under full load and managed to keep a very good position while letting the Fans spin slower.
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