I bought two because I wanted to the best possible way to modify my 1080ti Founders Edition with the Reference Blower design, which was throttling at 85c whilst simultaneously being loud enough to hear from another room. Unacceptable. Bought a Morpheus II and loved the idea I can cool my GPU like its any other CPU, with any fan of choice.
I bought the standard Noctua's previously, which is very well made and performed great. The only issue is that it can get loud if you run high revs. But with the low noise adapter, it's nicely quiet but at the cost of thermal performance.
The Premium ones cost a lot more, and I can wholeheartedly say the extra price is well worth it in immediate results. They are attached to my GPU, the static air pressure blowing into the heatsink. Mounting required the Y cable which is conveniently given in the box (a REALLY extra nice quality box by the way. It's prestige as hell in presentation, no compromises by Noctua not even for a single fan.) I also thought to use the low noise adapter attaching it to a 4 pina adapter directly to the GPU. The fans max out at 1450rpm with the low noise adapter.
So I set the speed at a single 100% because it makes no noise. It is a soothing hum if you tried to hear it. A lovely feeling to benchmark the card at the highest possible settings and no sudden fan ramping up and down, just a whisper-quiet hum. The acoustics are wonderfully developed with a lot of thought into its design. Some fans might be quiet in decibel levels, but they could also hum a tone that might not be particularly pleasant. The Noctua's fan, when you can hear it, it has a sort of acoustical design language that only produces a quiet, somewhat relaxing and soothing hum, like smoothed brown noise but without much low-end frequency, kinda like a summer light breeze as corny as that sounds it's the best way to describe it. This is at maximum speed with low noise adapter.
Thermals are as expectedly outstanding. Where the blower cooler would run at 40-50 idling, 70 degrees gaming, throttle at 84 degrees and pushes 90c stress testing. Two Noctua's has changed that to
IDLE: 32c
Average: 38c
Intensive Gaming: just about 55c on average
Stress testing: Just about touches 68c
Note that this is with the low noise adapter, which specifically restricts 25% of your fan speed. On a GTX1080ti FE, this is fantastic. I know these temps might be somewhat normal in stock fan cooling GPUs, but they cannot do it in near silence like this.
Downside: I spent £50 on two fans and £55 on the heatsink. So it's a £105 modification to what was supposed to be a £345 auctioned used GPU. Some could argue the total price and the performance it produces is well within its value.
| Brand | Noctua |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 12 x 12 x 2.5 cm; 360 g |
| Item model number | NF-A12x25PWM |
| Manufacturer | Noctua |
| Colour | Black |
| Voltage | 12 Volts |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 360 g |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
