Noctua-News: When the NF-A12x25 was shown at the Noctua booth at Computex 2017, some visitors had the impression that, at first sight, it looks quite similar to some competitors’ products such as the Nidec Gentle Typhoon. Can you comment on that?
Lars Strömbäck (Noctua CTO): There are similarities to other fans as far as the basic approach of using a strongly curved and swept nine-blade design is concerned and this indeed makes them look somewhat similar at first sight. That’s quite natural because this basic approach is one of the most promising, proven starting points if you want to develop a high-performance 120x25mm form factor fan that is meant to achieve a strong, stable P/Q curve. If you look at it in more detail though, the similarities quickly come to an end and it becomes clear that the NF-A12x25 is significantly different from any other fan on the market as far as key factors such as the specific blade geometry and profile, chord length and changes in curvature are concerned. Once you map 3D CAD files of the NF-A12x25 over those of e.g. the Nidec Gentle Typhoon, this becomes immediately obvious. In detail, the blade design is completely different and these details are precisely the points that require so much R&D work to get right and to fine-tune for maximum efficiency. You can think of aeroplanes for reference: an Airbus 380 might look quite similar to a Boeing 747 to laymen at first sight and they are indeed similar in many ways (low wing design, swept blades, 4 jet engines, fuselage-mounted tailplane, etc.) for the natural reason that they have been designed for a similar purpose, but as soon as you start comparing in more detail, you will see how different the particular engineering choices have been. It’s similar with the NF-A12x25: it may look similar to other fans at first sight, but it’s a completely new design from the ground up.
