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I wish I had learned that a decade ago. I would still have a 3Dfx voodoo 5 55500 if I'd not been gaming in a storm without an actual surge protector! But I understand the increase in motor power. I would say the original P12 is quite significantly underpowered, with small headroom.
And one addendum for the discerning reader who will scroll through the comments here and there and might ask the same question as one of the readers of this article in another language. Namely, why the BioniX P120, being more expensive, often achieves a lower airflow than the P12. We discussed a bit in the opening chapter that these fans don’t have the same rotors, but I didn’t want to pay any extra attention to that in the conclusion (these aren’t fans that are in any way competing or that you’ll be deciding between). If you are looking for a quiet and powerful fan, Arctic has the perfect solution for you! With the Arctic P12 PWM Max fan , the popular Arctic P12 has been equipped with extra cooling performance and now manages to direct even more cool air onto your components. Thanks to the universal frame design and the high static pressure, the Arctic P12 PWM Max fans can be used in cases, on coolers and on radiators. There is no need to be prejudiced against slim fans. If you find a fan with a half profile height fits your small case or on a cooler, feel free to put it there. Figuring out how to get a “standard” one in there after all, even at the expense of a smaller cooler heatsink, may turn out to be a worse option in the end. The cable is “ordinary” but solid – flat, with the wires holding together nicely. There are two connectors at the end. One to connect the fan to the motherboard or hub/controllers, and the other to daisy-chain another fan. The cable is 40–45 cm in length.But how come the rotor is above standard height then? There is very little spacing on the other side, between the rotor and the stator slats. It’s very tight there (which you’ll notice even with minimal deflection, typically when cleaning by wiping the blades), but in practice it doesn’t matter. In addition, all the stator slats except the one that runs the cable have an aerodynamic shape, their tips taper towards the blades. Starting out, it’s still worth noting that the Arctic P12 compares with the previously tested BioniX P120 A-RGB, although it has seemingly the same rotor – it doesn’t. And there are more than enough differences, including a shorter tunnel (P12) with less rotor clearance from an obstacle, but let’s start the analysis as usual from the top. In this article, we will take a look at these fans and see what the hype all about is. Item: ARCTIC P12 MAX Pricing: MSRP €12.99 at the time of the Review for a single fan For being only a 6-euro fan, the precision of production is extremely high. It’s only at the level of really fine detail that you’ll find that the P12 has slightly looser manufacturing tolerances than Arctic fans with a similar rotor. There will be a tiny unevenness here and there on the P12, but it will have virtually no impact on the performance. And at this price range, it’s also a bit unfair to point it out, as similarly priced fans often fare considerably worse. These fans feature 0dB mode as these would stop spinning at or below 5% PWM cycle. Please note that you would need a supporting motherboard and would also need to enable the Auto Stop or what settings your motherboard’s UEFI BIOS provides. This would come in handy when the system is idling or at no load. However, these fans don’t have ARCTIC PST technology. Simply put you can’t daisy-chain these fans. This is what PST is all about – a fancy name. These fans are powered by a 4-pin PWM connector cable. These cables are flat in design.
ARCTIC with their P12 PWM fans has been at an advantage when it comes to noise performance and we have seen that P12 MAX fans at roughly 50% of their speed are now doing what regular P12 PWM fans are doing at their full speed (100% PWM cycle). This has provided P12 MAX a thermal headroom of 3°C (as per our testing) coming from going above 50% PWM cycle. This is one way of doing it. We did not see any benefit of going below 43 B(A) as fans are silent at this range. This tells us that the thermal performance of P12 MAX fans is quite good albeit at a high noise output. I do not claim that NF-A12x25 PWM is at 787 rpm (i.e. the speed in our “31 dBA” mode) a noiseless or soundless fan, I am just trying to balance it a bit. At this speed you write about industrial noise or use in noisy technical rooms, which is misleading. I respect that in your idea of quiet operation the NF-A12x25 PWM has an even lower speed. The P12 has larger blades compared to the BioniX P120, although it doesn’t seem like it unless one sees those fans side by side. So with the same size hub, the gaps between the blades are naturally smaller on the P12, so there is less room for airflow leakage and higher static pressure is achieved. This means that the airflow loss due to obstacle resistance is smaller with the P12 than with the P120. The design of the frame of the P12 is very simple and differs from the others only by the shaped protrusions in the corners where you would expect anti-vibration pads. Arctic doesn’t supply these with this fan, although they would be useful. But again, considering the price, this is something we can’t fault this fan for. In short, a necessary compromise. The build quality is very decent for such an inexpensive fan, without significant imperfections, which are sometimes seen due to saving on injection moulds. However, don’t expect any extra extras or accessories – the frame is simple, with no anti-vibration pads in the corners.
The rotor itself is taller than average for a 15mm profile fan. Support with nylon filters is nevertheless maintained. The height difference between the frame and the rotor is sufficient at the fan intake, even if you use a filter with an unreinforced mesh. But the worse ones, which collapse significantly, can already collide as with all fans.
Only thing better are the Noctua redux for the price. Don't fall for the RGB hype. I've had 3 Silverstone AIO fans fail with the one below these 2 on it's way out! It'll be replaced by a p12 once it fails! Before we take a look at the results, we have pitched the P12 MAX fans against the P12 PWM fans on ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 cooler. Here is a comparison data of these fans: One of the differences from the BioniX P120 A-RGB that is also good to notice when judging the results is the smaller offset of the rotor from the frame. The P12 has a half centimeter narrower tunnel, so the rotor is closer to the obstacle, which changes the airflow velocity in addition to the noise. So there is actually a similar effect that the Noctua NA-IS1 frame is supposed to provide. Each mounting corner has a gray color anti-vibration pad that minimizes the vibrational noise coming from the surface on which the fans are installed. The anemometer was placed close to the fan. Since we measure all 120mm fans the same way, the error of margin would apply to all. AcousticSpend money on the things that matter. 1. PSU 2.mobo 3. The highest end CPU you can afford 4. A GPU that will leap frog the next gen(don't upgrade each release!) and last but not least.... Don't fall for the "PCI Express Gen 4" hype. Now I know, 600 rpm, okay, and as a sign that I appreciate that we have such demanding readers, I promise you that sooner or later we will create another mode, which will be twice quieter than the quietest mode that we have now. In addition, we will select fans that will have the highest airflow in the 31 dBA mode and there will be room for further noise reduction. Some fans cannot be slowed down even to 31 dBA mode and of the remaining ones, half of them have a speed of 600 rpm or lower. The NF-A12x25 PWM here allows setting some of the highest speeds mainly because it is PWM controlled, and now I’m not afraid to use the word extremely quiet running of the motor and bearings. This is also visible in the spectrograph, where in the frequency band of these components the noise is extremely low. Noctua deserves all the respect in the world here for going into such details as smoother/quieter PWM waveforms with a slanted left-hand side of the pulses.
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