There won't be a new generation of 140mm Noctua fans any time soon
Until recently, it looked like if Noctua failed to release the new generation of 140mm fans by the end of the year (2022), it would happen shortly after. But right now, even this year’s release is in jeopardy. The cause is a fault that, it seems, Noctua didn’t really expect. This delay, by the way, also significantly delays the planned sale of the successor to the NH-D15 CPU cooler.
There wasn’t a quarter last year where we didn’t ask Noctua about what is the situation with prepping the140mm LCP-based fans (i.e., the majority “sterrox” component that the NF-A12x25 fans are also made of).
In October, everything seemed to be on track and as long as Noctua secures the raw materials to produce the first batch in the quantities it needs, these fans will be here by the end of the year. But that didn’t happen, and already in November Noctua publicly announced that it definitely won’t be able to release them that year.
When we inquired what was behind this, we learned that the reason was due to some production issues that we were not able to write about last year. But there wasn’t much to write about either. It was not clear from this brief information (and Noctua didn’t want to reveal more) what kind of production issues were involved. It still appeared to be the eventual result of a lack of production capacity. But in the end it will be a more complex situation, which has obviously brought the fans back to prototype level again.
Noctua’s official release states that they will be simulating the durability tests again in accelerated mode. It can be deduced from this that the first prototypes that Noctua promoted to final versions could not be mass-produced so that the result would meet Noctua’s high demands for low tolerances. Noctua points to those in the official statement as well.
In the current roadmap, Noctua’s new generation of 140mm fans has been delayed until the fourth quarter of 2023. Compared to the previous roadmap, this is a one-year delay. Hand in hand with it is the delayed release of a dual-tower cooler, which is supposed to outperform the NH-D15. Naturally, new 140mm fans are also counted on for cooling it.
Now that Noctua already knows that there won’t be the new fans before Q4/2023, there is naturally a concern that we won’t see them until 2024. That’s when, according to current plans, these fans should come out in a black variant (chromax.black). And there should be some white fans in addition to them. In what format and from what material is still unclear.
In the past, Noctua has shown prototypes of white models of the NF-F12, NF-A14 and NF-A15. So maybe it will be these fans.
In any case, it’s clear to see that Noctua is focused specifically on completing the next generation of 140mm fans. Until the third quarter it will only deal with “little things” (including the modification of the low-profile top-flow cooler NH-L9a for the AMD AM5 platform, and fan grilles, which are also floating among the roadmaps due to the discovery of certain imperfections) and then we believe that the time will really come.
What could have happened?
Noctua does not specify what technical reasons are behind the delay of the new generation of 140mm fans. But when we asked it during the year if they will bring some technological changes compared to the NF-A12x25, yes, they will (and there will be more of them). It will not only be a proportional stretch, as it is the case with Thermaltake Toughfan 12 (120 mm) and Toughfan 14 (140 mm) fans.
Manufacturing flaws may also be at the level of possibly new type of bearings (SSO3?), the PWM signal control chip or the motor itself. Some of this most points to the fact that Noctua will have to retest the fans for durability. Not to forget though that the blades of these fans will be longer than those of the 120mm fans, and perhaps the geometry still needs to be tweaked in some way to avoid more undulation (and vibration) than is okay by Noctua’s high standards.
The developers have certainly pushed the individual parts to the limit of physical possibilities, including the very small spacing of the blade tips from the frame. And therefore any “excessive” flight deformation of the blades at these locations may be undesirable. We put the word excessive in quotes because the LCP/sterrox won’t undulate significantly even on blades that are a number larger, but if Noctua pushed the boundaries again and cut the blade-to-frame gap in half compared to the NF-A12x25, even minimal undulation could lead to abrasion.
It cannot be ruled out that Noctua, after the commercial success of “sterrox”, will come up with a completely new material, where some shortcomings were discovered only during the first attempt at mass production, where several samples did not fit within the specified tolerances. This could, of course, have occurred for other reasons. In short, the fans are not fit to be signed off by Noctua for their release into circulation. And it’s probably better to disappoint customers a little by waiting longer than by some deterioration in quality characteristics.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
Very nice write up Thanks