The build quality is very decent for such an inexpensive fan, without significant imperfections, which are sometimes seen due to saving on injection moulds. However, don’t expect any extra extras or accessories – the frame is simple, with no anti-vibration pads in the corners.

There are many gen 3 nvme drives that outperform the cheap Gen 4 drives. Like my ignorance in buying an sn750se "gen 4"..... It's slower than the sn750 Gen 3 I was going to replace it with! I do not claim that NF-A12x25 PWM is at 787 rpm (i.e. the speed in our “31 dBA” mode) a noiseless or soundless fan, I am just trying to balance it a bit. At this speed you write about industrial noise or use in noisy technical rooms, which is misleading. I respect that in your idea of quiet operation the NF-A12x25 PWM has an even lower speed. 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.Now coming to the main point of thermal performance of these fans, we pitched these fans against ARCTIC’s P12 PWM fans using Liquid Freezer II 360 cooler. Here is a summary: They are beast's at getting airflow through mesh filtration! I use them in my 011-Air as a test once other RGB fans costing 3x failed and I'd recommend them in any application. 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. 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. Now coming to the next round of testing, since P12 PWM fans were operated at 43 dB(A), we normalized the P12 MAX fans to operate at 43 dB(A). The ARCTIC P12 MAX fans reached this sound level at roughly 50% PWM duty cycle. When the test was repeated, we found both fans giving the same thermal performance. This shows the thermal headroom that P12 MAX have even when operating at half of their rated speed.

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. But I understand the increase in motor power. I would say the original P12 is quite significantly underpowered, with small headroom.I wish I had learned that a decade ago. I would still have a 3Dfx voodoo 5 55500 if I'd not been gaming in a storm without an actual surge protector!