Blue. Make blue fans.
Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
41–50 of 311 posts
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#42If you need that kind of precision, yes. But I don't think they really need that.
This level of quality is why they have my business. We had a CI setup with rpi boards that needed fans (uart clock tied to cpu clock so heat meant slowing down and the uart dropped characters). I got tired of seeing random test failures on some board and driving up to the office to replace the fan that had failed. And they were loud and annoying. I ended up frustrated and expensing hundreds of dollars of noctua fans.…
A quiet PC is one reason I've always removed the GPU cards from used ones I've gotten. The crappy little fans on GPUs that constantly whir up and down drives me nuts.
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#43I always expected that black was the easiest color, since you just add enough pigment to wipe out any colors from other materials. Are they implying that that brown color is the natural look of the materials they used, so the simplest to engineer?
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last I checked they weren't really any quieter than their competitors at the same airflow and pressure (which is a little subjective because your curve will never match perfectly). They do have a really low number on their specs because they have a really low max RPM, but that's not really relevant when you can just lower the speed of other fans. They're still really good fans, but a lot of this is just marketing. At…
Noctua is working at the last five percentages of performance AND lifespan. They want their fans to perform (and sound) identical ten years later with daily use. Most people change fans far earlier than that. It’s kind of refreshing to see really.
Indeed, the main reason why I choose Noctua fans from those that are silent enough and efficient enough is because I trust their reliability.
I still have computers from 2017, with Kaby Lake CPUs, which have been used as servers and in which the Noctua fans work as well as in the first day. Prior to that I had some computers with Noctua fans that had been used for more than a decade without fan problems, and which were upgraded or replaced for reasons unrelated to fans.
Thus the good experience that I had with the reliability of Noctua fans, coupled with some bad experiences with cheaper fans, which had to be replaced prematurely, make me reluctant to experiment now with other brands, which might have the same performance when new, but I could learn about their reliability only after a few years.
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#45Anyone else getting the optical illusion of the fans spinning in your peripheral vision while reading the top paragraphs?
Yep! Made me look a few times to make sure they weren't actually spinning.
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to really like Noctua fans, for a while they were obviously the best fans by a significant margin. But for all their tight tolerances and exotic materials and a high price to match, they generally don't outperform BeQuiet's more regular materials but use-focused fans that are half the price. Nor are they significantly better than Arctic's general purpose fans at a quarter the price. It'd make more sense to jus…
The benchmarks do not tell everything. I have used Noctua fans in computers where they worked for a decade or so, even 24x7, until an upgrade or replacement of the computer was required by other reasons than because of the fans. I have also had many problems caused by cheaper fans. So now I always prefer to use rather expensive fans and power supplies, from brands with which I have accumulated many years of experienc…
If we're going by anecdotes, my last Noctuas showing signs of failure (I had 6 of them, one was ~200rpm slower than it should be, one took a several seconds longer to start spinning from a stop) about a year after the end of warranty was partially why I retired them. Same with the set of Noctuas before them (apparently my first set was from 2010). I suppose they all technically still spun so they were still usable, just not to original performance; still, hard to be too upset about the product making it through the long warranty period without issue.
But my Arctics that was installed in the same case that ran for the same amount of time are still chugging along strong, and those are about as cheap as fans get. Different load/use case though so it's probably not a fair comparison.
These days, I really think the competition has caught up or passed Noctua.
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#47Reading about this, just makes me wish I has good 3d scan of their impellers to see how a simple 3d printer will deal with such mythical precision.
The materials that you could use in a 3d printer are not rigid enough.
The blades of the fans are fiber-reinforced, in order to have sufficient rigidity, even when very thin.
Only a 3D printer for metals could print something rigid enough, but such a metallic fan would be too heavy for a computer fan.
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#48Interesting.
I'm glad companies like Noctua exist that put so much thought and care into their products. I don't even mind being advertisted to when that's the case.
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#49Reading about this, just makes me wish I has good 3d scan of their impellers to see how a simple 3d printer will deal with such mythical precision.
Noctua is awesome in a lot of ways, one of them is offering full CAD models: https://www.noctua.at/en/3d-cad-models
Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?
#50I always expected that black was the easiest color, since you just add enough pigment to wipe out any colors from other materials. Are they implying that that brown color is the natural look of the materials they used, so the simplest to engineer?
From what I understood, any color and material involved in high precision manufacturing requires careful design and thorough testing. They likely prioritize the brown color and material due to branding, so changing this to anything else requires redoing large parts of the pipeline.