8 ms·
This is content marketing executed perfectly :) Reading it, I learned something new and interesting and they had an opportunity to show off one of their differe
by fxtentacle 5mo ago
This is content marketing executed perfectly :) Reading it, I learned something new and interesting and they had an opportunity to show off one of their differentiators against the competition (low leakage flow due to tighter tolerances) and then at the end they casually mention the new product that has just opened for pre-orders.
- wolvoleo 5mo agoYeah it's more marketing than anything IMO.
- Simran-B 5mo agoWondering if it's just the marketing that Noctua did, and the actual mold and process engineering left to some fab in China?
- creesch 5mo agoWith Noctua I highly doubt that is the case given their track record for quality overall and all other information available around their design and engineering process. As far as I know based on all the information I have seen all the design and engineering is done in Austria. They also have a track record of only releasing things once they are satisfied something performs within their standards. Something that would be next to impossible when solely relying on external fabs and process engineering. They also utilize different manufactures afaik (historically Taiwan, but also China these days) meaning they need to have pretty solid in house knowledge and expertise to make sure different factories produces similar results. When they first started utilizing Chinese factories people noticed visual differences and were worried about that. But Noctua at the time claimed that they made sure that performance was still the same. A claim that was put to the test by various review outlets at the time (I want to say gamer nexus did a big piece about it?) and confirmed to be true. Having said that, if you do utilize external factories you automatically are making use of their process engineering to some degree as well. But, and this is difficult for many people to understand, that isn't a binary thing either. You can entirely rely on the factory to basically do everything for you and just send feedback on iterations but you can also work closely with them and actually get involved in the process itself.
- SauntSolaire 5mo agoYep, if you're a big enough source of income for the factory you can basically do whatever you want, up to and including stationing your employees in their factory year round.
- tempest_ 5mo agoThe other thing to consider is that while China is known for making cheap items for the American market (because that is what Americans want) they have become experts in the tool and die needed to make those cheap items. If you want top class injection molding tooling / machines or process you are probably going to contract a Chinese company to do it.
- NBJack 5mo agoNot all marketing is bad. Many of the beloved cartoons from decades ago were meant as marketing materials for toys and various kid items (i.e. lunch boxes). It doesn't mean it's automatically soulless. In this case, I finally understand why they chose their most iconic colors, and appreciate the time they take on precision engineering.
- moontear 5mo agoI enjoyed reading it. Informative and showing of their processes and giving some intricate details. And yes, the end goal is to sell products which is fine by me. I take this over any generic non-saying marketing-blurb any time.
- buran77 5mo agoNormally I love this kind of article too because I consider it engineering, not marketing, the product name dropping at the end just reinforces the message. But either I'm missing some details that could have been spelled our more clearly, or the engineers were taking a break when the marketers were writing some parts. I'd love to stand corrected if someone more informed has details. > advanced polymers such as Sterrox® LCP > we have implemented a tip clearance of only 0.5mm (120mm models) or 0.7mm (140mm models) > Achieving such small tip clearances is essentially at the absolute limit of what injection moulding can consistently reproduce. Typical tolerances for injection moulding are 0.1mm, or 0.03 for high precision, or even better. LEGO was said to be in the 0.01-0.03mm. So on the face of it the last statement is patently false or at least too generic, injection moulding can consistently do much better than 0.5mm. With standard injection moulding precision (0.1mm) the worst case scenario for the two parts (fan and shroud) mating would still stay comfortably below 0.5mm. So the question to the experts, is Sterrox® LCP that much harder to work with and the marketing team just didn't understand the importance of being clear about this? Is it a decimal point typo and the numbers should be 0.05 and 0.07?
- Numerlor 5mo agoBecause it's spinning blades among manufacturing tolerances you also have to account for the blades expanding when rotating at high speed, and possibly working with 40-50 °C air from the components
- buran77 5mo agoI don't think that's it. You're referring to tolerances specified in the design. The article talks about the tolerances the manufacturing technique allows, and this process is an order of magnitude better than this article says. The material used and the design of the part influence how much it deforms in practice far more than the injection moulding process itself. In their own description of Sterrox® LCP they say it has "extreme tensile strength, exceptionally low thermal expansion coefficient, high environmental inertia and excellent dimensional stability". With such an advanced polymer any deformation in operation has to be a rounding error compared to the manufacturing tolerances.
- nerdsniper 5mo agoI'd love more white, personally. I also don't understand the obsession with black. For me, black objects are very difficult to observe in detail, and that irks me.
- Zak 5mo agoI imagine a white PC fan would look terrible if not cleaned daily or used in a room with very filtered air.
- nerdsniper 5mo agoI have them. They get dusty at about the same rate as a pure black fan (which also shows gray/brown dust quite easily). I need to clean mine about every 6-9 months to keep them looking good enough to "show off". I generally run a Winix HEPA filter in each room of my apartment. I don't think matte white is worse than matte black in terms of showing dust. They both do.
- Zak 5mo agoI suspect there's a reason brown is Noctua's signature color.
- layer8 5mo agoDust can actually be more visible on black than on white.
- malfist 5mo agoBlack cars show road dust immediately. White cars don't. I image it's similar for computer fans
- kevin_thibedeau 5mo agoWhite cars get filthy just as readily.
- vladvasiliu 5mo ago
- petterroea 5mo agoIf all advertising was this interesting maybe I wouldn't hate it
- maxerickson 5mo agoSeems a little revealing that they tout the clearance and not the difference in efficiency.
- malfist 5mo agoDoes it? Not everything is a sign of deception. Even if it is the case, and not simple an omission to focus the narrative, does it matter? Case fans pull what 4 watts? 5 watts? Who cares if it pulls 200 milliwatts more than a competitor when it's cooling a GPU and CPU that consume more than a hundred times what it can consume
- maxerickson 5mo agoCase fans pull what 4 watts? 5 watts? Who cares if it pulls 200 milliwatts more than a competitor when it's cooling a GPU and CPU that consume more than a hundred times what it can consume Yes, exactly. The high precision is marketing, not something needed in the product.
- vladvasiliu 5mo agoMy understanding is that the precision is supposed to help with noise. Less turbulence, etc. FWIW, in my setup (10th gen i5, RTX 5070 Ti in an old Define R3 case), the 12 cm Noctua G2 fans run quieter and have a much less obnoxious noise than the old P/F series, which wipe the floor with the Arctic fan I bought for a computer that lives in the basement and sounds like it's about to take off.
- ufocia 5mo agoYou lead me to believe that they are targeting a niche "audiophile" market and probably not a commercial market. The concern in the commercial market would be energy savings vs. capital expenditure. Some commercial spaces actually introduce white noise into spaces to increase occupant density.
- 5mo ago
- corvad 5mo agoAgreed, this should really be the standard for marketing materials, no flashy promises, just cool technical and curious details.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5mo agoExactly this. Most of the time you get poorly researched articles (or nowadays, AI slop) about some topics only very remotely related to what the company actually does. Here, the article is about something interesting that the company has expertise in (and even "insider info"), shows off that they do serious engineering, and is interesting to the target audience. If I'm buying a 12V or 5V fan, it'll almost certainly be a Noctua. I don't know if they're the best, but they certainly seem to be among the better brands, and at something like $25 for a fan, they are certainly not overpriced enough to justify the effort of researching something better. So whoever you are at Noctua, congratulations! This + the 3d model release are likely really paying off.
- tempest_ 5mo agoNoctua are pricey but they also provide service that is in my experience unmatched. We have a few hundred of their coolers in use and I have never had an issue getting warranty replacements from them with fans. The process is simple and they ship out a new fan ( I have warrantied probably 10 - 15 of the fans)