Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler Reviewed

I've reviewed quite a few Noctua products in the past on DragonSteelMods and I have found everyone that I reviewed to be an overall excellent product. Noctua makes great products, there is no doubt about that, you can look all over the internet and you'll be hard pressed to find a negative comment or review about any of their products. The only negative comments I have seen about Noctua products are their prices, they are a bit high compared to others, but there is a saying 'You get what you pay for' and this is very true as most of us know. To get a premium quality product you'll pay a premium price, personally I don't think Noctua products are over-priced at all, they are priced competitively with other comparable products of the same quality and performance.

So, without further comments, I've got the new Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler for review today and it is what we've come to expect from Noctua: excellent quality and performance. So continue on…

Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler Reviewed

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Sponsor: Noctua

 

 

 

 

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler

The NH-U12P continues the legacy of Noctua's classic NH-U coolers, which won over 150 awards and recommendations from leading international websites and magazines. While retaining the successful design and the well-proven SecuFirm mounting system, the newest revision has been reworked for enhanced main board compatibility and now comes with Noctua's NT-H1 pro-grade thermal compound. Fitted with the new NF-P12 premium fan, the NH-U12P brings its predecessors' much-acclaimed quiet cooling performance to a whole new level!

Features:

4 dual heat pipes

4 dual heat pipes, soldered joints and 36 widely-spaced aluminium cooling fins guarantee optimal heat dissipation even at low fan speeds.

Award winning NH-U design

Noctua's NH-U coolers allow for perfect airflow direction and have received more than 150 awards and recommendations from leading international websites and magazines.

NF-P12 premium fan

The NF-P12 has been specifically developed for applications like CPU cooling and brings the performance of the NH-U12 to a whole new level. Thanks to psycho-acoustic optimizations and Noctua's premium-grade SSO-bearing, the NF-P12 achieves exceptional quietness and long-term stability.

Improved compatibility

Thanks to its raised fin-stack, the NH-U12P offers improved compatibility with main boards featuring very high chipset coolers.

SecuFirm multi-socket mounting system

Noctua's professional SecuFirm mounting system for LGA 775, AM2 and AM2+ provides superior reliability and contact pressure.

Noctua NT-H1 high-end thermal compound

Noctua's NT-H1 is a pro-grade TIM solution that provides minimum thermal resistance, excellent ease-of-use and long-term stability.


Specs:

Socket compatibility: Intel Socket LGA 775, AMD AM2 & AM2+, Intel Xeon on request

Height (without fan): 158 mm

Width (without fan): 126 mm

Depth (without fan): 71 mm

Height (with fan): 158 mm

Width (with fan): 126 mm

Depth (with fan): 95 mm

Weight (without fan): 600 g

Weight (with fan): 770 g

Material: Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminum (cooling fins), soldered joints, nickel plated

Application: Intel all frequencies, AMD all frequencies

Fan compatibility: 120x120x25mm / 120x120x38mm (2 fans can be installed)

Scope of Delivery:

-NF-P12 premium fan

-Mounting-clips for 2 fans

-Ultra-Low-Noise-Adaptor (U.L.N.A.)

-NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound

-SecuFirm mounting kits for LGA & AM2(+)

Warranty: 6 Years

Fan specifications: 

Model: Noctua NF-P12

Bearing: SSO-Bearing

Blade geometry: Nine Blade Design

Rotational Speed (+/- 10%): 1300 RPM

Rotational Speed with U.L.N.A. (+/- 10%): 900 RPM

Airflow: 92,3 m³/h

Airflow with U.L.N.A.: 63,4 m³/h

Acoustical Noise: 19,8 dB(A)

Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A.: 12,6 dB(A)

Input Power: 1,08 W

Voltage Range: 12 V

MTBF: > 150.000 h

Motherboard Compatibility:

Please visit Noctua HERE to see their comprehensive motherboard compatibility listing.

A Better Look at Things

:

The Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler comes in a fairly large box with the familiar Noctua color scheme. There is a small window on the front of the box allowing you to get a brief peek at the contents, while the rest of the box is packed with information about the NH-U12P.

 

 

Once we unpack the box we find a lot of parts in there, mounting brackets for several platforms, fan silencers, a screwdriver, and fan-speed adapters. The most notable parts are the inclusion of the new NF-P12 fan and Noctua's own thermal compound, NT-H1.

 

  

 

The NH-U12P is similar in style to the NH-U9F that I reviewed last year, but it's much larger, in the next section I've got a picture of the two together for comparison.

The cooler itself is actually fairly heavy in weight, I was a bit surprised by this, but once it's in your hands you can feel the quality of it and you'll instantly know why it's a bit heavier than other out there. The fins are thick and won't bend without quite a bit of force, the entire cooler feels very sturdy and well-made. On the top, where the heatpipes terminate, between them you'll find the Noctua logo, something that was missing from the last CPU cooler of theirs.

 

Here are several more pictures of various angles of the NH-U12P cooler so you can get a good look at it:

 

  

  

 

Of course on the bottom you can get a closer look at the heatpipes and the base of the NH-U12P. The base itself is flat, but not smooth as one would expect, and this is done purposefully so it's not a bad thing not to be smooth.

 

 

From the Noctua website faq:

Why doesn't the bottom of the NH-U coolers have a polished, mirror like finish?

Bearing in mind that the majority of today's PC enthusiasts uses high-viscosity thermal compounds, the bottom-surface of the NH-U coolers is optimized for the use with this type of thermal pastes. The micro-grooves on the surface of the NH-U coolers' base ensure that high-viscosity thermal compounds are dispersed to a uniform thin layer across the whole contact area and that no air pockets remain between the cooler and the CPU. With a polished, mirror like surface, the risk of uneven dispersion is much higher. As too thick layers of thermal paste and air pockets drastically deteriorate heat transmission, the micro-grooves are is of vital importance to the overall cooling performance of the NH-U coolers when used with today's high-viscosity thermal pastes.

Installation, Testing and Comparison

As I mentioned earlier, here is a picture of the Noctua NH-U12P next to the Noctua NH-U9F CPU Cooler for comparison:

You can see the basic design hasn't really changed, just the size…

For installation you'll need to remove the motherboard to install the backplate and the SecuFirm mounting hardware. Removing the motherboard is always a pain, but is a necessary step when installing a CPU cooler as large and as heavy as this one is. Pretty much any large CPU cooler will require the use of a backplate for installation so this is nothing new. The hardware installs easily to the motherboard without any difficulties.

Next you'll need to install the brackets to the NH-U12P itself, this consists of four small screws and two plates.

 

 

To complete the installation you'll need to install the anti-vibration strips to the edges of the NH-U12P, of course apply the NT-H1 thermal compound, then you'll need to fasten the NH-U12P to the mounting brackets with the included spring loaded screws and screwdriver.

 

As a bonus Noctua included two sets of fan mounts so you can mount two fans on the NH-U12P CPU cooler to maximize performance. I did this with a second NF-P12 fan that I recently reviewed, and in the chart below you will find the results there for using two fans as well.

I did find installation was a bit tight in the Thermaltake Matrix VX case I installed it in, this can easily be fixed by rotating the mounts and the cooler 180 degrees so the fan blows upwards towards the PSU, but for my installation it really was not a problem, it was just a bit tight getting the fan installed.

Ok, onto the testing and results portion of this review…

My test setup consists of:

Intel P4 Extreme Edition 955 CPU @ 3.46GHZ

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R LGA775 Motherboard

Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2 PC2-8500 (2x1gig)

Connect3d X1800GTO Video Card

Ultra X3 800-Watt Modular Power Supply

1x hard drive

1x dvd/rw drive

2x 120mm case fans, (1 intake and 1 exhaust)

all housed in a Thermaltake Matrix VX case

The NH-U12P was installed in this system for two weeks and over those two weeks the system was stressed using Orthos Stress Prime for 30 minutes several times a day and the results recorded, then averaged out to what you see in the graph below. To get my idle temperatures I turned the system on and let it sit doing nothing for the same 30 minute time period. (One week was using one fan, one week was using two fans during testing.)

Ambient temperature during all testing was approximately 20.6C.

Since the Noctua NH-U12P includes two fan speed adapters (U.L.N.A and L.N.A) I tested the performance with those attached to the fan, with the fan attached to a Molex and with the fan attached directly to my motherboards CPU fan header. You'll also see the results for other CPU cooler in the graph for comparison. (You can click the graph to see it in 1024×768 resolution to get a better look at it.)


The results speak for themselves here, all of the temperatures are very good, no matter what the speed of the NF-P12 fan is running at.

The fan connected to the CPU header was the slowest moving so we have the highest temperatures but still very good overall.

Adding another fan as you can see doesn't do much for the idle temperature but it does drop two more degrees off of the load temperature, so it could be worth adding the second fan depending on what you are doing.

The first thing you'll notice or won't notice is the lack of noise that comes from the NF-P12 fan no matter what speed it is running at. When using the two fans there is an audible noise from them but nothing really noticeable overall.

Summary:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love Noctua, and for good reason, they make excellent performing and high quality products.

The NH-U12P CPU Cooler is the latest edition to Noctua's award winning lineup of CPU Coolers that upholds it's tradition of quality products.

The NH-U12P CPU Cooler is a great choice for anyone out there looking to cool any hot CPU, with the inclusion of the Noctua NF-P12 fan and the new NT-H1 thermal compound this package is going to be hard to beat for price and performance.

Noctua does it again, they've never failed to impress me with any of their products I've reviewed…

DragonSteelMods gives the Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler a 5 out of 5 score and our Editor's Choice Award as well.

Pros:

-Very well made

-Excellent performance

-Looks great

-Includes Noctua NF-P12 fan

-Includes Noctua NT-H1 Thermal compound

-Easy installation

-Silent operation with low temperatures

Cons:

-Tight fit on same cases depending on orientation of cooler

I would like to thank Noctua for the chance to review the Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler and for their continued support of DSM.



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