Noctua's newest products will keep you, and your consoles, cool
Noctua has announced two new fans as a part of a new Home line-up. First, its desk fan is finally here. The Noctua NV-FS1 is designed to keep the sweat from your brow while you game, which should come in handy as we head into another ripper summer. Second, the NV-FS2 is a multi-purpose fan set for use cooling any device that might get a little too toasty in the heat.
The NV-FS1 desk fan is a modular kit. You can either purchase each part individually, so you can build it with a fan you already own, or buy it as a complete kit. The kit includes a pivoting frame, an "airflow amplifier", a PWM fan controller, a multi-region power supply, and an NF-A12x25 fan.
That's a pretty great choice of fan—it's our pick for the best PC fan right now—though it's far from the cheapest. That may go some way to explaining the price of the full kit.
This desk fan will set you back $100/£86/€100. A stark difference to the USB desk fan I purchased in Korea for the equivalent of a couple of bucks.
Noctua says the desk fan will provide a "strong, focused beam of airflow" via the airflow amplifier—the weird funnel bit that attaches over the top of the fan. I'm inclined to believe it, too. That said, I'm hoping to get a first-hand experience with the product over at Computex. The hot and humid Taiwanese weather has a way of making you appreciate quality cooling.
The other product announced as a part of Noctua's new Home lineup is perhaps even more useful. The NV-FS2 is a self-enclosed Noctua NF-A12x25 fan, with a protective "anti-vibration" case and grill, and includes a power supply to keep it spinning outside your chassis. The cable for the power supply is a generous 2.65m.
The NV-FS2 is intended to be used to cool off any other tech you may own that has a propensity to get toasty, such as game consoles and high-end audio equipment. The kit also includes pads to use the fans as mounts beneath your equipment, with enough space for the fan to draw in plenty of air. That's pretty darn neat.
You'll wince a little at the price, though. One fan with all the gubbins costs $80/£69/€80.
The prices certainly give me pause. However, I do like the option of sticking a Noctua fan under my partner's PS5 to prevent it from going into meltdown in the summer.