Top all-time · #2329
noctua.at
Company blog · noctua.at/en/expertise/bloghardware
noctua.at is the company blog at noctua.at, writing about hardware. Since 2014, 33 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Noctua releases official 3D CAD models for its cooling fans”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (27) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN links noctua.at for its quiet PC fans and CPU coolers, product spec and compatibility pages, thermal paste, and technical articles on fan design and CPU mounting.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 27 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Noctua releases official 3D CAD models for its cooling fans2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-04-27
- Why does it take so long to release black fan versions?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-01
What Hacker News says?
You mean like this? https://noctua.at/en/asus-and-noctua-announce-asus-geforce-r...
Comment linking /en/asus-and-noctua-announce-asus-geforce-rtx-3080-noctua-edition-graphics-card
on “EVGA terminates Nvidia partnership [video]”Submitted How to make the Framework Desktop run even quieter as a story · 340 points
HN discussionI also hate fan noise and ended up DIYing an air purifier with computer fans as you end up with a much quieter air purifier than commercial offerings for a given CADR. If you're going this route I suggest paying a bit more and getting the noctua pwm adapter ( https://noctua.at/en/products/accessories/na-fc1 ) so you can control the fan speed, and designing it (or using an existing design, see https://www.cleanairkit…
Comment linking /en/products/accessories/na-fc1
on “Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier (2022)”Submitted Noctua introduces NL-LC1 all-in-one liquid coolers as a story · 5 points
HN discussionDust-clogged fans and degraded thermal paste can also be a factor, particularly after 3 years. iFixit guide for removing your heatsink: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Disp... My favorite thermal paste: https://noctua.at/en/nt-h1.html
Comment linking /en/nt-h1.html
on “iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages”Submitted Fan Speed Offset Explained as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFor passive noise cancellation you would need to add material that absorbs/dampens sound, or you would create a baffle/muffler of some sort. The only alternative I know of is ANC. This PC case fan ( https://noctua.at/en/noctua_anc_project ) is designed for ANC. It generates the inverted signal inside the fan.
Comment linking /en/noctua_anc_project
on “Effects of grill patterns on fan performance/noise (2011)”Submitted Why does it take so long to release black fan versions? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionDo you mean for liquid-cooled solutions only? We've been using this Noctua U14S TR4-SP3 ( https://noctua.at/en/nh-u14s-tr4-sp3 ) on a 1950X (no overclock though) without issues.
Comment linking /en/nh-u14s-tr4-sp3
on “AMD Reveals Threadripper 2: Up to 32 Cores, 250W, X399 Refresh”Submitted What is active radiator ventilation and why you should consider it? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI got it from here: https://noctua.at/en/nf-f12-industrialppc-3000-pwm/specifica... Or if you just follow the link on the linked page: https://www.pccasegear.com/products/27866
Comment linking /en/nf-f12-industrialppc-3000-pwm/specification
on “A small DIY air purifier”Submitted Why does it take so long to release black fan versions? (Noctua) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionhttps://noctua.at/en/nf-f12-pwm/specification Static pressure 2,61 mm H₂O <-- according to the vendor
Comment linking /en/nf-f12-pwm/specification
on “A small DIY air purifier”Submitted Noctua releases official 3D CAD models for its cooling fans as a story · 1 points
HN discussionNoctua has a cooler that can handle something like 65W-70W CPUs completely passively. https://www.noctua.at/en/products/nh-p1
Comment linking /en/products/nh-p1
on “Most Stable Raspberry Pi? Better NTP with Thermal Management”Submitted Noctua introduces new A-series fans and accessories (200mm, slim 120mm) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI agree, but I'm confident Noctua will tackle that with the next iteration of their 140mm fans which is currently scheduled to be released in Q1 2022 [1]. [1]: https://noctua.at/en/product-roadmap
Comment linking /en/product-roadmap
on “My Fanless OpenBSD Desktop”> There is no need to spend extra for 140. A quality 120 is negligibly higher CFM then a quality 140 at the same RPM. Where do you get these numbers from? Take Noctua fans for example, which are arguably some of the best on the market. A 140mm NF-A14 PWM [1] does have a throughput of 140.2 m³/h at 1,500 RPM, while a 120mm NF-A12x25 PWM [2]does only have a throughput of 84.5 m³/h at 1,700 RPM. And that even with the…
Comment linking /en/products/fan/nf-a12x25-pwm/specification
on “My Fanless OpenBSD Desktop”Yeah, I went with the h110i AIO since during pre-order they were the only confirmed by the manufacturer supported cooling solution in stock. Noctua also has AM4 versions of 3 of their coolers: http://noctua.at/en/noctua-presents-three-special-edition-am... (again, sold out when I pre-ordered, the D15 is otherwise a great cooler). The Crosshairs VI Hero also has brackets for AM3, so with that specific board you have…
Comment linking /en/noctua-presents-three-special-edition-am4-cpu-coolers-for-amd-ryzen
on “Intel Announces Skylake-X: Bringing 18-Core HCC Silicon to Consumers”I don't really understand the allure of going entirely fanless. Adding a couple of fans that spin so slowly they're inaudible makes a huge difference in cooling efficiency, with no real downside. For example, I use one of these.[1] It's several years old, but it does a good job of cooling, can't be heard, and doesn't fill up the whole damn case like that one you linked to... I can only imagine newer heatsink/fan des…
Comment linking /en/nh-u12p
on “An Inferno on the Head of a Pin”Welcome to Hacker News! I'm glad my comment encouraged you to join the site. I didn't write the article, I was just commenting because other users seemed to miss information that was written in it. The picture with the thermal paste shows that paste was squeezed out from the entire perimeter of the CPU, so the cooler is making contact with the whole CPU. The paste is squeezed thinner near the lower side of the CPU b…
Comment linking /pub/media/wysiwyg/offset/heat_cooler_base_frame.png
on “GMP damaging Zen 5 CPUs?”This is per design. On AM5 processors, there's a hotspot on the lower half of the processor where the dies that contain the CPU cores are located. Noctua recommends that AM5 users mount their coolers shifted towards the lower side of the processor for optimal cooling performance, see https://noctua.at/en/offset-am5-mounting-technical-backgroun... . You may have missed the paragraph in the article that explicitly poi…
Comment linking /en/offset-am5-mounting-technical-backgrounds
on “GMP damaging Zen 5 CPUs?”One interesting thing to note is the P/Q fan curve. It plots how much air a fan, at a specific PWM frequency, moves against a variable restriction (measured in pressure drop). Here's a sample - https://noctua.at/en/nf-a12x25-performance-comparison-to-nf-... Hypothetically, knowing the heatsink airflow curve, one can find the amount of air a fan will move across. There are PQ curves (either reported or measured) for…
Comment linking /en/nf-a12x25-performance-comparison-to-nf-f12-and-nf-s12a
on “More than you cared to know about PC fans”3-wire is: TACH, DC, GND 4-wire is: PWM, TACH, DC, GND https://noctua.at/en/what-pin-configuration-do-noctua-produc...
Comment linking /en/what-pin-configuration-do-noctua-products-use
on “More than you cared to know about PC fans”I really like the Noctua cards they're collaborating on, it's not really necessary to go water-cooled once you've got a 4ish slot card/heatsink with quiet 120mm fans! https://noctua.at/en/asus-geforce-rtx-3080-noctua-edition-gr...
Comment linking /en/asus-geforce-rtx-3080-noctua-edition-graphics-card
on “Nvidia adds liquid-cooled GPUs”I was mistaken. They are 2x NF-A15 (140mm). https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15 The other two fans I mentioned went in the topside of the case.
Comment linking /en/nh-d15
on “AMD Ryzen 9 3900x price drop could take the wind out of Intel comet lake sales”This. This. This. I have "refurbished" 2 MacBook Pros now, and this is part of my process. Max out the RAM, install SSD, replace battery, reapply thermal paste, clean with canned air. When I did this to a 2009 13" MBP that got me through grad school (already had max RAM and an SSD), I found that it ran cooler than I remember it running when I first bought it. Recently, I bought a used 2011 15" MBP (no HDD, swelled u…
Comment linking /en/nt-h1.html
on “Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?”> Yes, they need water cooling. That's inaccurate. Air cooling solutions are readily available for Threadripper. Water cooling systems simply move heat to a more convenient place to air cool it away (thus the radiators and fans at the destination). The only limiter on air cooling (and not water) is weight/size on the CPU socket (or amount of air moving over the fins of the heatsinks). Some examples of retail air coo…
Comment linking /en/amd_ryzen_threadripper_tdp_guidelines
on “AMD unveils world's most powerful desktop CPUs”Interesting to see first party support for this. It is somewhat unfortunate that the official fan lets you read the fan speed, but not set it. I put a Noctua fan on my Pi and it sucks in a surprising amount of dust; mostly an artifact of too much ventilation when the computer doesn't actually need the airflow. (I put a filter on it and it's fine now, but sometimes I wonder whether the dust is actually filtered out,…
Comment linking /pub/media/wysiwyg/Noctua_PWM_specifications_white_paper.pdf
on “The Raspberry Pi 4 has a fan now – the Case Fan”I am using a https://noctua.at/en/nh-l9i as the cooler for it and it keeps it in a sensible range. I don't really max out all of the cores frequently, and certainly not with the most power-hungry workloads - eg AVX2. Noctua only recommend this with the following caveats: Recommended with good case ventilation only. If power limits are disabled in BIOS, CPU might not be able to keep maximum turbo clock under prolonge…
Comment linking /en/nh-l9i
on “Gigabyte Brix Pro: A Compact PC for Basic Computing Needs”
