Noctua is constantly working on improving its fans, but with a very good recipe, it can already be difficult to improve the products at all. Despite that, after three years of working on the designs, Noctua is finally updating its 92 mm (NF-A9), 80 mm (NF-A8) and 40 mm (NF-A4x10 5v) fans.
The NF-A9 and NF-A8 bring the feature set we've already seen in the company's bigger fans to this smaller size profile, and that includes the AAO frames and the company's new blade designs. The frame of the fans has little dimples inside it as well as the stepped inlet design and, of course, anti-vibration pads. The blades come with flow acceleration channels, which theoretically deliver a little more airflow at the same rotational speeds.
The NF-A9 will be available in both PWM and FLX variants, while the NF-A8 will be available in PWM, FLX and ULN variants. The NF-A9 PWM variant will spin at up to 2000 RPM and create 22.8 dBA of noise. The NF-A8 PWM fan will spin at up to 2200 RPM and produce 17.7 dBA of noise.
Lastly, the NF-A4x10 was often used in systems that only supplied 5 V, so Noctua just went out and made a dedicated 5 V variant of the little fan.
Pricing is set at $20.90 for the NF-A9, $17.90 for the NF-A8 and $15.90 for the NF-A4x10 5V.
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