Noctua Focus Flow 120mm NF-F12 PWM Fan Review

A Detailed Look at the NF-F12 PWM

As some have may have noticed, this fan has dark-brown accents on each of the corners, but these are not just for show folks! These are, in fact, vibration absorbing rubber dampeners installed onto the fan itself. While this isn’t a particularly innovative or new design choice by any company, it is interesting to note that they are removable and using them does not impede the use of normal fan screws or rubber fan mounts.

While we’re on this side of the fan, I’ll highlight some of the important bits. First off, you’ll note the highlighted yellow box which is to show off the stepped inlet design of the fan.

Noctua chose this approach as a two step design method. This is another attribute which is supposed to change the noise profile of the fan to make it more tolerable to the human ear, while also increasing the turbulence of the air so that the fan has another dimension in which they can improve static pressure.

Moving onto the orange highlight, these are the “inner micro structures” of the fan’s frame, which are supposed to increase airflow & static pressure and remove some of the “whoosh” sound you hear from the fan itself. Based on my own knowledge though, I can’t say for certain if this is the case or not, but I definitely have my doubts about these “micro structures” actually doing much at all.

Last but not least, we have the Vortex Control Notches & Stator Vanes found on this fan. As I said on the first page of this review, these have been designed so that they improve airflow but make the frequency of the noise from this fan far more bearable to the human ear.

Next up, we’ll get to the actual performance numbers from this fan.