{"id":152242,"date":"2023-05-11T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hwcooling.net\/?p=152242\/"},"modified":"2023-05-28T05:10:53","modified_gmt":"2023-05-28T03:10:53","slug":"white-noctua-fans-off-the-radar-140mm-hopefully-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hwcooling.net\/en\/white-noctua-fans-off-the-radar-140mm-hopefully-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"White Noctua fans off the radar, 140mm (hopefully) in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noctua’s May product roadmap does not bring good news. Everything we’ve been waiting for is being pushed back. Even one indefinite delay has been dropped. But that’s so that preparations around the new generation of 140mm fans<\/a> have as few “obstacles” in their way as possible. But even those, barring a miracle, won’t be available for purchase this year after all. But there is one positive news for AMD Threadripper processor owners.<\/p>\n

The last time we discussed Noctua’s plans was at the beginning of the year, in January.<\/a> Since then, as planned, low-profile NH-L9a<\/a> (chromax.black<\/a>) coolers with AMD AM5 platform support have been released, circular grilles<\/a> and also new CPU coolers for Xeon processors<\/a> for the LGA 4677 plaftorm. The only thing that didn’t come out in the first quarter like Noctua originally wanted was the fan hub. But that one came out recently.<\/p>\n

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The hub’s designation is NA-FH1<\/a>, it has 8 channels for PWM fans with a total power of up to 24 W (passive) or 54 W (active, with additional SATA power supply). It can handle even the fastest available computer fans by a wide margin, or you can connect more than one fan to a single channel via a cable adapter. It is also equipped with protection against short-term current spikes. <\/p>\n

Overall, the NA-FH1 hub should be at a higher technical level than most competing solutions, where Noctua has its reservations about the lower PWM signal quality. In some cases, it can be very weak after being split between a larger number of channels, causing reading errors. Thus, the PWM signal may not be interpreted correctly with cheaper hubs. This means that some fans may not behave optimally, typically unstably \u2013 in critical situations, for example, the fan may speed up erratically and then slow down significantly. If the fan cannot read the PWM signal at all, most of them go to maximum speed. Misreading the PWM signal can also al result in the fan going slower than you expect (only 20% instead of the set 40%, for example). Anything can happen, depending on how the fan controller (IC) reacts to the strength of the PWM signal. The lower the speed, the more the deterioration rate increases according to Noctua’s findings.<\/p>\n

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A 24V to 12V converter is also due out in this\/second quarter, which in turn may be suitable for 24-volt “iPPC” industrial fans (NF-F12<\/a> and NF-A14<\/a>) with an IP67 rating.<\/p>\n

Surprising is the third quarter, in which the next-generation cooler for AMD Theradripper processors appears, which was not in the previous roadmaps. It will thus be the successor of the NH-U14S TR4-SP3<\/a>. We don’t have any more information on it.<\/p>\n

The most stuff in Q4…<\/h2>\n

For the period from September to the end of 2023, Noctua is announcing two new, small fans and three CPU coolers. Larger tower model NH-D12L<\/a> chromax.black, smaller NH-D9L<\/a> chromax.black and from a slightly different breed then the top-flow cooler NH-L9x65<\/a> chromax.black. Actually, you already know these, but in the traditional colour scheme, i.e. beige-brown. So soon, however, they will also be available in all-black chromax.black.<\/p>\n

… and where did the white fans go?<\/h2>\n

What won’t be coming so soon, though, are white fans, which were even on display in prototype form at Computex 2019<\/a>. Noctua even removed them from the roadmap. But that doesn’t mean they’re done with them for good. They are still on the table, but according to Noctua’s Jakob Dellinger, it’s hard to make any promises on the matter. Their official position on the white fans is as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201eWe’re currently focusing all our energy on getting key products like the next-gen 140mm fans and the next-gen NH-D15 ready. This means that we are devoting less resources to comparably low priority projects like the white fans. This doesn’t mean that they have been scrapped entirely and I’d say there’s still a chance that we may have them before 2025, but we’re currently not pushing hard on this and therefore don’t feel confident giving an ETA.\u201c<\/em><\/div>\n

So one day, there probably will be white Noctua fans, although work on them has slowed down. If this is a big disappointment for you and you don’t have the patience anymore, you can get inspired and just spray paint some of the available fans. Similar to how overclockers.co.uk forum user HeX changed the colour identity of the NF-A15 fan.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Noctua doesn’t have a white original? Doesn’t matter, off to the piant shop and… here we go! (Source: forums.overclockers.co.uk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And one more never-ending story<\/h2>\n

The new generation of 140 mm fans also seems to be a bit cursed in time. Originally it looked for a long time like they would come out late last year, then Noctua announced a year postponement and even that will be insufficient. These fans are already written for Q1\/2024. What we know about them so far is that they will be “sterrox” (i.e. LCP-based material) and we believe that, in terms of efficiency, they will have no competition in their format. The high demands on the smallest details are also what is delaying the release.<\/p>\n

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These 140mm fans are also important for the upcoming generation of the NH-D15<\/a> cooler. We know that Noctua is fine tuning its heatsink to run as quietly as possible with the new fans. So far this cooler doesn’t have a more exact date, but it is listed in the window for 2024. It also includes the chormax.black versions of the expected 140mm fans. Their arrival can be expected really in relatively short succession after the release of the brown and beige variants. The black material has already been fine-tuned by Noctua while developing the NF-A12x25 PWM chromax.black<\/a> fans in order to maintain the same stiffness and overall performance. So at least in that respect something seems to be finished, but who knows, with a different blade geometry maybe something unforeseen will appear again in the context of the material behaviour that Noctua won’t be happy with. But we don’t want to paint the devil on the wall.<\/p>\n

English translation and edit by Jozef Dud\u00e1\u0161<\/em><\/p>\n