Careful when buying fans: many cases are advertised with wrong dimensions, according to Noctua

Anyone building a PC must, above all, ensure that all selected components are compatible with one another. This applies not only to the motherboard, RAM, processor, and power supply – the case must also provide sufficient space for all these components as well as for the selected fans and all-in-one coolers.

According to Noctua, however, buyers should not blindly rely on the specifications provided by case manufacturers. The fan manufacturer has conducted its own measurements and found several instances where the specified dimensions were incorrect, which can be particularly significant for smaller cases. For example, the Asus Prime AP201 case offers only 168.3 mm of space for the CPU cooler, instead of the advertised 170 mm, meaning the Noctua NH-D15 G2 CPU cooler ($169 on Amazon) barely fits inside the case. In the case of the Lian Li B4-mATX, that cooler doesn’t fit at all, because instead of the advertised 168 mm, the case offers only 164.5 mm of space for a CPU cooler.

In far more cases, case manufacturers also specify dimensions that are too small. This is a problem because customers could actually install larger, and thus potentially more efficient and quieter, cooling systems than the technical specifications would imply. Noctua has measured over 100 case models to date and found errors in the advertised dimensions for 56 of them. Users of Noctua coolers can consult Noctua’s official database to determine which cooler actually fits in a particular case and which cooling system is too large for that case.