Optional Accessories

Noctua also sent along a few of their optional accessories, and these were deemed important enough to merit a page for themselves. I am going to show a few of the options available, with the rest being different colors to choose from. First up is the Noctua NA-FC1 fan controller, which comes packaged such that there is no mistaking the company behind the product. A black cardboard box with a long sticker going from one side and to the back as seen above is used, with pertinent information printed on it. There is a double flap on the edge opposite to the sticker, and opening it reveals the contents inside. On the underside of the box is a printed thank you note from Noctua to the customer, similar to what we see with their other products. The rest of the contents are held in place in a shaped foam layer, which is great to see from a shipping and handling perspective.


Included here is the NA-SC1 3-way splitter cable, NA-EC1 input cable, and NA-AC4 input cable with a power supply adapter that terminates in a SATA power connector. The controller itself is fairly small in terms of its footprint, coming in at 21 x 25 x 48 mm in size, and this means it is fairly easy to stow away out of sight in a case if need be. As it stands, the NA-FC1 fan controller was designed for all of Noctua's 12 V and 5 V PWM fans, but will work with a lot of third-party 12 V PWM fans as well. On top is a dial for manual control via a 0%-100% PWM duty cycle range in case you wish to use it as a standalone controller rather than as an enhancement to a motherboard's PWM control, although there are no markers for fine control. Instead, Noctua has an orange status LED of varying brightness proportional to the PWM duty cycle as set by the dial, and this will help as it gives you a visual indicator if you can not see the fans themselves. There is also a small push button alongside the dial which, when pushed in, triggers the green status LED indicative of a "No stop" mode which limits the minimum RPM of the fans to ~300 RPM or so, which would prevent UEFI fan errors due to lower fan-speed values. With fans that can not drop to 300 RPM or lower, this button doesn't do anything in practice. The Noctua NA-FC1 PWM fan controller comes with the same 6-year warranty as the NF-A12x25 fan.


We don't have a chromax-edition NF-A12x25 fan yet, but Noctua's chromax accessories will still come in handy for those wanting to add some flair beyond the usual colors available. For example, if you felt that the black-sleeved cables were not to your liking, the Noctua NA-SYC1 and NA-SEC1 chromax cable accessories come in other color options of blue, green, red, white, and yellow. The former is a set of three Y-splitter cables, and the latter a set of four 30 cm extension cables, all of which are sleeved in a heatshrink application. There is not a lot of new color here, however, since the heatshrink and terminal connectors are still black in color. As with the stock accessories, each cable also has a sticker in the middle with the part number on one side and Noctua logo on the other, which I really feel should have not been added on these. I will concede that the sticker can be removed, so it is not a negative point that will impact the review score.


Another accessory of interest, at least for those wanting the same fan but planning on using 140 mm radiators/coolers, is the Noctua NA-SFMA1 mounting adapter kit. This kit contains a set of two 120-to-140 mm square frame mounting adapters, as well as eight anti-vibration rubber mounts if using this as a case fan. The mounting adapter was made with the NF-A12x25 in mind, is compatible with a few other Noctua 120 mm fans, but may not be compatible with every third-party 120 mm fan owing to the frame design. Ideally, you should use 140 mm fans with 140 mm radiators, but Noctua says their internal testing shows this combination of the adapter and the NF-A12x25 to outperform most 140 mm fans on most radiators to where this benchmark is what they are aiming to beat with their next generation of 140 mm fans.