Noctua has become one of my favorite companies, not only because of the excellent quality of their products but because of the excellent performance of them as well. Noctua has established itself as a new force in the cooling industry, a force that is to be reckoned with, the other cooling companies out there should take heed and pay attention to where Noctua is going. Noctua is quickly becoming the new big kid on the block, partially due to their diligence, quality and time spent on research, but mainly due to the excellent performance of all their products. Noctua is a company dedicated to achieving perfection in all their products. Today for review I have the NH-U9F CPU cooler, which can only be described as the culmination of research and a dedication to performance, quality and perfection, this CPU cooler not only looks good, it performs great and it is silent as well, so continue on to see your next CPU cooler..
Noctua NH-U9F CPU Cooler
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: Noctua
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Noctua NH-U9F
The NH-U9F is the newest version of the NH-U9, which won over 50 awards and recommendations from leading international web sites and magazines. The NH-U9F can be rotated by 90° on all sockets, boasts full compatibility with AMD's new AM2 socket and comes equipped with a Noctua 92mm fan, which has a minimum noise rating of only 7dB(A)*. Thanks to the 4 Dual-Heat-Pipes, 37 aluminum cooling fins with a total surface area of more than 3800cm² and soldered joints for optimal heat-transfer, the Noctua NH-U9F achieves superior cooling performance at minimum noise levels
Features:
4 Dual-Heatpipes for optimal heat absorption
The 4 u-shaped Dual-Heat-Pipes have a huge contact area with the copper base to efficiently absorb the CPU's heat. They form 8 risers to spread the heat throughout the fins.
37 aluminum cooling fins for optimal heat dissipation
Thanks to a surface area of more than 3800cm², the cooling fins dissipate the heat extremely fast. Both the choice of aluminum and the fins' shape and spacing allow for outstanding cooling performance with the supplied ultra silent Noctua 92mm fan.
Soldered joints for optimal heat-transfer
Unlike many other coolers, whose heat-pipes are stuck to the base and the fins, the Noctua NH-U9F possesses high-grade soldered joints to ensure optimal heat transfer.
Noctua 92mm fan with Ultra-Low-Noise adapter
Thanks to the self-stabilizing oil-pressure bearing (SSO bearing), the Noctua 92mm fan achieves a flow rate of 58m³/h at a noise rating of only 18dB(A). Using the supplied Ultra-Low-Noise adapter, the noise level can be lowered to only 7dB(A)*!
Screwless fan-mount including anti-vibration strips
Attaching the fan with the steel clips is a child's play and doesn't even require a screwdriver. The supplied anti-vibration strips minimize vibrations transmitted to the cooler and hence allows for extra quietness.
Easy installation on socket LGA 775, K8 (754, 939, 940) & AM2
The NH-U19F fits Intel's socket LGA 775 as well as AMD's K8 (754, 939, 940) and AM2. Thanks to the detailed step-by-step installation guide, installation only takes a few minutes!
SecuFirm™ mounting system
The SecuFirm™ mounting system guarantees optimal contact pressure and maximum security thanks to the use of a backplate and spring-loaded screws. As a result, the SecuFirm™ mounting system makes it possible to safely transport the assembled system without any risk even though the cooler exceeds the 450g weight specification established by Intel and AMD. Perfect for LAN gamers!
Can be rotated by 90° for improved compatibility and optimal positioning within the case
The NH-U9F can be installed rotated by 90° on all compatible sockets to allow for an optimal positioning of the cooler within the airflow inside the case and to evade compatibility issues.
Including manual, thermal paste and mounting hardware
In addition to the mounting hardware, the manual and the Noctua 92mm fan, the package contains a syringe of high-grade thermal paste so that you can get started right away!
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info Continued:
Specs:
Socket compatibility: Intel Socket LGA 775, AMD K8 (754, 939, 940) & AM2
Height (without fan): 128 mm
Width (without fan): 95 mm
Depth (without fan): 70 mm
Height (with fan): 128 mm
Width (with fan): 95 mm
Depth (with fan): 95 mm
Weight: 660 g
Material: Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminum (cooling fins), soldered joints
Application: Intel all frequencies, AMD all frequencies
Fan size: 92x92x25mm (2 fans mountable)
Fan Noctua: 92mm
Bearing: SSO-Bearing
Rotational Speed: (+/- 10%) 1600 RPM
Rotational Speed: with L.N.A. (+/- 10%) 1150 RPM
Rotational Speed: with U.L.N.A. (+/- 10%) 850 RPM
Airflow: 58 m³/h
Airflow with L.N.A.: 41 m³/h
Airflow with U.L.N.A.: 32 m³/h
Acoustical Noise: 18 dB(A)
Acoustical Noise with L.N.A.: 11 dB(A)
Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A.: 7* dB(A)
Input Power: 1,44 W
Input Current: 0,12 A
Voltage Range: 5-13 V
MTBF: > 150.000 h
Scope of Delivery:
NH-U9F
Noctua 92mm fan
Complete mounting hardware
Low-Noise Adapter (L.N.A.) & Ultra-Low-Noise Adapter (U.L.N.A.)
Thermal Paste
Anti-Vibration-Strips
Warranty: 6 years
A Better Look at Things
:
The packaging of the NH-U9F look familiar, Noctua uses essentially all the same colors for all their packaging. The box features a list of awards that the previous version of the NH-U9 has won, along with a brief list of specs and features.
The back of the box has a more detailed list of the features and the specs in several languages, along with a nice diagram with measurements of the NH-U9F.
Opening the box up we are immediately greeted with the Noctua 92mm cooling fan for the NH-U9F.
Under that is of course the CPU cooler itself and a whole lot more…
And I mean a lot of stuff, the NH-U9F is compatible with virtually every major CPU socket out there, and everything is all packaged individually for you.
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A Better Look at Things
Continued:
All of the socket styles are covered, I will be using my 775 setup for testing, so I will be using that mounting system with my Intel P4 Cedar Mill 631.
There is a common parts bag as well, that includes all the misc parts not specific to any socket, like thermal compound, anti-vibration dampening strips, fan speed controllers and the assorted mounting hardware.
Also included is the mounting hardware for the AMD K8 and Am2 sockets as well, the Noctua NH-U9F will work for the popular setups out there. I like how Noctua packaged everything separately for ease of identification and installation.
Noctua also included a long screwdriver to aid in the installation process.
The included fan is the familiar Noctua colors, it is the NF-9-1600, or a 92mm fan that can run at 1600RPMs if need be. My experiences with Noctua fans have been nothing but great, so the addition of this fan means to me that the NH-U9F should be virtually silent while performing very well.
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A Better Look at Things
Continued:
I've said it before and I will say it again, Noctua coolers remind me of Thermalright products, and that is a very good thing, they are both very well made and you can tell that a lot of care went into the design and manufacturer of their products, they both have some of the best looking and highest quality products I have ever seen.
The Noctua NH-U9F, at first glance, reminds me of a butterfly when viewed from the top, it's the way the aluminum fins spread out.
The fins themselves are fairly thick and will not bend easily, also a bonus is that they are not sharp as others I have owned and reviewed can be.
The two holes that are seen on the top are for the installation, to put the included screwdriver down through the NH-U9F to secure the cooler to the mounting hardware easily.
In the following four pictures you can really see just how thick the fins are and how they are all attached to each other.
The following picture is my attempt to get a shot of how the fins are actually soldered to the heatpipes, each individual fin is soldered to the pipes to insure maximum thermal conductivity.
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A Better Look at Things
Continued:
Moving to the bottom of the Noctua NH-U9F we can get a good look at the heatpipes and of course the base itself. Here we can get a good look at the solder on the heatpipes attaching the fins to them. The base of course has a protective sticker on it for shipping.
Let's take a closer look at the base, if you read my review of the Noctua NC-U6 Chipset Cooler then you'll know I took issue with the finish of the base, the actual place where the cooler and the chip meet, well the same is here again. I'm a bit disappointed at the final finish of the NH-U9F, while it does not have to be a perfect mirror like, polished finish, it would be nice if the machining lines were not there. A couple minutes with a sander or grinder would have easily removed the the lines, the machining lines are fairly deep actually, if I run my fingernail across the base there is an audible tick-tick-tick sound. Even with these lines I did find the performance of the NH-U9F very good, but I can't help wondering how much better the performance could be if the lines were not there. Looking closely at the base, really only half of the cooler base touches the CPU, the rest is filled with thermal compound…
The critique out of the way, that is the only flaw I can find with the NH-U9F CPU Cooler, the entire thing is very well made and the only thing left to do is install it and see how well it performs…
(12-30-06)Here's a note or addition to this review, I spoke to Noctua about the base finish and here's what they told me:
"Regarding the base finish: We're aware of the fact that most people
prefer to see a mirror-type finish, but according to our tests, the
performance gain is not that significant (~1°) while the risk of uneven
dispersion, air pockets etc. is increased, especially in case of
improper use of high-viscosity thermal pastes. A French site published a
tutorial on lapping the NH-U12 a few weeks ago
(http://www.materielpc.net/index.php?file=Page&name=polish) and the
editor confirmed that he actually had to re-install the cooler 3 times
in order to experience a 2° gain (see end of page). Now this guy knows
what he's doing when he's applying thermal paste, but a lot of people
don't, so the risk is even higher.
We've covered this issue in our FAQs too:
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 optimised 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.
As I've said, we're aware that most people prefer a mirror type finish
because it looks better, but for the majority of users it may actually
be a drawback and that's why we opted out for the micro grooves. Arctic
Cooling came to the same conclusion by the way."
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Installation, Testing and Comparison
The first thing you will need to do is assemble the NH-U9F, the fan can go on either side as the cooler can be mounted in various ways. The first thing to install is the anti-vibration strips onto the NH-U9F, then the fan on top of them, the fan uses clips to hold it in place.
I mentioned already my CPU is an Intel P4 Cedar Mills 631, it runs at 3.0Ghz at stock, the motherboard is an ASUS P5WD2-E Premium.
For this installation the motherboard needs to be removed from the case and the mounting brackets need to be installed first. This involves the backplate, two brackets, four screws and four washers. In the second picture you can see that the bracket just barely clears the capacitors near the CPU socket of my motherboard, but I've found that the layout of this motherboard is just poorly done actually, and I've run into quite a few of these possible clearance issues… I think I need to find another, more friendly, motherboard actually…
Other that that (possibly) motherboard specific issue, there are not other clearance issues with the Noctua NH-U9F CPU cooler.
Now it's time to do some testing, to get my idle temp I turned the computer on and let it sit doing nothing for about 30 minutes, to get load temp I ran Prime95 torture test for the same amount of time, checking the temps every five minutes and averaging them out in the end. The ambient temp during testing was 22C.
I've included the temps for the Intel stock cooler and others as well for a nice reference point.
We can plainly see that the Noctua blows away the Intel stock cooler, and beats the Thermalright SI-128, only the Coolermaster HyperTX has better temps than the Noctua, and they are very close especially at idle. The main difference is that the Noctua is virtually silent, and I didn't even use one of the included adapters, I hooked it straight to the motherboard fan header. The Noctua NH-U9F is the quietest CPU cooler I have ever owned or reviewed, Noctua knows silence and performance should go hand in hand. I can easily trade the silence of the Noctua for the extra one degree of coolness that the HyperTX gives while being louder and bigger.
As a side note the Noctua fan was running at the full 1600RPMs during testing, even at idle it was running at 1600RPMs, and still virtually silent. Using the ULNA and LNA adapters made it even quieter and didn't affect the performance of the cooler.
So what have we learned, well once again we have learned that Noctua knows what they doing, they know how to make a CPU cooler that works, and works well while being silent.
Due to time constraints I did not get any overclocking done with the Noctua installed, but from the temps I saw I believe it will be able to handle quite a bit of heat from an overclocked/overvoltaged CPU, as the HyperTX did in my review of that.
I believe with a bit of work on the base and possibly using AS5 or something similar I can even drop the temps more, in fact I know so. In a couple days I will have my review posted of the new Thermalright Chill Factor thermal compound, for that review I used the Noctua NH-U9F with the same motherboard but I used my P4 EE 955 CPU along with the Intel Stock cooler to compare to. So be sure to check back soon and see how much of a difference changing the thermal compound can make.
Summary:
In closing I have to say that the Noctua NH-U9F is almost the perfect CPU cooler, I do believe that with a bit of work on the base and using something other than the generic thermal compound you could have the makings of the perfect CPU cooler. As is though, the Noctua NH-U9F is an extremely good CPU cooler, with excellent cooling performance and and a very low noise level. The Noctua NH-U9F is something that is made with care, high quality and performance in mind and I can easily recommend it to anyone looking to upgrade there CPU cooling system to something much better and much quieter than the stock cooler.
DragonSteelMods gives the Noctua NH-U9F CPU Cooler a 4.5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Silent
-Good performance
-Excellent quality
-Fairly easy installation
-Lots of accessories
Cons:
-Base needs improving
I would like to thank Noctua for the chance to review the Noctua NH-U9F CPU Cooler and for their continued support of DSM.