Cooling [SFF Network] Noctua's Chromax Range - Colourise Your System

[confusis]

Noctua has, since their inception in 2005, stuck with a set "coffee and cream" colour scheme across their entire product line... until now.

Noctua's new Chromax range - along with the Redux and IndustrialPPC line of fans, reviewed by us a while ago - adds some much needed variety to Noctua's stable. With the prevalence of beautifully themed builds nowadays, this is certainly a positive design choice, to say the least.

Read more here.

 

[Phuncz]

It's positive in my opinion that they addressed the limited color range with these kits, although this will just stimulate more people buying the iPPC line (because being neutral black) which is more expensive and not oriented for desktop use. Whereas their standard beige and brown 120mm lineup can float around 500rpm while being quiet/silent, the black iPPC fans have a louder three phase motor and higher rpm prohibiting them from being as quiet.

Maybe this will hurt the company's good name, because people new to the brand finally finding a solution that matches their build's color will now think the Noctua fans are very quiet, only to mis-buy into the iPPC lineup and find out they aren't as quiet. Because many view "industrial" as being "just better and stronger" than consumer stuff, even though industrial to me means noise and looks aren't a concern, but reliability and sturdyness are.

Personally I don't care about fan colors, I care about fan performance. I don't have a window in my PC because I care more how it performs than how it looks, I don't like cleaning my PC out more often because it looks dirty inside and with SFF you rarely have an interesting view of your components anyway.

 

[K888D]

Maybe this will hurt the company's good name, because people new to the brand finally finding a solution that matches their build's color will now think the Noctua fans are very quiet, only to mis-buy into the iPPC lineup and find out they aren't as quiet.

This is true, I build allot of 'quiet' HTPC's and often select Noctua fans for the various builds, but the traditional colour scheme often doesn't fit with the overall aesthetics.

When Noctua released their new 'neutral' coloured range I remember seeing them for sale online, but after reading your review decided they wouldn't be suitable as they aren't as quiet. If I hadn't of already read your review then I would probably have picked the grey versions and been disappointed.

Aesthetics are important in living room devices, but I still rank quietness as being more important.

It's a shame really, they are potentially damaging their reputation with first time customers not getting the quietness they expected from the Noctua brand, but they are also losing out on sales from enthusiasts by not offering a neutral coloured product with the same performance as their main product line.

 

[Phuncz]

The light-gray/dark-gray fans from Noctua are their Redux series, which are more basic fans with lesser advanced technologies, but still a high quality fan in every regard. They are also still able to be used for quiet/silent setups and are considerably cheaper.

 

[confusis]

The Redux line doesn't support the anti-vibration pads. From what I understand, the Redux lines are the previous generation designs. They're still quality units.

I do agree that the blurring of the lines between all three fan lines will cause issues - I was one of the many who expected the Industrial PPC line to just be a black version of the regular Noctua fans... I was wrong!

 

[jeshikat]

I have the Industrial 140mm but the minimum RPM is just too high for my taste so I bought the LTT edition: http://www.performance-pcs.com/noct...inus-tech-tips-edition-140mm-cooling-fan.html

Hopefully Noctua either releases it in black or there's a LTT version of their Gentle Typhoon competitor whenever it finally releases.

 

[Josh | NFC]

Is it just me or are these new fans uglier than ever before?

...Maybe it is just cause their "coffee and cream" color style has grown on me.