Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Fan

Published: March 13, 2010

Editor: Amber Lupala

Provider: Noctua

Testing and Conclusion

Testing was conducted using an OCZ Vandetta2 CPU cooler with the original OCZ fan and then replaced with the NF-P14 FLX. All motherboard fan throttling was turned off for this test. Load temperatures are conducted by running OCCT V3.1.0 for 15 minutes. The following settings were used in OCCT:

Please click on thumbnails to get bigger pictures

The test system used consisted of the following:

Gigabyte X38-DQ6
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ stock speeds/voltage
OCZ Vandetta 2 CPU Cooler
XFX GeForce GTX 260
OCZ Blade 4GB DDR2
Western Digital FALS 1TB
2x Western Digital WD5000KS
ASUS 16x DVD-RW SATA
Vantec card reader
Creative X-FI Gamer
Nexus 1k power supply
Antec P180b case with rear fans on high and all others on low
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

OCZ Fan:

NF-P14 FLX without adaptor:

NF-P14 FLX with low noise adaptor:

NF-P14 FLX with ultra low noise adaptor:

The temps of the NF-P14 FLX with no adaptor verses the original OCZ 120mm fan are virtually the same and within the margin of error for the test. The Noctua fan is slightly quieter than the OCZ fan, which is already near silent. The interesting thing here is that the slower fan speeds didn’t really raise the temps too much. It’s almost unnecessary for Noctua to include the LNA and ULNA because since the fan is so quiet without them, I can’t foresee a use for them.

Conclusion:

Noctua’s latest offering, the NF-P14 FLX, lives up to the company’s reputation for producing well built and quiet, but effective cooling. The extras that come with the fan are nice and really complete the package. The ability to mount this fan in either 120mm or 140mm mounting holes provides good versatility and wide compatibility. At an MSRP of $24.90, it is a bit much for a fan, but it is certainly a good one.

Pros:

+Well build

+Good performance
+Silent

Cons:
-Price