• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Noctua Presents New Chromax line Fans and Accessories

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,675 (7.43/day)
Location
Dublin, Ireland
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite V2
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 16GB DDR4-3200
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 4070 Ti EX
Storage Samsung 990 1TB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Noctua today presented new additions to its chromax line of black, colour-customisable cooling fans. The new chromax.black.swap versions of the award-winning NF-A20, NF-A12x15, NF-A9, NF-A9x14 and NF-A8 fans as well as the corresponding NA-SAVP5 and NA-SAVP6 anti-vibration pads now give customers the option to colour-coordinate Noctua 200 mm, slim 120 mm, 92 mm, slim 92 mm and 80 mm fans with individual build designs and popular colour schemes such as all black, black and white or black and red.

"First introduced in 2015, our chromax line is aimed at customers who value individual, focused build aesthetics just as much as class-leading quality and performance," says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "With the new chromax.black.swap models, we're broadening the scope to include fan sizes other than the regular 120 and 140 mm formats, some of which should be particularly attractive for ITX and Small Form Factor builds."



The new chromax.black.swap editions of the NF-A20 PWM, NF-A12x15 PWM, NF-A9 PWM, NF-A9x14 HS-PWM and NF-A8 PWM combine the signature quiet cooling performance of these award-winning models with an attractive all-black design and a bundle of red, white, blue, green, yellow and black anti-vibration pads that allow the colour-customisation of the fan to match individual build colour schemes.

Whereas the black 20 cm NF-A20 is ideal for quietly cooling large tower cases, the other new chromax models are more oriented towards compact, space restricted builds: now available in black, the NF-A9 and NF-A8 are proven premium choices when it comes to 92x25 and 80x25 case fans. While the NF-A9 is also an excellent match for compact tower-style CPU coolers such as the NH-U9S or NH-D9L, the slim 12 cm NF-A12x15 as well as the slim 9 cm NF-A9x14 are perfect for use on low-profile top-flow coolers such as the Noctua NH-L12S or NH-L9 series. In addition, both have become popular options for watercooling radiators in situations where space is tight and regular 25 mm thick units would not fit.

Like the previously released 120 and 140 mm chromax line fans, the new chromax.black.swap versions of NF-A20, NF-A9 and NF-A8 feature swappable silicone anti-vibration pads for colour-customisation. Coming with 4 white, red, blue, green and yellow as well as 8 black pads, the fans can be coordinated with most popular build colour schemes out of the box by combining the various colours with black or going all black. Additional sets of NA-AVP6 (for NF-A20) and NA-AVP5 (for NF-A9 and NF-A8) pads for outfitting both sides in one colour can be purchased separately. By contrast, the two slim models, NF-A12x15 and NF-A9x14, feature self-adhesive pads and include 8 of each colour so that both sides of the fan can be outfitted with any colour out of the box. For further customization, a wide range of accessories such as coloured cables and anti-vibration mounts are available separately.

Topped off with Noctua's trusted premium-grade SSO2 bearing, more than 150,000 hours MTTF and 6-year manufacturer's warranty, the new chromax.black.swap fans are the perfect choice for all users who want to create high-end PC builds with specific, focused aesthetics.

Prices and availability
All models are available as of today via Noctua's official Amazon and eBay stores. Other sales partners will receive stock shortly. The manufacturer's suggested retail prices are as follows:
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
nice concept with the color swap pads, but that means $27.00/$32.00/$42.00 for each fan if you want to change colors. So now my question: do the pads glow under UV lighting?
 
Last edited:
I guess that's nice for those folks that need to color coordinate everything.....but I've never had a case that had fans installed where you could see the anti-vibration pads on the case fans. The fans are tucked behind the front panel and you can't see them or they're mounted on the back and you won't see them or they're mounted on the AIO radiator and you can't see them.....

Fans with color swapping pads that look nice in glass cases?
I feel like I'm missing something here. What am I missing?
 
If vehicle tires were so expensive, no one would have been driving for a long time. Cents for dollars !
 
Color-coordinated noise absorption pads for rarely-used fan sizes. :ohwell:

ezgif.com-gif-maker.gif


Oh come on Noctua...

Move the 1.5kg fanless heatsink from prototype to production and launch it before Christmas! :clap:

Noctua1.jpg

Noctua2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Noctua need to get with the program and stop making beige and maroon fans.

I am impressed by Noctua's products and like that they haven't jumped on the RGBLED bandwagon, but it has been very difficult to buy a case without a window over the last half decade and honestly, that means that colours matter.

Noctua need to make all their fans black by default, yesterday.
 
Noctua need to get with the program and stop making beige and maroon fans.

I am impressed by Noctua's products and like that they haven't jumped on the RGBLED bandwagon, but it has been very difficult to buy a case without a window over the last half decade and honestly, that means that colours matter.

Noctua need to make all their fans black by default, yesterday.

Agree 100%. :)

I use (2) of these Noctua 140mm Industrial PWM 2000rpm rated All-Blacked-Out Noctua fans (below) in my home office.

Noctua makes you purchase the black corner pads separately.

Only about $6.95 for quantity 16 - enough for 2 fans, yet still I agree - they should be included with the fans by default. :oops:

IMG_8130.JPG
 
on another note, really want GN to do a full on Fan roundup video
 
on another note, really want GN to do a full on Fan roundup video

Agreed, we need a good fan roundup, most on the internet are quite old.
 
chromax NF-A12x15, but no NF-A12x25....

At this point I'm just going to fill my system with some GTs instead of continuing to wait, marginally better performance be damned.
 
on another note, really want GN to do a full on Fan roundup video

Mad respect for Steve and GN but as far as fan reviews go TPU has VSG who is the finest fan reviewer on the net !

chromax NF-A12x15, but no NF-A12x25....
At this point I'm just going to fill my system with some GTs instead of continuing to wait, marginally better performance be damned.

Marginally better cooling perf but when it comes to noise optimised perf metric those do worth the wait imo .
 
Damn Noctua keeps releasing Chromax versions only a few months after I bought their regular fans. First happened with NF-A14 and now NF-A20.
 
The pads are good for 4 fans. Not needing on both sides.

That depends on how far you want to travel into full trailer park PC mode after dark. :laugh:

If the swap from the Noctua Industrial fan stock brown-colored corners to black corners is for an aesthetic full-black then it’s kinda missing the point of the mod if you don’t completely fill all (8) corners that do exist on each Noctua Industrial fan, I get it only four corners make actual physical contact, and hey - you just saved six dollars and ninety-five cents. :laugh:

Of course, ya don’t have to use ANY noise absorption corner pads if you really want to save some ultimate Pizza Hut money and umm literally “cut corners” (pic below) lolol :roll:

IMG_6268.JPG



poor motherboard


IF the mobo is vertically mounted, yea I agree 100%, that could be tricky. Luckily, my Z390 Dark board is a nice stable horizontal mount so hopefully none of those anomalous destructive force vectors to contend with. :p

--------

One last pic, imho the fans do look better, more symmetric, balanced and complete - finished with all (8) corner pads in place. If it's an area within the build where the fans are not easily visible only functional (4) corner pads yea I see would easily get the job done. Yet in my case no side or top panels, an open air build the fans are extremely visible and directly in line of sight.

And only using two fans in total for the build - one GPU and one CPU. But enough about me, let's talk about you. :D

IMG_8115.JPG
 
Last edited:
Back
Top