14 DAY TRIAL // One type of active noise cancellation works by having speakers produce the same noise only with a phase difference, which causes destructive interference between noise coming from the speakers and the noise source.
Active noise cancellation is usually integrated into headphones, to allow them to make music heard clearly over whatever wind or talk is in the background.
Noctua decided to adapt the concept for CPU coolers, so it made a prototype cooler whose noise-canceling technology was developed in collaboration with RotoSub.
The heatsink is a D-type twin-tower, and there is one large fan between them.
Near that fan there is a microphone, which relays the noise to some speakers set alongside the fin-stacks.
At Computex 2013, Noctua put a mic in the test chamber, while the cooler was running, and no noise was heard.
The technology certainly sounds amazing, even if it does make the cooler look like a bizarre, whitish box.
