Now with a higher focus on static pressure performance for heatsinks and radiators
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Today, Noctua debuted its next-generation 140mm case and cooler fans, the NF-A14x25 G2, in an official blog post, with the CEO writing that "after almost a decade of development work, we're proud of the substantial performance uplift we've managed to achieve with this fan." This fan directly succeeds the original 2013 Noctua NF-A14 and its PWM variant and is touted as "a true-all rounder that yields superb results in all types of usage, regardless of whether it's in low-impedance, airflow-oriented applications such as case cooling, or high-impedance, static pressure demanding scenarios such as on heatsinks and water cooling radiators".
The NF-A14x25 G2 is of course debuting in Noctua's signature brown color scheme — no word on when the now-common chromax.black variant will be made available or if it will be made available. But considering how long Noctua fan designs seem to last on the market, we'd be surprised not to see a black variant of these sooner or later.
Performance-wise, the NF-A14x25 G2 has also greatly progressed past its predecessor, according to Noctua's testing. The original NF-A14 at 1500 RPM when used for case cooling could only achieve about 68 CFM (cubic feet per minute) while the new NF-A14x25 G2 can reach up to 78.5 CFM. When compared for water cooling with a radiator in noise-normalized cooling performance, the original NF-A14 managed 29 degrees Celsius, while the NF-A14x25 G2 managed to squeeze it even farther, down to just 26.8 degrees Celsius.
Besides the base version of the NF-A14x25 G2, which runs at up to 1500 RPM, there's also an "ultra-quiet" LS-PWM version that runs up to 800 RPM, and even an Sx2-PP set with dual fans that maintain a ~25 RPM offset. The Sx2-PP set is aimed toward fans in push-pull configurations or other side-by-side configurations. Standard and ultra-quiet, of course, fit into the usual niches of case or CPU cooler, and both have an MSRP of $39.90. The Sx2-PP set, meanwhile, will retail for $76.90, giving a slight net discount on the second fan.
All versions of the NF-A14x25 G2 are also enjoying a set of new, premium hardware features that Noctua has been refining. But the most important is probably the use of "SupraTorque", which helps improve fan performance in high static pressure workloads like air cooling and liquid cooling.
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Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.
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