Noctua Fan Investigation: China & Taiwan Quality

Рет қаралды 246,631

7 жыл бұрын

We look into concerns of Noctua's fan quality between the China- and Taiwan-made fans, focusing on the NF-A14.
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Article: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/301...
The fans primarily used are these Noctua NF-A14s (on Amazon): goo.gl/tAoV8S
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Editorial, Testing: Steve Burke
Video: Andrew Coleman
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Пікірлер: 889

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

More commentary on the internet outrage engine in the intro+conclusion of the article: www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3012-noctua-fans-from-china-and-taiwan-tested

@StasRyadinsky 7 жыл бұрын

Gamers Nexus i dont know if its meant to be like this but at 10 minute mark the graph key do not show which line is which variable. Heads up for future editing :)

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

Yeah, editing issue. Thanks. That chart is also on the website. See here: media.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2017/fans/noctua/noctua-quality-pwm-lfpm_all.png

@Zarcondeegrissom 7 жыл бұрын

This is all good news, and I will admit I expected the FPM to be lower than that given the focus on sound rather than CFM efficiency. Great work, Thanks, Steve and Crew.

@carlosrios7088 7 жыл бұрын

have you tried their a12x15 fans. they had a demo where 1 of them was just as good at cooling a heatsink as (2) nf-f12 fans. i know you probably dont want to get too deep into fans. but since the f12 is already one of the best, this means the a12x15 is amazing. or am i wrong? i ended up buying like 7 of them. but with my case (phanteks evolve is a HOT case) its hard to tell how well they are doing compared to the f12's they replaced. 3 instake front. 1 intake back (gpu rad). 2 exhaust top (h100i).

@abigailpatridge2948 7 жыл бұрын

Whatever gave you the impression that Noctua was focused on noise? They're very much performance oriented. They also don't hyper focus on any single aspect of performance.

@JarrodsTech 7 жыл бұрын

The results blew me away.

@RJT80 7 жыл бұрын

Jarrod'sTech Ask yourself to leave.

@toddsimone7182 7 жыл бұрын

What a funny guy, you got yourself a new fan.

@nathanrwin 7 жыл бұрын

R T You guys need to _chill_ out

@durianrain 7 жыл бұрын

R T is just blowing hot air

@TheRguru1 7 жыл бұрын

Damn guys these puns are just *exhausting*

@jamezrin 7 жыл бұрын

TL;DR It does not matter if you get your fans from china or taiwan, they perform the same.

@jort93z 7 жыл бұрын

the color variation is VERY noticable though. if its already noticable on the video it'll be even more noticable in person. might not be a big deal if you have all your fans from one location(though i think the taiwan made one looks better color wise) but will definitly look akward if you have 2 fans from the different locations in one build.

@RJT80 7 жыл бұрын

MrJaime Can we chill out with the China stuff? They have been around for 8000 years in one form or another. Yes, CS can be an issue but if it were as much of an issue as the narrative that all humanity has adopted, we would grind to a halt because of the sheer amount of things we use daily that were manufactured in China. I'm no real fan of China for various reasons, but I have traveled their for business and both buy and sell to and from China and I have never had an issue as a buyer. As a seller I have. Fraud there is huge when it comes to bilking Western importers/exporters out of money. It's essentially just a script all Chinese importers follow.

@mywtfmp3 7 жыл бұрын

Do you put noctua fans in your case and show other people and tell them fans look nice?

@MrSeon123 7 жыл бұрын

jort93z Who would care, though? Unless you're a *really* dedicated Noctua fan, and you therefore colour match your entire build around a specific Noctua fan, you won't care. It's not like anything matches with brown and tan.

@greebj 7 жыл бұрын

LOL saying "Taiwan and China" probably gets you on a Chinese government subversion watchlist for supporting Taiwanese independence and undermining the One China policy ......

@enders-builds 7 жыл бұрын

Excellent work from GN. I could always count on you guys for hard data and investigative integrity.

@Tinfoilpain 7 жыл бұрын

I'm a FAN of this channel... Keep doing stuff like this, you're one of the few channels that actually do rigorous tests and it's worth it.

@Shippoyasha 7 жыл бұрын

Some customers probably thinks China automatically = terrible quality. When so many top class PC parts comes from China. It depends on the factory and batch quality really.

@oneeyedgoatnigga1605 7 жыл бұрын

Shippoyasha as long as there is quality oversight, there shouldn't be a problem.

@ThierryTheuns 7 жыл бұрын

You should probably read the original Reddit thread. There were significant differences.

@TheRguru1 7 жыл бұрын

90% of the crap we buy is made in china. Iphones are made in china and no-one complains about the quality control there. Yet people see a slight colour mismatch on a fan and they lose their damn minds!!!

@saladwithsalad 7 жыл бұрын

As long as there's a good quality control,it doesn't really matter where the parts come from.

@lishde3 7 жыл бұрын

All noctua fans are made in china. TAIWAN IS IN CHINA

@nigelsharp4664 7 жыл бұрын

Excellent video, so nice to see this kind of structured and qualitative testing. (Also nice to see noctua didn't slip up, it seems!)

@The76Malibu 7 жыл бұрын

I purchased two NF-A14s in October 2015. One is Taiwanese and one is Chinese. One has tear drop scoops, one has triangle scoops. They both have always felt of excellent quality and I never noticed a difference. Their color also appears identical.

@jeffreychaucer846 7 жыл бұрын

Love the other noctua fan spinning in the background in the beginning. Subtle, but worth it.

@TechnoBabble 7 жыл бұрын

That fan is helping cool the test bench. It's always there.

@GamersNexus 7 жыл бұрын

It actually was there only for this video!

@lovelyxyz 7 жыл бұрын

TechnoBabble you read that? you fuckn crack head

@steveopenshaw1219 3 жыл бұрын

@@lovelyxyz lovely.

@BuffaloWarrior7 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you for being one the the only channels properly testing and questioning anything

@toddsimone7182 7 жыл бұрын

So they changed the color from poop brown to diarrhea brown.

@daedra40 7 жыл бұрын

Todd Simone but diarrhea sucks way more :( like, in humans, it really does...

@daedra40 7 жыл бұрын

Stryker A. Wolfe hahahahaha

@curl3v252 7 жыл бұрын

Todd Simone: Hahaha

@Rickmon01 5 жыл бұрын

This made me literally laugh out loud

@yspegel 5 жыл бұрын

50 shades of shit..... all to ugly to put in a showcase

@Fake_Blood 7 жыл бұрын

Only recently subscribed. It's refreshing to see objective level-headed testing using the scientific method for pc hardware, love this channel.

@Drinkyoghurt 7 жыл бұрын

When I first saw your videos I thought you guys were a bit whack, but I actually like the fact that you investigate important stuff and test stuff in a good way instead of most other tech channels on here. Keep it up!

@rars0n 7 жыл бұрын

Steve, the legend at 9:57 has no colors.

@kennethmadsen6474 7 жыл бұрын

I must say I am a big fan (get it? - sorry) of your detail in testing and argumentation about the conclusive results. Really good work! Not just this video.

@extremespeedslowpokeessp8172 7 жыл бұрын

in other words.... people freaking out about nothing again

@RJT80 7 жыл бұрын

Extremespeed Slowpoke (ESSP) 21st century pastime.

@feelingtardy 7 жыл бұрын

i think that's why reddit was created.

@james2042 7 жыл бұрын

welcome to the internet

@MordecaiWalfish 5 жыл бұрын

Lamergate

@----------------------------- 5 жыл бұрын

I mean it is the PC community. The most whiniest and bitch community

@rmorenberg 7 жыл бұрын

excellent review. I like the way you go about testing and explaining how you went about it. I really do like noctua myself.

@Phranqo 7 жыл бұрын

Glad to see you guys made a detailed report on this. Thanks!

@ottoyu101 6 жыл бұрын

Great testing! awesome videos as usual.

@glhf5922 7 жыл бұрын

So based on what we have here, it's not that big of a deal that many made it to be.

@ilpatongi 7 жыл бұрын

For now tho, who knows if they're gonna lower production quality standards

@RJT80 7 жыл бұрын

GL HF Rules for life.

@mbsnyderc 7 жыл бұрын

It's not a deal at all.

@progste 7 жыл бұрын

GL HF and water is wet :p

@jackanderson2773 Жыл бұрын

@@ilpatongi According to people in the know quality can likely decrease over time .

@Galka_DK 6 жыл бұрын

Heard the rumor, but didn't put much thought in it. Would properly have looked into the issue once I needed new fans. So glad I stumbled over your video. For future charts used, I would like to see the Chinese and Taiwanese listed for them self i order (china #1,2,3,4 Taiwan #1,2,3,4) instead of every other. Would just have made it easy to compare the two. Great work, keep at it ^^

@insidebyte8561 7 жыл бұрын

I love Noctua fans, my case is full of them, really interesting video so thank you for spending time to make this video :)

@haguruma7832 7 жыл бұрын

FINALLY! I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS! THANK YOU!

@clipse85 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you GN for (at least trying to) bringing some reason to this topic. I was expecting these results TBH as the Internet tends to blow things out of proportion most of the time. :)

@TheGoatStudios 7 жыл бұрын

Thanks for doing this video guys. Awesome!

@speedyMaldo 7 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the follow up vid! Was actually curious about this. Glad to know Noctua is still the best of the best.

@Wayne-fe1ed 5 жыл бұрын

This channel is my goto source for analysis, so good. Thanks again.

@overlord8880 7 жыл бұрын

What is off beige? I know about beige and off white.. but off beige?! My wife didn't teach me that one.

@angrysocialjusticewarrior 3 жыл бұрын

You are overthinking it. Off beige is off beige.

@rRefuseToSelfCensor 3 жыл бұрын

@@angrysocialjusticewarrior exactly. You know it when you see it.

@juusolokfors3381 7 жыл бұрын

At 6:54 there's one interesting thing to note. When the fans stop it seems like the one on the left is a "lower quality" magnetic 4-pole motor, whereas the one on the right stops smoothly, indicating that there is a difference in the internal motors used. I wonder if this could be confirmed?

@shantanu561 7 жыл бұрын

Keep up the good work. Interesting video

@trevorpreston6623 7 жыл бұрын

Great video, I was in the original thread and the unfortunate bit was just mixed messages from Noctua - one response was them saying that the mold was bad and they were replacing it and another saying that everything is fine. Thanks for doing such a great investigation, I now know that I have as good a fan set as can be expected from Noctua even though it came from the China factory.

@jackanderson2773 Жыл бұрын

But you don't .

@michaelkreitzer1369 7 жыл бұрын

The last Noctua HSF kit I purchased had the darker shade, and it was pretty noticeable as somebody who has been using their fans for a while. I'm one of those rare types that liked the Noctua color, and the lighter color of the older fans is the better of the two.

@highlycaffeinated6864 7 жыл бұрын

Thank god this controversy is finally put to bed and I can sleep again...

@16abo0odee 7 жыл бұрын

Joe Ebner Are you sleeping with the controversy ?

@jaalan7896 4 жыл бұрын

I dont know how you can sleep with your noisy ass china fans in the background. /s

@purefucknmetal 7 жыл бұрын

These fan tests are awesome. I want to see fan vs fan tests with this methodology. I've used Noctua fans in the past and they're excellent. I'm currently using Fractal Venturis because they look way better. I think they're slightly louder but still pretty good. Would love to see a big round up fans comparing air flow and noise at set RPMs. Normally I prefer to leave my fans around 800ish for silence, but will ramp them up to 1000 for long gaming sessions since they are quiet enough behind game noises and/or spotify at that level still

@Nirabulator 7 жыл бұрын

Well done! Thanks for being such a beacon of sanity and reasonableness!

@nukedathlonman 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much - I had faith in Noctua's tight quality control (given how long lived their fans have been for me for years). Too bad the whole thing got blown waaay out of proportion. :-(

@BoliMeKurac 7 жыл бұрын

When you know your product is so good you can paint it in poo and price them high, and people still buy it like crazy

@chriselliott12 7 жыл бұрын

Videos like this are why you guys are the most respected chan of all the techtubers. Thank you

@jasonreimer5736 7 жыл бұрын

Glad to see you busting silly myths, Great work!

@-DeScruff 4 жыл бұрын

I just bought three Noctuas, two are from Taiwan, and one from China. They seemed to have made strides to fix the color difference between the two since this videos launch since, (at least from the ones I have) the color difference is really only noticeable when all the fans are next to each other, and they are in a well lit room. One could easily assume any color differences while in a case is just simply lighting. Specially if they are in different areas of the case.

@Malus1531 7 жыл бұрын

GN, what program do you make your bar charts in? I'm curious about the lines at the tips of each bar. It shows margin of error correct? For a 95% confidence interval? Is there a way to show error like that in Excel, or do you use something different?

@bar10dr 7 жыл бұрын

Great video as usual, thanks

@elfuertebalrog1539 6 жыл бұрын

Very nice video well done! I think another interesting test will be to test both of them on a long period of time in the same conditions and see the duration of the products.That will be 100% myth busted or not?!?!

@xlcr8518 7 жыл бұрын

thanks for this Gamers Nexus, there's no mention if there's any differences between componentry used; for example, the exact motor make/model, bearings, electronics between the Taiwan vs China here or in the article.. I guess you were forbidden by Noctura from dismantling the units?

@MooTaters 6 жыл бұрын

That's funny, I thought that the "tear drops" looked more correct on the Chinese version. Remembered them being somewhat triangular and definitely deeper than the Taiwan version in that post.

@134shinymango 7 жыл бұрын

I know it will be quite the will before release but will you test the Noctua Sterrox fans when they come out?

@ianise4965 7 жыл бұрын

The most professional tech videos on KZfaq.

@jack55787 7 жыл бұрын

I work for a car manufacturing company and we had an a problem at one point where a color was not coming out right at a particular plant. It was determined that due to a difference in humidity the previous color used was not getting cleaned off properly before the next color was used. While this color difference in fans is different than the car paint, it maybe some climate difference paint mixture difference that's causing the disparity. Good on Noctua for looking into it. Small difference, but listening to consumers is a big deal.

@ivanlinatoc577 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you for doing this!

@EmoEmu 4 жыл бұрын

Does the actual heatsinks come from the same place, or might they also be manufactured different places? I saw a video where a guy got different results with 2 of his noctua nh-d15 on the same test rig. Wasn't a big difference ofc, but it was there.

@rasong 7 жыл бұрын

I've noticed a difference in color of different models on Amazon, thought it was lighting, but the slightly different dye colors makes sense.

@MrKZdemos 7 жыл бұрын

been waiting on this one

@fredericcudeiro6614 5 жыл бұрын

Hello! Thanks for the video. However, as you highlight in the video (13:13), you need a much larger test sample size to draw any reliable conclusion. Small sample size + measurement variations can lead to incorrect conclusion. Especially when you're dealing with what seems to be quite "small" différences. Fred

@ambientss1 7 жыл бұрын

I have the perfect solution for Noctua. Make the fans all black. The factories can not mess up black, and the fans will look better! Lol

@Tom-xy7mx 7 жыл бұрын

You should be head of the company. I never consider buying noctua fans because the color clashes with everything, well unless if I spray paint all my pc parts poop brown and off beige lol.

@wizardwithsmg 7 жыл бұрын

What if you buy 10 fans and 5 are dark black and the other 5 are slightly darker black?

@RJT80 7 жыл бұрын

Ryan Tokarski I had one of Noctua's first coolers many years ago. Even with the hype you had to ignore the fan color. And now I have no interest as performance is so close now between good air coolers. So I wouldn't even consider owning that ugly ass brown and tan thing. All I look for is a known name with real ball bearings. Can't go wrong. Arctic Cooling makes some good ball bearing fans.

@ambientss1 7 жыл бұрын

Peter Cursio can you really tell dark black and off black fans when rgb lights shine in on an awesome build? Black still looks better and easier to match than poop brown on beige khaki.

@smilesaredaggers3088 7 жыл бұрын

oh they could mess up black ... but still would sell better

@iandalonso 7 жыл бұрын

Some pretty cool tests

@buffdogg 7 жыл бұрын

Gamers Nexus Would you consider comparing these fans vs the competitors? Curious if data can prove there is a measurable performance difference between these fans and the others, thus justifying their price premium.

@lego46143 7 жыл бұрын

FINALLY! great video guys

@Pienimusta 7 жыл бұрын

What that effect is called, when it seems like the rotating direction changes (only optical of course, it doesn't really change)? Same can be seen on car wheels.

@robodog7610 7 жыл бұрын

Hey Steve, could you compare fans from other manufacturers to Noctua ones ( Corsiar, TT, Fractal, Schyte, etc )? Nobody does direct fan comparison anymore, as it seems.

@Kenchan1337 7 жыл бұрын

sweeeeeeet, been waiting for this one

@chuck2501 7 жыл бұрын

When did the noctua beige change from nice fan pity about the colour to the colour is slighty wrong ;) I have all grey Noctua Fans (redux) for my D14, should I go back?

@EttoreB93 11 ай бұрын

Why the decibels are 41 at 1/2 meter (20") even if their website states 24,6 dB at max speed? Do they measure the noise from meters away? I'm truly ignorant about the whole noise matter so I'm puzzled

@ferdis7 7 жыл бұрын

Any details on their new "A" model fan i think it was called?. I believe you guys covered it at computex

@darcassan 7 жыл бұрын

The LFPM Chart legend has no color code reference.

@mohawkchris2766 7 жыл бұрын

I haven't been getting notifications for this channel. It's aggravating and I have no ideas why it's doing this.

@WakizashiSabre 4 жыл бұрын

Bought 14cm Redux one with 1500rpm with screw distance of 12cm as cpu cooler and is is really nice stuff. Hearable on 1500, so for totally silent rig, lowering is required, compared to other Noctua I have -12cm, but that one is air oriented, so more silent in nature with less air pressure. Still top fans. Though my Noiseblockers were silent, Noctua is even better. Great video.

@cavootermtb4122 7 жыл бұрын

I'll save my pitchfork for another cause. Great testing methodology, thanks for taking the time and running us through it.

@DlondonD 2 жыл бұрын

"..We did not produce a frequency spectrum plot, we did not noticed significant differences" Haha nice test. So an acoustic comfort aspect was practically ignored and not event tried to be measured. Also aspects of FAN orientation and positive/negative air pressure from one of FAN's side - was also missed. It may affect acoustics comfort and loudness differently in China and Taiwan. So these tests demonstrate that some of measurable performance was matched in China versions but keep in mind that frequency spectrum is not reflected by dB value of loudness at all, while that may affect an acoustic comfort tremendously - which is very important just like as dB level.

@sparkyenergia 7 жыл бұрын

I've always found different models of Noctua fans to have different burgundy colours in the fan hub and blade section. So I would not have even had a second look at it if I were the guy who bought a bunch of them. Now might be the time for Noctua to not step up their quality control but rather their consistency control.

@jasongooden917 6 жыл бұрын

I noticed that a couple of weeks ago when i got my Noctua cooler. All the pictures on the net were beige and brown were as my fans are more of a brown and peach color.

@Bakkefication 5 жыл бұрын

Did you open up the fans to see if there were any differences in the motor?

@bluepwr1865 7 жыл бұрын

I was waiting for this.

@randomdriver 7 жыл бұрын

Are the diagram colors the same in the linear feet per minute diagram and in the pwm noise diagram?

@digitalinversion9500 3 жыл бұрын

thanks Steve! I have both china and Taiwan made fans into my system and I can't unsee now that they have different color

@mentholdeathray 2 жыл бұрын

This video helped me become a fan of the channel

@NavySturmGewehr 7 жыл бұрын

For temperature testing you could have used something with fixed heat output such as an incandescent light bulb.

@elegymusic 7 жыл бұрын

do these differneces just apply to this line on fans, because i have the NF-F12 IPPC 2000rpms fans 3 pin that i use which are from china

@afiqazman6615 6 жыл бұрын

I just find it ironic, a video discussing about Noctua Fan was brought/sponsored by EVGA AIO... haha

@ZenStrive52 7 жыл бұрын

Who's here want to see those noctua fans stack to blow on Steven's hair, in slow motion :) ?

@MikeDawson1 7 жыл бұрын

I like the thought behind the words you say

@HomerSlated 6 жыл бұрын

At 9:56 the color keys are missing, so you can't tell which line corresponds to which fan.

@colel8524 7 жыл бұрын

great work

@JayJay-tr3ks 7 жыл бұрын

As a test goes we do not have any idea how much the DUT's were used before the test so it would be interesting test: would there be a difference with RPM noise ration over time? and etc. Between products and manufacturer's. Tho this would take literally months to years (or just burn it with max RPM for weeks) to do I would presume that Noctua has data about this for sure.

@sadsismint 7 жыл бұрын

it would be interesting to see similar tests between Noctua and a bunch of other brands of similar fans.... just to see how well the brand stacks up against others and not just itself. maybe it doesnt even make any difference across brands as well?!

@mrle0719 6 жыл бұрын

Simon Adams just what I thought. Needs more up votes ;)

@TheJayRoth 3 жыл бұрын

God Steve I love your guys work

@EricTanGH0ST 7 жыл бұрын

Reading through the comments gave me an idea to maybe start making shot quality fans but with RGB and charging it for high price and I bet it's still gonna sell since that's what people cares about aesthetic.

@Ultrajamz 7 жыл бұрын

Its these niche tests that most people cant afford to do that I love! Good work.

@kliffedelvalle9558 7 жыл бұрын

Wow... I'm impressed how precise Noctua fans' quality is regardless of where it was made!

@anonamouse5917 7 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the data.

@DocBrewskie 7 жыл бұрын

This video was FANtastic.

@SerpentXTech 7 жыл бұрын

Around 10 minutes and 45 seconds, you are missing the graph key, matching the colors to the specific fans....but doesn't really matter as besides the color they all operate the same, relatively.

@BillyONeal 7 жыл бұрын

That's an interesting stack of fans you've got there :P

@TheQuikMix 7 жыл бұрын

I think that there's some missing color information on the Legend for the chart at 9:56.

@jazzochannel 4 жыл бұрын

Your hair looks glorious in this vid

@eyb0ss 7 жыл бұрын

I have one from each country lol, the colour difference is noticeable when both are attached to the same radiator.

@ImTheSlyDevil 7 жыл бұрын

Yeah, wasn't really worried about it to begin with.

@CheapSushi 7 жыл бұрын

Just wanted to say it's impressive that this was tested. Not many tech sites would bother.

@terp02Andrew 7 жыл бұрын

Level head...and Reddit? Unpossible :p But seriously - great work on testing it and ruling this out empirically. The last time I ran into this was comparing Chinese vs Japanese Panaflo 80mms way back in the day. This should be a good giveaway on how long I've been building haha.

@paragon84 7 жыл бұрын

Was there a difference for those Panaflo fans?. I'm curious :)

@Dumplingu 7 жыл бұрын

Can you fix the key for the linear feet per minute graph?

@peterjansen4826 7 жыл бұрын

Gamers Nexus Steve, what are the causes (what tolerances?) of the differences between PWM vs. RPM. Obviously it shouldn't be a big deal to the user that these tolerances exist but it is interesting to know how it works.

@NiggazHomie 7 жыл бұрын

Peter Jansen production. If you produce 1000 fans you can't assume that they are 100% identicaö to each other. There is no such thing even if the process of every step in the production is identical. There are so many factors.

@peterjansen4826 7 жыл бұрын

I know, I was asking what the non constant factors are.