Nocuta is a case study in how to make a high quality and luxury product to dominate a seemly small market. In a seemingly commoditized market where fans can be had for $3-$4 Nocuta still demands and get's $30-$40 dollars.

▲ distances 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think they dominate. Noctua used to be the best, but current reputation as far as I've seen is that the performance isn't necessarily better than the competition. You buy them for durability and supporting the engineering, but most (not some/fringe) DIY builders choose a cheaper brand.

It's a bit more pronounced in CPU cooling towers, they are solid blocks where durability doesn't play a role. Noctua is good but the top performer and market leader is Thermalright which costs a third of Noctua.

▲ xbar 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Do you have data to backup your assertion?

Cheap Chinese clones eventually arrive when a successfully company dominates a market.

It does not mean that they no longer dominate.

▲ distances 4 days ago | parent [-]

Nope no data, that's why I prefixed with "I don't think". It's a sentiment from six months of reading product reviews and forum discussions. I took some good time building a new desktop.

People were recommending Noctua for long term durability, sure. But seems it's a minority who's willing to pay the premium for that.

Some data would of course be interesting.

Edit: Mindfactory is one of the few that publishes numbers. On a quick glance (didn't sum totals) looks like Arctic leads, followed by be quiet! and Noctua on the third spot. be quiet! is a German brand so that gets somewhat biased.

https://www.mindfactory.de/Hardware/Kuehlung+Luft/Gehaeuselu...

	▲	distances 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I did a quick data extraction on that linked Mindfactory segment, and be quiet! leads after all. As said, not quite representative but maybe indicative. `be quiet! 100.060 Arctic 60.850 Noctua 45.290 Noiseblocker 23.840 Xilence 23.050`

▲ zipy124 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Noctua also provides free new mounts. I've had the same NH-D12 for over a decade now and whenever I switch CPU socket they send me a new mount for free.

▲ brokenmachine 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Noctua earned my loyalty when they sent me a free adapter for a CPU socket that didn't exist at the time I bought my cooler.

All I had to do was send them the receipt for the cooler.

▲ 0xbadcafebee 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The case study results would be "make a product that's really hard to make and that people want"

	▲	nodesocket 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Fair, but sort of my point. Make a extraordinary superior product in a very niche market and educated consumers will pay. Sure, there will always be uneducated or just "frugal" or cheap consumers but they are the fringe. Example are luxury brands such as Mercedes or Rolex. A hot take, but can't be denied as well Apple.

▲ wink 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not sure I agree here. Yes, maybe it's 10x the price (which I doubt in the first place) it's actually performing very well, measurably.

I don't know how you benchmark a Rolex vs a Seiko for 500 bucks. That is luxury to me. And yet it is perfectly fine to argue a Casio for 10-20 bucks performs just as well.

▲ newsclues 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

THE RGB fan makers are the ones making the real money.