Chett_Manly

If you are looking to purchase Noctua fans I am sure you are well aware of their reputation, and specifically their beloved NF-F12 fans, and with good reason. You get a premium packaging and unboxing experience, and most importantly their extremely high-quality fan. All around I really love these fans but subjectively there is one reason I can’t give it a 5-star review. And that reason is the Corsair ML series fan.
 
I will begin with the subjectiveness of my review, to say the ML is better is not a fact, simply my opinion. However, I will lay out some facts as to why I prefer the ML over the NF, but every person can interpret facts a little differently, and respectfully I have no issues with the NF-F12. 
 
Anyways, for those of us that care about aesthetics the chromax edition of this fan is really the only option, I honestly could never bring myself to buying the standard puke brown version (for those of you that can look past that I applaud thee). But for your $29 (Canadian pesos) hard-earned dollars you get a nice assortment of colour swappable red, black, white, blue, yellow and green anti-vibration pads. This along with the 4-pin PWM cable extension all wrapped up in a nice large package. Out of the box performance is great, these bad boys move a lot of air and have performed excellently for my use. I have three of these as intakes against the mesh front panel of my Phanteks Enthoo Pro M TG pulling air through my four 3.5” hard drive cages. This of course restricting some air flow and causing some more fan noise (to be expected), despite this my hard drive and internal case temps are respectable. I decided on these fans as they move a lot of air despite being very well static pressure optimized, perfect for being mounted in front of hard drive cages.
 
But now I reason with the value of these fans. At $29 (at time of purchase) they represent a ‘premium’ 120mm option. At the time of this review the ML 120 2-pack is $37.50, which subjectively is just as quiet of a fan around 800ish RPM (my opinion) and looks pretty much the same, you just don’t get colour swappable anti-vibration pads. Blind math prices them at $18.75 each which is over a $10 saving per fan, so if you need four fans for your system this equals to a $40 difference. Now some of you would argue that you get what you pay for but to that, I would argue, “do you really?” and “is the price premium necessary?”.
 
Let me throw some raw numbers into the equation:
 
Corsair ML120 2-pack: (ML120 Pro series have the EXACT SAME specs)
Price: $37.50cad (effectively $18.75 each) Speed: 400 - 2400 RPM Sound level: 37 dBA @ max RPM Static Pressure: 0.2 - 4.2 mmH20 Air flow: 75 CFM @ max RPM Warranty: 5-year  
Noctua NF-F12 PWM Chromax:
Price: $29cad Speed: 300 - 1500 RPM Sound level: 22.4 dBA @ max RPM Static Pressure: 2.61 mmH20 @ max RPM Air flow: 55 CFM @ max RPM Warranty: 6-year  
I will let the numbers argue for themselves, but to say one is better than the other is not entirely objective. However, I PERSONALLY find the ML fans quieter at the same RPM, and although I keep my systems as quiet as I can, the higher max RPM of the ML fans is something I am sure that appeals to some users. To be fair there are higher RPM models of the NF-F12, the industrial 2000 and 3000 RPM models, but these come at $33 each, and are not available in a chromax version. 
 
So to wrap this all up, if you still want/prefer the NF's, great! You are making a good purchase and will be very happy. But having personally bought three NF-F12s and one NF-A14 I will stick to my ML’s in the future. I own the 2-pack variant, Pro LED’s (in 120mm and 140mm), and the Pro RGB’s. When I consider the three variables of price, performance, and aesthetics, the ML’s are my favorite in all 3 categories. That said the NF chromax fans are a very close second, and I genuinely hope to see some new colours and possibly an RGB version in the future. I think this would get Noctua more customers. Anyways, to those interested, I can highly recommend Noctua products and specifically the NF-F12 chromax.
 

 

 

I think right now is just a terrible time to buy.
 
Wait until summer for Ryzen 3000 chips. The move to 7nm is looking to be very significant, as AMD likely will match or beat Intel in single thread performance while also shipping 16 core consumer chips. 
 
 

I think right now is just a terrible time to buy.
 
Wait until summer for Ryzen 3000 chips. The move to 7nm is looking to be very significant, as AMD likely will match or beat Intel in single thread performance while also shipping 16 core consumer chips. 
 
 

Use a knife. Utility knife blades work wonders.

I'm just going to say it, I will think less of men who drive this. They will be beneath even the Prius driver. 

This is still vague. ISP availability can differ by neighborhood. Like I have Spectrum and AT&T in my neighborhood, but literally in a neighborhood that's a 5 minute drive away, their availability is a mix between AT&T, Comcast, and I believe Cox.
 
And since I'm sure you don't want to give that up, you're just going to have to do some research yourself and come back with who's in your area.

Calling it now, Mac prices won't drop, and performance will be worse.

I think their standards have slipped, and they no longer innovate.
 
The MacBook Pro is the perfect example of this.
 
I have never been a Mac guy, but I have long recognized how good the MacBooks were. 5 years ago I'd have argued the only problem with a MacBook Pro was the price. Except for the last 3 years now, it's been more than that.  Bad Keyboard. Pointless touchbar. Thermal issues. Reliability issues. Limited IO that requires dongles or a hub. Half of the devs in my office who have Macs, still have a 2015 unit, and are trying not to upgrade. The ones that have the newer ones, aren't too happy with it. 
 
So Apple has slipped in my opinion. They now rank alongside Dell and HP in their quality and the issues their products have. You take an XPS 13 put it up against a MBP 13 inch, and I see one with a better screen aspect ratio and bigger track pad, and I see one with a better keyboard, and a touch screen instead of a touch bar. The Apple product is not clearly better, though they still charge like it is.
 
On the iOS side its not really better. Their big idea of the last 5 years was what, The Notch? 3D Touch? Making the bezels smaller on the iPad Pro? I am not seeing any real innovation here. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

in s8 / poco price range, I will add lg v30 to consider....

I'll introduce you to the idea that anyone selling weapons to any country is anti human.

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

The genetic test says I'm 65% British/Irish. It cannot seem to differentiate between them. So most likely. 

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

I'm with Jay on this one. This was a publicity stunt.
 
"if you found a $279 Vega 56, you found a unicorn, otherwise you are not going to find one"
 
Shame on AMD.

I'm not seeing the part where they ban people/companies from YouTube for filing false claims. ?

I'm a Last Pass user, not worried at all about this. If someone is managing to pull data from my computer's RAM, I got bigger problems to deal with then that they might get my Last Pass master password!  
 
I rate this a 0.5/10 security threat. 

Can I ask why the dual 2080 instead of a 2080ti? Do you have a game or application in mind that scales well? I am curious about the state of SLI.

I'm not seeing the part where they ban people/companies from YouTube for filing false claims. ?

Then the S8 is by far the better option. Should be getting OneUI with Android 9 soon. Which I quite like on my S9+.

Can I ask why the dual 2080 instead of a 2080ti? Do you have a game or application in mind that scales well? I am curious about the state of SLI.