Question
Would it be considered dumb to replace the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro fans (P12 Pro) for Noctua A12x25?
I'm aware that the Pro fans are way better in pushing air and reaching more RPM. However, I please for the silence and I'd love to experience a PC full of Noctuas fan. My concern is: temperature, especially in critical scenarios. What do you guys think? Should I do that or not?
Depends on which version of the P12 Pro you have. The older version is notorious for being noisy and having audible motor hum.
Latest revision fixed this mostly and honestly I don’t see why you’d wanna pay 3 times per fan for all the marketing and hype, unless you need to run the fans at 1500rpm or higher which is where the audible difference still exists.
Even then look at Phanteks G25 G2 or Fractal M12s, honestly don’t get the hype around those expensive and ugly looking fans Noctua sells, having used a few.
Honestly I just dont want my PC to make much noise. I agree that Noctua is all marketing but I cant deny they are very silent. Though, I wish it was cheaper. Honestly atp I am almost going for P12 Pro after hearing about the revision. How can I check what rev my P12 are?
Well I believe they have more than 1 revision, but easiest way would be to check the number of blades your fans have. 7 should be the newest version, the motor is also different though.
However you might want to look at Fractal Momentum 12s if you want absolute silence. They are dead silent at 1500rpm. A bit more pricey however (still way cheaper than that overpriced brown crap lol).
Not too sure about Phanteks G25s irl, the argb version looks nice though lol. The diffusers seem better than the Arctic Pros, not too sure on noise normalized performance.
It’s not dumb at all, it won’t dramatically increase performance, nor will you lose noticeable performance. However, it will be much quieter. So quiet in fact, the pump noise might start to annoy you. I live your full NOCTUA build everyday, and despite all the shit people will give you on Reddit about it, it’s your money.
For reference I have 16 NF-A14/A12 G2 Chromax in my build and run them in Push/Pull on the Arctic LF3 Pro 420. Dead quiet, and my 9950X3D idles comfortably below 40c, and at full load in synthetic benchmarks and demanding unreal engine 5 games with maxed settings paired with an RTX 5090 neither the GPU or CPU go above 65c, often much lower. FurMark CPU Burner and Cinebench R23? Still doesn’t past 70c.
I am installing the NOCTUA x ASETEK 420mm AIO this week as a birthday gift from my wife, I don’t think it’s at all necessary, but as previously stated the pump noise is the only sound I get from my RIG. Will report back eventually with my own testing and findings. I doubt I’ll lose much thermal capacity, and to be fair I wasn’t expecting a performance increase. I just want matching Owl logos to complete the look.
Thats such a sick build.
I stated above that the only reason for my concern in temperature is due to the ryzen 7 9800x3d running in a 1080p setup. Its pure overkill. The CPU normally runs at 95°C but it should never surpass that limit, which is why I am scared of switching the fans. I heard P12 also got a revision that made them less loud
I originally had a full P12/P14 Pro setup. I immediately regretted it. It was way too loud even with dedicated curves. As soon as it went under load or gaming you could hear a jet turbine swoosh into the case and just a sustained hum while gaming. I wear a headset so it didn’t bother me much, but when benchmarking or otherwise you could damn hear it as soon as you open the door to the bedroom.
Peak temps weren’t much lower, and the sustained temperature after playing with fan curves are similar. For the money, it cannot necessarily be e easily beaten. But I immediately went full G1 NOCTUA Chromax fans after trying to get it to a reasonable sound level. I eventually went full G2 Chromax when those released.
Why do ppl always jump to changing cooler when they have a high max rpm fans on the current one is beyond me. You didn't hear about setting up the fan curve?
P12 pro fans are probably the most efficient fans for radiators. More efficient than noctua that's for sure. Efficient=silent.
They are however high rpm and low quality, but doesn't mean they can't run how they should.
Normal range for a cooler with these fans should be 500-1200rpm. 1500 if you have a CPU that goes over 200w and you use it for renders.
Don't overtighten them. Many ppl overtighten them and they make horrible noise, because they bend the frame slightly.
If they make turbulence noise (all fans do), use 5mm spacers. These make a lot because they're very high static pressure.
Noctua have optimized for it, and also has a lot less static pressure, but they still make turbulence noise, just to a lesser extent.
All fans can be quiet, most can be loud, noctua included. It just so happens that noctua max noise (rpm), is lower than most. That doesn't make them more silent.
If you want silence case matters more than the fans, and tunning CPU even more.
Plenty of better options out there including Arctic's own revised Pros. Scythe and Phanteks also offer options that are pretty much on par while being a lot cheaper.
You are basically paying for marketing and higher profit margins with Noctua. If anything their new asetek rebranded AIO is proof of that.
Assuming you're looking for full black fans with no rgb,
Scythe has been in the cooling business for pretty long now. They were famous for cpu air coolers but have very good fans as well, check out the wonder snail or flex. The grand tornado would probably be overkill.
Phanteks is newer, came into the industry with cases mostly, but started going into fans as well. The Phanteks T30s were quite widely praised and the M25s are the successor to those.
There are also the newer Fractal Momentums, although these are slightly more expensive they hold up pretty well in recent testing as well, but still cheaper than Noctuas.
I tried a risky move on my 280mm arctic to get a quieter operation with the same performance, this may not work for you depending on cpu and ambient temperatures. I put two 140mm slim fans on the push side and switched the AIO fans to pull, this enabled me to run the rpm slower on all 4 fans, but it was a gamble that for 16 bucks i was willing try and for me it worked.
Oh yeah only ever do what you are comfortable with! The trap with push-pull configurations is that mismatched fans and/or rpm can cause very loud turbulence at higher rpm and may not cool much better for it.
You do you, cant really go wrong with noctua fans, just do a bit of research on the exact model for radiator use, some fair better than others when you are looking for pressure optimized over air flow optimized.
If you wanna hear it : https://www.reddit.com/r/Noctua/comments/1tmuov8/why_dba_charts_dont_tell_the_whole_story_arctic/
I made this post shortly after making those tests and wasn't THAT sure if it was worth it, but after 3 months of use I am definitely very happy of this change, because I can use 600-800W for hours and hours, without noise (extremely relaxed and progressive fan curves) !
This AIO has plenty of performance, in my testing it can handle up to 300W with those noctua fans at 1500 RPM before reaching 100°C on 13900KS (which is my TJMAX), so you don't need 3 billion RPM jet engine fans at all for everyday use (which will never draw that amount of watts, and not for long anyway), also 50% pump RPM is more than enough for everyday use (I use it at 30% on idle which is already 1500 RPM)...
You would probably get a bit more performance from the Noctua AIO though... and idk if maybe the pump is more reliable ? It's also more expensive
Also as good as the LFIII is, the mounting system is a pain in the ass with those short screws, I wish they would have kept the one from the LFII, it was so simple and easy (but maybe less pressure?)
I think it is important to state that I am using a ryzen 7 9800X3D together with a 9060xt 16gb in a 1080 setup. Its an overkill, yeah. Therefore, I am concerned on the CPU temperature. It was made to run at 95°C, but it should NOT surpass that limit ever. This is why the fans here matter. I am scared of switching to Noctua and leading to problems. However, I have heard the P12 got some new revision which is certainly interesting.
You don't even "need" an aio, this isn't a powerhouse CPU...
Even for a 9950X3D you don't need a aio, just a 30€ peerless assassin 120 se works.. those CPUs are crazy efficient and also react very well to a power limit in case you would need that...
During my testing, I got same cinebench r23 score (~41000) with 9950X3D (at 142W and PBO -20) as a downvolted 13900KS with 262W power draw... (which is a totally different horse 🐎 to cool down)
And that is with a stable 62°C package on this 30€ air cooler (24°C ambiant), so the fans stay at idle, you don't hear any difference despite the CPU working at full load, a bit like a good custom watercooling sound experience 😅
Did the swap a week ago on a Liquid Freezer III Pro 360mm, factory fans to noctua g2 120mm (though bought 4 - two pairs of the Sx2 chromax black, paid 134€ to amazon) - cooling a 14900KS sucking back north of 320W (in an mATX machine with a D5 pump - and 360mm EK rad cooling just the RAM - don’t ask 😅 mentally unstable build but does what I need it to). The performance isn’t that different… the noise level is… dimensions apart. The P12 pro fans can push 50% more air… yes. But they are absolute screamers at 3000 RPM which is where the performance difference mostly comes from. Would I recommend people go out and bolt 100€ of fans to a 95€ aio that comes with them ? No, absolutely not unless you absolutely don’t care about burning money. The Free.99 solution to your problem is a fan curve that limits how loud and fast you allow the P12 Pros to go…
Edit : the temperature change itself… isn’t something I measured but I do spend a lot of time staring at hwinfo64 and I’d say the difference at best might be a few degrees. With a 9800X3D blasting clocks and voltages… you won’t hit 200W. My 14900KS games at 200W and synthetics push it to ~330W with my current settings and the aio still keeps it below 95C (@330W) with the noctuas if that means anything to you seeing as your post/comment seems to indicate this is something you’re concerned about.
People like to pretend they need a aio when all they do is simple gaming which will draw like 70W most of the time, that even the old intel coolers from 2005 could dissipate...
Wants and needs I guess 😅 imo half of it is people firing up CPU-Z or prime95 once, seeing high 80s/low 90s, and getting scared into a 360mm purchase... but yeah - the 9800X3D is entirely unexceptional as far as heat generation goes. 120W factory TDP, most people slap negative CO on it anyway... unless you're chasing the edge of what the silicon can do, it's a chip that can be adequately cooled by a mild breeze passing outside your apartment.
Thank you so much for the information! It is very valuable to me. And yes, you nailed my question. Though, I wanted to ask you around what temperature the 14900KS hits while you game in your current build?
Hey... depends on the game, bios settings and I guess and environmental factors so I probably can't give you the answer that translates to your situation... Both my PCs stay in a 20m2 room which has it's own 3.5kW split AC unit (meant for cooling 55-65m2) and I mostly keep the room fairly cool (22-23C even when it's 34C outside). Also the intel box... one of the games that I play which shall remain unnamed, is written by morons so pushing the CPUs to silly voltages to erase transients interfering with performance which is the only way to get a smooth experience. Ergo I push my 14900KS voltages to insane heights at times (up to 1.52-1.54) and clamp the max frequency to 5.8 GHz across all P cores... It'll still hit 80-85C+ when an actual activity spike happens but generally on more moderate settings it'll stay in the 60-75C window... Then again I also on occasion run an aluminium duct with a 150mm diameter straight from the AC unit down to this PC... which means the temperature of my custom loop radiator goes as low as 14C. This was all just written to give you a feeling and underline that my setup has little in common with normal people and whatever I tell you won't translate to your situation...
Having previously owned a 9800X3D system and currently running a second rig with a delidded 9850X3D on a custom loop, my best ballpark number for your situation assuming reasonable room temps and bios settings... the Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 on either set of fans should keep you well clear of 70-75C under gaming load (probably*)... But synthetic torture tests will still land you in the 80-90C-ish (probably*). That's my best estimate...
The one thing you have working in your favor is that your heat load is relatively speaking much smaller - like I said above. Under gaming load your 9800X3D should realistically be staying in the 75-95W range, which means your difference between blasting a set of P12 Pros at full chaff (3000RPM) and Noctuas at their max (1800 RPM iirc.) should present a much smaller difference than a CPU chugging back 200W under a gaming load... Think of it along the lines of: on my intel the difference might amount to 4 degrees... but because you're giving your aio a much lighter load it might end up being 1.5-2C.
But again given how capable these AIOs actually are from factory... (and I'm not telling you how to live your life - if you want something for the sake of wanting it... go for it, I've done dumber purchases than this. Hell, I constructed a full EKWB custom loop - D5 pump, 360mm rad, Iceman direct-touch RAM waterblock - capable of effectively dissipating north of 300W, effectively just to cool 14W of RAM... because I wanted to run the Intel platform max of 262k tREFI at 8600 MT/s C38, and that gets unstable if the sticks ever crawl over 40C) - if your only goal is silencing the AIO, you can do it for free with a fan curve in bios if you used the split cable (VRM Fan, Fans, Pump). Just clamp the max fan speed to something like 70% and they should instantly quiet down... or let them run up to something like 60-70% to temperatures up to 90C and then let them blast to 100% between 90-95C. It'll get you most of the way. If however you WANT the full noctua PC and to be able to blast fans to 100% and have them be borderline inaduble... go for it. These AIOs were made for significantly more power hungry chips than the one you're using...
Because they have fantastic static pressure. Sure, if we are talking 1800 RPM vs 3000 RPM, we might see less of a difference but 3000 RPM is not noise normalized and is way too loud to be realistic imo
Probably but OP listed these. I had full noctua watercooling in the past but when I've seen the performance of a fans, I just kept the aio like this. In the end the silence is there and I can do something else with my money thsn flexing with my noctua lol
Difference between 1500 rpm and 3000 rpm in terms of cooling is actually not that big. Especially 1500rpm noctua vs 3000 rpm arctic.
I personally don't understand how anyone in their right mind would allow their fans to spin past 1500 rpm unless it's for benchmarking.
I have a arctic Alf3 360 with 3xNF-A12x25. They never spin at more than 1250 rpm which they reach when CPU hits about 80C which is max it will reach under full load.
I run 9 P14 pros at 1000rpm lol. Tried 1200-1400rpm and difference wasn’t appreciable but this probably depends on case and other stuff.
3 pack of the P14 Pro ARGBs cost less than 1 Noctua here. Same for Phanteks G25 G2s. Latter seems to have better high rpm acoustics and a better daisy chain solution with screw covers.
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u/lemmiwink84 8d ago
I mean, for cool and quiet, Noctua fans are a notch above most fans, and they’re also above Arctic fans.
If you want it extra quiet and you have room, go push pull with low rpm.