With Computex less than a week away, the pre-event announcements are beginning to roll out and, this time around, Noctua has a device that will no doubt appeal to PC enthusiasts, looking for high-end cooling but low-end noise pollution from their computers.
We'll warn now, that what Noctua is to be showing at this year's computex is but a prototype, however, if it works as well as it should, we could be hearing a significant drop in PC noise, as Noctua demonstrates a noise-cancelling fan.
The prototype is essentially an existing Noctua NF-F12 model, paired with noise-cancelling technology from RotoSub. For those unfamiliar with the concept of noise cancellation, you can imagine noise as a wave; if a wave of the same pattern but opposite amplitude is played back at the same time, the two cancel each other out. This is something possible with a fan because the type of noise it produces is fairly consistent.
What makes RotoSub's technology unique, however, is that it actually modulates the power feed into the fan, using the fan itself to generate the noise cancelling sound, avoiding the need for costly speakers and better aligning the noise cancelling wave with the original.