Noctua NF-A9 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (92mm, Brown)

Noctua - Best cooling solutions “ANYWHERE”! I have used Noctua CPU Coolers, Thermal Compound, and fans for decades. Spend a little more and get the best that money can buy. Put a dollar value on your frustration whenever purchasing computer components. Not to mention time saving. Noctua, their entire product line, is consistently top shelf.

The best fans on the market for noise control, precise operation and long lasting use. These fans move more air then others of the same size. The computer designed blades cut down on fan sound.

Very quiet, bought for Minisforum 795S7 machine

What's not to like with Noctua's premium fans except perhaps the color? I love how quiet they are for how much air they move. And I love all the accessories, rubber isolation mounts, low speed adapter, cable adapters, etc. Even better after using these some of these fans for close to a decade in server applications I've never had one fail even in 7/24 full time use. That's hugely different than all the Chinese gamer fans where you're lucky if they last a year before they start making noise with their cheap bearings, etc. One Noctua will outlast half a dozen other fans making the Noctua a bargain.

Purchased as an additional fan for a Noctua CPU cooler, it dropped my CPU die temps by about 20 degrees C! Fan also has a good 6 year manufacturer warranty.

I have an old Dell computer that had a failure in the CPU fan. Due to the age, the original part is no longer available. This fan, while shaped differently, is doing a great job of cooling the CPU and preventing a thermal shut down. It was able to be fitted because the mounts are slightly soft and giving and allowed it to be mounted where a rigid setup might have broken.

I set out to make a "nearly" silent PC, in that I didn't want to go fanless, but I wanted it to have the fans running so slowly (or off) during normal operation that it was silent, and it was only during intensive activities that the fans would ramp up. Through that process I ended up using 5 different fan models from 3 different companies,including this NF-A9. Long story short, I prefer NF-Bx line from Noctua as my favorite and the best value. These NF-Ax series fans are slightly better, but not so much more so to justify the 50% (or so) increase in cost unless you need the vibration free mounting hardware it comes with. (The "B" series doesn't come with that nor with the extra extension and splitter cables the "A" series does.)Some cost saving advice: don't buy a Noctua CPU cooler. Buy a Cooler Master CPU cooler (I went with the Hyper T2 as it is the biggest one that fits in a standard case) and take off the Cooler Master fan and buy one a Noctua fan. For ~$27 combined you get what Noctua wants to charge $60 for. The Cooler Master fan sucks and doesn't allow you to reduce the fan speed below ~30%, so it needs to be replaced if you want to go silent, but the Noctua NF-B9 is exactly the same size fan and it is easy to replace it once you realize you can pull off the rubber pads that obscure the fan screws.Another learning, don't trust that the fan controller on your motherboard is doing everything as it should. First, I had to go into bios and change it to PWM mode as it assumed DC mode for the system fans even though it comes with 4-pin fan headers (DC mode doesn't allow it to spin at nearly as low of a speed). Next, it appeared when I was first testing the B series fan that the lowest it could go in PWM mode is 13% based on the RPM data the motherboard was providing. But then I noticed the fan was still spinning when I put the PWM at 10%, so I figured the fan wasn't providing good RPM data below 13%. (I later noticed that the A series would show RPMs down to 10%, further giving credence to that idea.) Next I noticed it would stop spinning below 10% (both A and B series), so I assumed that was the lowest the fan would go. Not so on either count! I later hooked up the NF-B9 fan to my GPU and it could both spin the fan and read its speed as low as 5% PWM (never tried with the A series fan, but I assume it could go slower too). So apparently my motherboard has it's limits that it won't go below. For all I know, the fan could go even lower than 5%, but that's the best the GPU fan controller will do. (Luckily, even 13% is slow enough to be silent in almost all scenarios.)But the long and short of it, is that with 4 of the Noctua fans (A9 on the CPU, 2x B9 on GPU and 1 B9 on the rear of the case) and leaving the front of the case fan off unless the system gets hot (trying to save a few bucks and not replace the 12" fan unless I need to) as well as an EVGA gold power supply in "eco mode" I have a truly silent PC, where a pretty sensitive dB meter can not detect it being on. I have to do the test in the middle of the night, because even cars going by outside are detectable. But at 3 AM, it reads 21.1 dB with the PC off and 21.1 dB with it on. My stomach gurgles and the stupid thing goes up to 24 dB or I click the mouse and it goes up to over 30 dB so trust me when I say the dB meter is sensitive enough to detect pretty small readings.To be fair and give a caveat, to keep it silent, the fans are running at 13% on the rear of the case, 10% on the CPU and 5% on the GPU. But that's just enough air flow with the good heatsinks that in normal operation the system temp stays around 40 and both the CPU temp and GPU temps stay in the mid 50's.Build details:Intel Core i3-8100 CPUMSI Z370M Mortar motherboardGigabyte GTX 1050 Ti "Windforce OC" GPU (Note: Gigabyte is the only vendor with a good fan controller on their 1050 GPU. The other companies have junk 2-pin fans.)2 of 4 GB DDR4 2400 Kingston Fury DIMMsSamsung 960 EVO M.2 SSDEVGA 650 GQ PSU in eco mode

I bought a 92mm and 80mm Noctua case fan and so far it really made a difference in terms of noise reduction. I switch Noctua fan with my old one and i thought my PC died on start up because of the sudden drop of noise after 1-2 second of starting up. I can actually hear what is happening inside my PC now due to the fan being almost dead silent.It feels very weird because i never had a Desktop PC this quiet before.The Installation was easy and straight forward. It still comes in a nice looking box. The fan comes with a cable attach, also comes with an extension cord if you need the extra length, the noise reduction cord which i used for both of the fans and really made a huge difference. Along with a few other things. There was no instruction manual (maybe there was) but that was not needed. All you do is plug the fan cord into the noise reduction cord if you want to use it and then plug that into the 4 pin fan slot on the motherboard. Everything should fit together nicely, not much force is needed plugging things together. It comes with 4 screws, use a screw driver to mount the fans in place.This is not really a problem but as people know the color of fans really does not match with everything else. But i don't really look at my CPU so it not a problem for me it. They do have black now or starting to sell black color Noctua Fans. My gaming rig is not big size so these fans handle it fine. The box says a 6 year warranty so that is a plus.Overall i am very impress with the presentation and the quality. It made me want to write a review for it. The CPU noise compare to before these fans is night and day. I never realized how long my CPU noise was before using these fans. Of course this is the first day i am using them as i am writing this review so take it for what you will. Hopefully these fans will last me a good few years at minimum.