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Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

noctua.at

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Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#51
I really miss that they don't release white versions. In my all-white case I just can't have Noctua. The brown ones I think are extremely ugly and the black ones stand out too much.

White doesn't really look bad in any case (except perhaps a full black one). The brown is very identifiable but that's only really a point if you desire to flaunt your expensive fans. Because it will stand out too much in almost any build. I honestly don't care about that, and for a fan this price I shouldn't have to put up with hidden advertising.

But I have BeQuiet Silent Wings and they're not bad. Quietness isn't something I'm optimising for anyway as I only use my desktop for gaming and when I do I wear headphones anyway. I do want to optimise more for pressure (as I have air filters) but these fans are no worse than Noctua.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#52
post #3

I like the brown ones. Everything is black, it's dumb, and I'm happy to have any contrast.

Me too. All my computers have Noctua fans and I don't care in the slightest that they're the same colour as my parents' sofa in the 1980s. I have a couple of their screwdrivers too. I'm with with brown.

This colour combo is more 1970s than 80s. 80s was more gaudy neon and transparent stuff. The 70s loved their murky browns. OK PC boxes of the 80s and 90s were all beige too but they didn't have any brown. It also fit in with manufacturing in those days: In the 70s a lot of wood was still used, whereas in the 80s everything shifted to plastics.

But whether you love or hate (as I do) the brown Noctua colours, the one thing is that they are kinda polarising. They're not a "clean fit" in any build unless you really wanna show that you use Noctua and use them as a centrepiece. Which I guess is the point of their marketing. They want to make it seem their fans are so good people are willing to put up with the colour.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#55

I really miss that they don't release white versions. In my all-white case I just can't have Noctua. The brown ones I think are extremely ugly and the black ones stand out too much. White doesn't really look bad in any case (except perhaps a full black one). The brown is very identifiable but that's only really a point if you desire to flaunt your expensive fans. Because it will stand out too much in almost any build…

Just make a brown case (maybe with some walnut accents?) and the brown Noctua fans will be a perfect fit.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#56
post #28
post #3

I like the brown ones. Everything is black, it's dumb, and I'm happy to have any contrast.

Yeah, everything being black on modern motherboards might look cool with RGB lighting, but makes it harder to work on. I like the older green PCBs with white PCI slots. I also lament the demise of color coded connectors at the back. I knew to plug my speakers into the green 3.5mm jack. Now everything is black, so I need to look at the manual again to see which of the 5 connectors is the right one.

I remember being a kid when standardized port colors came 'round (what was that, part of the AC'97 spec or something?). I thought that was dumb: I knew that the speakers plugged into the third hole from the top, and that was good enough for me. ;)

Back then: I would have loved black-on-black, labelled-in-black, with black cables and and black highlights on a black background. The accessories would be black, too: Black keyboard, black featureless keycaps, black mouse, with a black mousepad, on a black desk, in a black room with black walls and black windows.

Black.

I couldn't get black back then, of course. Computers were beige. The necessary floppy and optical drives were beige. Cables were beige. Keyboards were beige. Motherboards were some moral equivalent to beige. It might be possible to get one or two components in black at some points, but the rest were going to be beige so therefore the whole thing might as well just be resolutely beige.

That really annoyed me.

But I'm not a kid anymore; I'm old. I just want stuff that works well, and that is expandable enough to do some fun and unusual computing stuff with, and that I can see so that when I'm futzing around with it then my job is easier than it would otherwise be.

I don't want RGB or a tempered glass aquarium that shatters when part of it touches a tile floor the wrong way. I don't care about having multiple choices for the color of the anodizing on the heatsinks for the RAM. I don't want water cooling when a big slow-moving fan and some heat pipes does the job very quietly, with improved simplicity therefore longevity. I'm not trying to win a cooling benchmark; I'm just trying to keep the CPU within its specified thermal range while it does work for long periods at its maximum speed. I don't care what color the fans are as long as I can't hear them.

If I want to play with RGB by making or buying some party lights, then I know how to do that. Party lights for the room (or the whole house!), not the guts of the PC. :)

Otherwise: The computer is on the floor under the desk and the USB hub is on top of the desk, and that's all I need to deal with. It is purposeful and functional. There's no style points here, but I just don't care about that anymore.

(I'll be outside yelling at clouds if anyone needs me for anything.)

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#57
post #49

Reading 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

One of the first things mentioned on that page is:

> To protect our intellectual property, certain features – such as fan impeller geometries – have been slightly modified while remaining visually very close to the actual product.

So you do have to 3d scan them yourself if you're trying to print a copy.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#58

This is content marketing executed perfectly :) Reading it, I learned something new and interesting and they had an opportunity to show off one of their differentiators against the competition (low leakage flow due to tighter tolerances) and then at the end they casually mention the new product that has just opened for pre-orders.

Yeah it's more marketing than anything IMO.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#59

Why would someone want a beige or brown fan? If it is that complicated why not only make black ones?

Branding, you're never in doubt when some YouTuber is building a PC using Noctua fans. There's probably some weird psychology in the colour as well. Why would anyone want a fan in such an ugly colour, unless it's really good. The weird beige and brown is highly recognizable, and even if you already don't know about Noctua you're likely to ask questions about the fan solely based on the colour.

The black fans are really only needed by those who build show piece in those cases with glass panels, but they might equally well need white fans, which Noctua doesn't make. Personally I don't really care about the colour of my fans, you can't see them anyway.

Re: Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?

#60

I really miss that they don't release white versions. In my all-white case I just can't have Noctua. The brown ones I think are extremely ugly and the black ones stand out too much. White doesn't really look bad in any case (except perhaps a full black one). The brown is very identifiable but that's only really a point if you desire to flaunt your expensive fans. Because it will stand out too much in almost any build…

Just make a brown case (maybe with some walnut accents?) and the brown Noctua fans will be a perfect fit.

Then I have to look at that brown thing all day :) Yuck

I like wood but only light wood, not the dark kind. That reminds me way too much of my grandparents' furniture.

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