Noctua just released a new 120mm case fan with a 9 and a half minute video explainer
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Noctua fans feature regularly in our best PC case fan guide, year on year, and the NF-A12x25 was the brand’s previous premium 120mm offering, with impressively high airflow along with a good number of accessories to help customize your setup. Well, now Noctua has released the latest generation of this fan: the NF-A12x25 G2, which comes with the same upgrades recently seen in the newest 140mm variant, the NF-A14x25 G2.
Noctua released an in-depth video explaining the differences along with an accompanying article, though if you’re not fully up to date with your technical fan lingo, you may have a bit of a job parsing it. We’ve explained the major changes below in more layman-friendly language, but in summary, the new fans bring greater consistency of performance, better build quality, and either a quieter operation or improved cooling performance at the same noise levels if you want to maximize output.
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NF-A12x25 G2 vs NF-A12x25
- New impeller & tubulator hub shape: The G2 features a progressive‑bend impeller crafted from Sterrox LCP, designed to direct airflow more efficiently toward the blade's most performant regions. It also adds winglets at the blade tips to make airflow smoother and more precise. The central section is no longer just a flat surface, and now has a new ‘centrifugal turbulator hub’ design that more evenly distributes flow across the impeller surface, improving consistency and performance.
- Improved motor: The G2 sports a new ultra-high-efficiency etaPERF motor and introduces ‘SupraTorque’, for quieter and steadier operation under load.
- New radiator gasket: The newer model introduces a NA‑AVG1 anti-vibration gasket, a silicone seal designed to snugly sit between the fan and watercooling radiator, reducing air leakage and vibration.
- Improved acoustics: Dual-fan sets in the G2 version use a slight PWM offset (~±50 RPM) to prevent beat frequencies and reduce acoustic interference when fans are run in tandem, achieving smoother, quieter operation
- Performance gains: In noise-normalized tests, the NF‑A12x25 G2 outperformed its predecessor, achieving ~3.5 °C better on a 120×49 mm AIO radiator at 200 W. It also gained from improved ΔT on CPU air coolers like the NH‑U12A, despite running at approx. 1750 RPM vs. the original 1800 RPM.
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