Noctua has a good name for PC CPU air cooling and has won several HEXUS recommended and Editor's Choice Awards over the years. As is typical with many CPU air cooling mainstays, Noctua's range of offerings doesn't change very often – but what we are tending to see are more colour finish options. In Noctua's case, the extra colour options are all the more welcome as its default isn't black but a chocolate and cream combo.
At the weekend Noctua started to tease a brand-new CPU cooler line. If you head on over to its official Twitter account, you can see an angled photo showing a detail of a new product marked 'Redux by Noctua'. The image shows the top of a new Noctua CPU cooler. Flanking the Redux logo you can see a set of heatpipe terminals, and a single grey/black Noctua fan is affixed to one side. We have previously seen the Redux name used by Noctua for fans, like the Redux NF-P14s, which is about 40 per cent cheaper than the Noctua NF-P14s, for example.
Noctua CPU coolers are found mostly on the premium side of the market, generally costing £50 to £80 unless you are looking for an LP model (cheaper) or the beefiest dual radiator models (more expensive). From the Twitter tease and previous fan releases it is clear that Noctua is lowering its sights to target the cheaper end of the market via the Redux line.
Importantly, Noctua doesn't want to spoil its hard-earned reputation by producing low-end PC bits. Thus is it seeking to reduce pricing via the simplification of the design. It says that we will be able to buy its "award-winning, proven CPU cooler, reduced to the essentials," and that the first Redux products are "coming soon". It will be interesting to see how it tackles this price reduced range, and how low the pricing will be.
The last Noctua CPU cooler in the HEXUS labs was the NH-D15 chromax.black, a revamped all-black model based upon the 2014 vintage NH-D15.
Noctua's hulking passive CPU cooler, teased for several years now, is supposed to arrive before the end of March.