I had a couple interesting encounters lately, revolving the one Noctua NF-F12 fan that I own.
For some extra cash on the side, I do system builds for people. Recently, I had a person over and was showing them some of my own builds, which had the Noctua fan on the CPU heatsink. This person is not just new to system building, but to desktop PCs in general; they were a (former) console gamer who was making the leap to PC gaming. Their reaction when seeing the fan amounted to pretty much this: Damn. That's ugly.
Conversely, when I was helping a friend pick out an aftermarket heatsink solution, he half-freaked out that I had spent "$25 on a fan," when he recognized the fan. What followed was a pretty standard conversation about how respect Noctua deserves, but how there are better options for performance, especially for the price-point.
It is weird how company centered on CPU cooling can provoke such a variety of reactions from people.
Anyone who is bothered more about how their PC looks than how well it's made/performs isn't worth knowing IMO.
It's really quite sad to see people obsessed with internal aesthetics that they will happily spend a fortune to have cables sleeved, buy a different model graphics card for a matching colour etc. I really just don't see why a PC needs to be a focal point in any respect. As long as it looks neat and tidy on the outside, cable managed for airflow on the inside and acoustically sound (no pun intended), then that's all you need. I'd rather spend the extra on increasing performance. It's not like anyone would judge you if you had a plain and simple Define R5, like they might if you are driving a clapped out old car.
This is the tip of the iceberg for me. It gets worse with stupid brand names and giant headspreadders on RAM, not to mention faux velvet bags for power supplies - wtf!? That brings me to Noctua, who are excellent at what they do. No frills, no 'g4ymer' branding nonsense or any of that crap. Everything is designed and made to be purely perfunctory. Cream & turd couloured fans?.. well if they are the best at what they do, at a price I'm happy to pay.. then yes please. The performance benchmarks speak for themselves. Got a better alternative? I'm all ears, but don't try to sell me on fancy packaging, pointless gimmicks, silly names.
Everytime people buy in to products which are style over substance, they are basically paying for the marketing guff instead of putting more into the companies R&D. This is why Beats headphones and the like are so popular, despite being completely mediocre. If that's your prerogative, then so be it.
But always worth taking money from!
Seriously, though, I agree. I will always pick function over form, for my own personal use.
It actually took a lot of convincing for me to try out the Noctua fan. The only reason why I did was because Newegg gave me a coupon, and they were on sale at the time, so I managed to nab it for $15. I wasn't too impressed by their absolute performance; but where they shine is their ability to still perform well while you turn down the RPM. Also, that aside, the first thing I point out to people is that you're not paying $25 for "just a fan" - it is a kit, complete with rubber isolators, a low-voltage adapter, and a PWM-splitter. The final component alone is around $5.
On that note, I actually don't find Noctua's color scheme all that offensive. (Though, maybe it is because I find the woman on their website alluring.) I find it to be more on the (idaresay!) mature side of things. Red and black is a classic bold contrast; Venom green and black for when you want to take that step towards edgy. Beige and Terracotta? Clay and tan? If you see someone with these themes, you know you're dealing with a badass.
