YouTuber Major Hardware has built a PC side panel out of 15 Noctua NF-A12x25 fans. This absurd project lowers the CPU temperature by about 20 °C during gaming—and is surprisingly quiet in the process.
“It started as a meme, but I think I’ll just leave it on my PC—because of the temperatures.” With these words, YouTuber Major Hardware sums up his latest project.
This is the “Superdome”—a 3D-printed PC side panel in which 15 Noctua NF-A12x25 fans are combined into a giant, domed fan array.
The result is as absurd as it is effective: While gaming Battlefield 6, the CPU temperature dropped from 86.3 to 66.9 degrees Celsius.
Setup, Construction, and Cost of the “Superdome”
The basic idea is simple: The YouTuber took the 3D model of the side panel of a Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL case and built a domed structure over it that holds exactly 15 Noctua NF-A12x25 120mm fans.
Five fans sit on top of the dome, nine along the edge near the PC—all draw air from the outside and blow it into the case.
- The initial problem was the price: Each NF-A12x25 retails for around $35, so 15 units would cost over $500 just for the fans.
- After Major Hardware contacted Noctua, the Austrian manufacturer supplied the fans as well as 3D printing material so that the Superdome would also visually match Noctua’s well-known aesthetic.
According to James, the entire Superdome draws 27.6 watts—by comparison, a single NF-A12x25 requires 6.1 watts. Despite having 15 times as many fans, James finds the result to be “honestly pretty quiet—my desktop computer is louder than all these fans combined.”
However, Major Hardware also admits that his original PC setup prior to the Superdome wasn’t optimally configured for cooling: Both radiators are set to exhaust mode to make the accompanying RGB lighting look more attractive.
This also means that the 20-degree Celsius temperature difference wouldn’t be quite as drastic if Major Hardware had designed the airflow of his original PC more efficiently.
Noctua once published a guide on this: However, the unconventional arrangement of the top fans surprised the PC community.
Nevertheless, the project clearly shows that increased airflow from more fans makes a measurable difference—which is why Major Hardware provides the corresponding 3D print files in the video above for interested parties to use for free.
