Case Fans - Fractal vs. Noctua


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I'm in the process of building a storage server and am after some advice on some case fans. Now from reviews around the Internet I've been looking at these two. It's a tie between Fractal Design or Noctua.

My goal is as quiet as possible. From what I've read around, the Fractal is ment to be more silent than the Noctua fans, but I'm after some opinions from Neowin. Has anyone had any experiance with both?

I prefer the look of the Fractal fans, the two tone black and white is very smart looking, but being a server build, visuals are not a concern.

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I'm in the process of building a storage server and am after some advice on some case fans. Now from reviews around the Internet I've been looking at these two. It's a tie between Fractal Design or Noctua.

My goal is as quiet as possible. From what I've read around, the Fractal is ment to be more silent than the Noctua fans, but I'm after some opinions from Neowin. Has anyone had any experiance with both?

I prefer the look of the Fractal fans, the two tone black and white is very smart looking, but being a server build, visuals are not a concern.

I'm running Fractal R2 120mms. They are quiet and do the job. Never ran Noctua so I can't compare.

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I think I have fractal or maybe both, either way I think both are good options, the web shops should have dba levels, there's probably bigger differences between different models than between fractal and noctua. Also remember that at full speed they'll probably be "noisy" anyway.

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I got both. I have experience with the Fractal Design Define R3, Define XL, and the Define R4 as well as every Noctua fan made in the last 5 years (NF-S12, NF-S12B, NF-P12, NF-P12 PWM, NF-F12, etc).

To cut to the point: Go for the new Noctua PWM fans if you want silence.

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I only ever used Noctua. Well, and the other generic ones. If there is a price difference, I'd get the cheaper, as it sounds that both are heavy performers.

Hey, chconline.

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I have a Fractal Define R2 with 2 of the Fractal fans and have since added 2 Noctua NF-P12 fans to the chassis. I honesty can't tell the difference in noise between the 2 since my video card makes more noise than the entire rest of the system, even at idle.

Either way you go, you'll get quality silent fans. In my experience, the Fractal's are cheaper, but the Noctua's seem to have a better reputation for silence and reliability/longevity and you'll pay a bit of a premium for that.

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