Noctua teases ‘something new’ that looks very much like the desk fan prototype it’s had on show before

Here I am genuinely curious as to what Noctua, a company that specialises in making fans, is cooking up. Over on the company’s official X account, the company has teased “something new is coming…” with a short teaser video showing what it might be. From that, it’s not entirely clear what we’re looking at, but it’s certain not to be one of its usual beige and brown fans.

From the video it’s clearly a product with more coverings and curves than a usual case fan, though there definitely is a fan included. So we can rule out more screwdrivers, then. Dive into the replies for the post and there may be an even clearer indication of what it might be, however.

X user thatcsdude has posted an image in reply that shows off a prototype for a Noctua desk fan, with an “airflow amplification system”. Lo and behold, it shares the same coverings and curves as shown in the teaser video, albeit in a far less attractive plastic finish to the clean-cut black shown in the video. The prototype is essentially a mount for a Noctua fan with USB power, meaning there’s no need to keep the fan hooked up to a header in the inside of your case.

We’ve no confirmation that what’s shown in this video is one and the same with the prototype product on display, but it sure darn looks like it. We know what this teaser isn’t showing us, however, and that’s Noctua’s long-awaited next-gen 140mm fan.

Noctua’s next-gen fan promises to be the final word in gaming PC fans, with world-beating performance in a range of use cases, including both airflow for a case fan and static pressure for a radiator fan. It does so with the use of premium materials and extremely tiny margins for the fan’s blades and casing. Unfortunately, tiny margins and high expectations mean it’s been beset by delays. After nearly a decade of development, it remains to be released. Expected in Q2 of this year, the fan has been delayed again until Q3, 2024.

When asked about this over on X, Noctua says it’ll offer updates about the fan over at the Taiwanese tech show, Computex—the last place I saw the prototypes in-person. The show runs from June 4 until June 7.

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