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As always when we have to test fans, we do it “in the air”, that is, without installing them in a box, radiator or heatsink, so that we can see their behavior without other external restrictions that have nothing to do with the fan itself. In addition, by doing it this way, we can compare its operation with that of other fans that have passed through our laboratory. The connection is made via a 4-pin PWM connector. Arctic uses a high-quality, hydrodynamic plain bearing. This not only guarantees smooth operation, but also ensures that the volume does not increase over time. 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” The fans at 100% of their speed were doing approximately 53 dB(A) at an ambient of 32 dBA. One of the fans was making 76 dB(A) due to bad bearing. We have to mention this since we are testing these fans. Conclusion
The design of the frame of the P12 is very simple and differs from the others only by the shaped protrusions in the corners where you would expect anti-vibration pads. Arctic doesn’t supply these with this fan, although they would be useful. But again, considering the price, this is something we can’t fault this fan for. In short, a necessary compromise. ARCTIC has mentioned that their newly developed fan motor has a low noise output even at full speed. It is also mentioned that there is no startup jerk and that this motor produces less commutation vibration. This is why there are no anti-vibration pads on the mounting corners. ARCTIC P12 SLIM PWM Cable CINEBENCH R23 is used to stress the CPU for 20 minutes. The system is left idle for 5 minutes to record the idle temperature. The average of all P-Cores maximum temperature is taken and reported in the graph. For comparison, we have the RAIJINTEK EOS 12 ADD RBW 120mm fans and SilverStone SF120 fans. Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste is used. times more intensity than 70 dBA. It can damage the eardrums if it is exposed for more than 8 hours.
Let’s start by measuring the loudness, the aspect that can worry us the most in a fan as fast as this one. To measure the noise it emits, we have used a Protmex PPM-SM001 sound level meter at an exact distance of 50 centimeters, since by doing it this way the data we obtain is measured in dBA. As always, we have made two measurements: one letting the fan work by PWM, and another forcing it to work at maximum speed with a rehobús. This is the result. If you are looking for a quiet and powerful fan, Arctic has the perfect solution for you! With the Arctic P12 PWM Max fan , the popular Arctic P12 has been equipped with extra cooling performance and now manages to direct even more cool air onto your components. Thanks to the universal frame design and the high static pressure, the Arctic P12 PWM Max fans can be used in cases, on coolers and on radiators. There are two small arrows on one side of the frame. These provide a visual clue to the users in determining the direction of airflow through the fans and the direction in which blades will spin.
Each fan has a flat cable with a 4-pin PWM connector to power these fans. PWM range is quite good on these fans. Then it’s very strange. We use spectrograms instead of sound recordings for sound analysis precisely because we do not want a dispute to arise at the level of subjective perception of individual frequencies. Everyone sees their intensity in spectrograms in the same way and the results of NF-A12x25 PWM clearly show that there is practically no noise that can be perceived by a person when using PWM control. Or if you can hear some sound in the frequency band we are talking about, you should also hear it with Silent Wings 3.The P12 PWM PST fan (hereafter referred to as the P12, but we’re still talking about the PWM PST variant) has a 5-blade axial rotor, which is typical of Arctic’s current “P” series models. Because of the small number of blades and the intention to achieve high static pressure, each blade must be large. If the blades were smaller, a lot of air would escape through them, which would reduce the airflow the more resistance the fan would have to overcome. Thus there is a considerable cross-sectional area covered by the blades, so that the airflow does not decrease excessively even if the fan is operating on restrictive obstacles. As accessories, in this case only a small plastic bag with 4 screws is included to install these fans in a PC case. 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. These fans feature double ball bearings from Japanese manufacturer NMB. These bearings provide a much longer service life of these fans having a minimum of 500,000 hours. One possible reason to use these bearings is that these fans have high speed. Maintaining these speeds over a much longer time period would need better bearings but it is also surprising that many other manufacturers are providing similar speed range using Fluid Dynamic Bearings. Anyhow, we don’t know if the motor of these fans has a 6-pole, 3-phase design or not. According to ARCTIC using sinus-magnetizing, the new motor only creates about 5 % of the vibration from the commutation of a regular DC motor without a filter. ARCTIC with their P12 PWM fans has been at an advantage when it comes to noise performance and we have seen that P12 MAX fans at roughly 50% of their speed are now doing what regular P12 PWM fans are doing at their full speed (100% PWM cycle). This has provided P12 MAX a thermal headroom of 3°C (as per our testing) coming from going above 50% PWM cycle. This is one way of doing it. We did not see any benefit of going below 43 B(A) as fans are silent at this range. This tells us that the thermal performance of P12 MAX fans is quite good albeit at a high noise output.
In our measurement, the Arctic P12 Max at maximum speed has managed to move almost 82 CFM of airflow, which is an outrage for a 120mm fan (as you can see in the comparison graph, there is a fan that moves more air but is 140mm). Even at only 1,000 RPM speed, it moves almost 40 CFM of air, which is great, because to this we must add the great static pressure that it is capable of generating… it is a fan that even placing your hand at a distance of 50 cm, Notice the air flow. But I understand the increase in motor power. I would say the original P12 is quite significantly underpowered, with small headroom.The anemometer was placed close to the fan. Since we measure all 120mm fans the same way, the error of margin would apply to all. Acoustic Here is a table showing RPM range and corresponding airflow and speed measurements of the ARCTIC P12 MAX fan:
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