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Remember the active noise-cancelling fans Noctua promised to have on display at the Computex exhibition last week? Well, said cooling technology was indeed available, along with new information about pricing and release info for the products. So does Rotosub's ANC technology actually quiet things down as much as promised? Noctua's posted a video of the noise-cancelling fan in action so that you can judge for yourself.
After watching (and listening) to the video, our ears report that the ANC tech manages to dull the noise of the fans by quite a bit. The soft, soothing quiet is thanks to a team effort by a mic, a signal processor and a metal band in the center of the fan. As the fan spins, the microphone feeds the noise to the signal processor, which does its frequency-finding magic and then delivers a signal to magnets embedded in the tip of the fan blades. The magnets make the blades quiver oh-so-slightly in response to the metal band in the center of the fan, which creates a sound that largely cancels out the noise of the fan itself.
Now for the bad news: Noctua told the Verge than ANC-enabled fans are at least a year away from retail shelves, and the initial versions may be bulky, as they won't necessarily have the mic and signal processor integrated into the body of the fan itself. The fans are also expected to cost somewhere between $40 and $50 bucks, whereas the currently available Noctua NF-F12 can be found for between $20 and $25, depending on where you're shopping.
So, hearing (or not -- ha!) all that, are you still intrigued by active noise-cancelling fans, or does the anticipated price point cool down your enthusiasm?
Comments are closed on this article
pinson101
June 12, 2012 at 5:39am
I was really confused till he flipped the switch. I'm really excited about the technology, just not the price.
vrmlbasic
June 11, 2012 at 11:54pm
Quiet performance seems to go against something in human nature. ;)
I ask you: is there a quiet race/performance/sport car? If so, I haven't heard of it lol.
Noise might even be more important than performance, to which I reference all the annoying vehicles I'm sure we've all encountered on the road which achieve loud exhaust at the expense of performance.
Shoot, Harley enthusiasts even tried to justify their love of loudness with the highly-illogical saying that "Loud pipes save lives".
Point, if you could call it that, being: why do we want all our toys loud, associate loudness with high performance, except when it comes to our PCs?
Even with several "standard" fans my pc is currently inaudible over louder ambient noise like my AC unit. I'm not seeing a point to this, certainly not for $50/fan.
fearsythe
June 12, 2012 at 7:49am
Nissan Leaf RC...and it's fast too. Your argument about exhaust is invalid. Just because something is loud doesn't mean it performs better. And harley riders (with loud pipes) are just overgrown children who want attention.
X2brute
June 12, 2012 at 4:09am
actually there is, the Tesla roadster and other electric cars are almost silent, they pretty much just have road noise and wind noise
diedrichg
June 11, 2012 at 8:34pm
At around 1:50 you can see the fan blades being vibrated to dampen the sound. Look at the top left corner where you can see the shadow.
Typo91
June 11, 2012 at 2:05pm
it sounded like the speaker on the fan, makes it sound louder, then when they turn it off, poof the fan is quieter.
If you really want a silent system, just built your a special encloser with sound dampening and good air flow under your desk, search youtube for computer sound dampening
kiaghi7
June 11, 2012 at 2:03pm
I really like Noctua parts, I even have one of their coolers and several of their fans, and some Yate Loons in my case right now...
This particular fan looks interesting, and I -REALLY- hope they start making the vibration dampening escutcheon STANDARD on all their fans!
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=42&lng=en&set=1
However, looking at the actual stats from Noctua's site, the "standard" volume of the fan is about 22.4 dB and the "low noise" volume is about 18.6 dB. For sake of discussion, let's just say 4dB because that's effectively what we're talking about...
The fan in question, the NF-F12 PWM, however is entirely outclassed by its own "sister line" of fans the NF-S12B and the NF-P12.
The F12 and the P12 are very close in overall stats and performance, but the P12 -can- be had for about $20 a piece if you shop around a little (or buy a 3 pack and get them for even less!)
The S12B is far and away superior in every significant way to the F12 PWM in this article. It's quieter, pushes MORE air, and costs half as much!
I'll wait and see -IF- the design of the F12 PWM works as advertised and pushes air in a more concentrated manner, this yielding more efficient cooling, in the real-world situations we're all going to be dealing with.
My gut is telling me that in a case-fan situation it would make little or no difference, perhaps on a heat-sink it would more directionally drive heat off of the surfaces it's immediately contacting and more effectively move that heat/air up off the surfaces. Sort of like the difference between letting a hose just run, or putting a focusing nozzle on it...
dgrmouse
June 11, 2012 at 2:36pm
"For sake of discussion, let's just say 4dB because that's effectively what we're talking about..."
"My gut is telling me that in a case-fan situation it would make little or no difference..."
That's because your gut is making the ever-so-common mistake of forgetting that the dB scale is non-linear.
tekknyne
June 11, 2012 at 9:39pm
Actually, the dB scale is in fact linear, but the relative sound that each value represents is not. For example, 91 dB is slightly louder than 90 dB, but 151 dB is very MUCH louder than 150 dB.
HAH I just trolled the troll. Self-high-five!
kiaghi7
June 11, 2012 at 8:07pm
Nice taking two entirely unrelated sentences out of context there troll...
What you got wrong was basic reading comprehension...
The 4dB comment was regarding the sound difference alone, and the CHEAPER fans have less noise for less money...
As for the second sentence, it was referring to the actual airflow of the fans, and that supposedly the new fan does more with its airflow than other designs... This may be so, but for the sake of a case fan it wouldn't make much (if any) difference than a conventional fan because you're trying to establish an overall current to remove the warm air already drawn out of the cooled components and exchanged into the case.
It's really pretty sad that you would go to that length to purposely misrepresent what someone says when the actual post is literally right above your trolling...
markoramius1086
June 11, 2012 at 12:50pm
So what is the expected maximum air output on these bad boys supposed to be? Better be epic to match the $50 price tag!
captainjack
June 11, 2012 at 2:03pm
bet we didn't get the details here because it's going to be a full review in the mag
