Noctua NH-U12F: Quiet Air Cooling from Austria
by Wesley Fink on April 25, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Cooling at Stock Speed
Some users will never overclock their CPU, but they still want to run the coolest CPU temperatures possible to enhance stability and extend CPU life. The Noctua NH-U12F comes complete as a kit with a low noise Noctua fan, so stock speed tests were run with the stock Noctua fan. Cooling results are also reported with two Noctua fans in a push-pull configuration and with a SilenX high-output fan.
Where the very good Intel stock cooler keeps the X6800 at 41C at idle, the Noctua manages 30C. The SilenX high-output fan achieves the same results at stock idle, which was a bit of a surprise considering the rated difference in fan output. The best Noctua results were with a push-pull fan configuration at 29C. The Thermalright coolers at the top of our heatpipe tower performance charts cool to 26C. The Noctua is obviously not the best stock idle cooler we have tested, but it is broadly competitive within this group.
It is more difficult to effectively simulate a computer being stressed by all of the conditions it might be exposed to in different operating environments. For most home users CPU power is most taxed with contemporary gaming. Therefore our stress test simulates running a demanding contemporary game. The Far Cry River demo is looped for 30 minutes and the CPU temperature is captured at 4 second intervals with the NVIDIA monitor "logging" option. The highest temperature during the load test is then reported. Momentary spikes are ignored, as we report a sustained high-level temp that you would expect to find in this recording configuration.
Cooling efficiency of the Noctua NH-U12F was compared under load conditions at stock speed to the retail HSF and other recently tested CPU coolers.
The NH-U12F under load at stock speeds reached a maximum temperature of 40C in both stock and SilenX configurations. Best performance was with a push-pull fan configuration at 39C. This compares to the Thermalrights at 32C and 33C, the Tuniq at 34C and the Cooler Master Hyper 6+ and Zalman 9700 at 36C. Stock load performance is average among tested coolers.
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tk11 - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Enough with the heat sink reviews. They make something hot, cool... big deal... they're all virtually identical. Please review an interesting or useful technology before we all loose interest in the site.poohbear - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
lol they're all virtually identical eh? u obviously do NOT overclock.tk11 - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Actually I do overclock... by identical I was referring to the lack of innovation. The main differences between these coolers are size and styling, neither of which require technical analysis. Being a long time reader I was simply expressing my lack of interest in the latest series of reviews in hopes that anandtech will return to covering some of the more interesting technologies.LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Speak for thyself, not others. Plenty of people read these; if you don't, feel free to move on.Jesse3G - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
I'm amused that you freely speak for others, but presume to restrict the privlege from another? Your post flirts with hypocrisy and the person you addressed brought up a valid opinion.Personally I'm surprised at the management decision on this cooling coverage. Why handle one at a time when this topic can clearly be consolidated into a comprehensive discussion of cooling??? A true "round-up" would compile all of these reviews into an inclusive article for each major cooling system category, with Anantech's enclosed suggestions of the best setups available.
SurJector - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
That would be nice to have those noise ratings: how does the stock fan compares with the SilenX and how much more noise the push-pull configuration makes ?Thanks for the reviews.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
We did try SilenX with push pull and the noise ratings were still below the system noise floor set by the power supply. Cooling performance was roughly the same as the stock Noctua fans in push-pull and the overclock was not extended, so we saw no reason to pursue it further. The Noctua ultra low noise fan appears to push a lot of air and apparently generates high air pressure compared to some other low noise solutions.puffpio - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
So then..the ultimate review would probably be these Noctua 120mm fans on an Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme in a push pull?poohbear - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
well can u guys bug thermalright for an advance review of their IFX-14? u guys managed to review the TR ultra 120+ early, maybe u can do the same w/ the monstrous IFX-14?Wesley Fink - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Thermalright has just advised us that the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme is in full production. The problem with the mounting plate has been corrected in the release cooler."The 775 bracket issue has been addressed and Ultra-120 eXtreme is now in full production. We think it’s even better than the engineering piece you received back then. Would you be able to verify that if we were to send you the “production” sample with its own packaging and all? I think you’ll be pleased to see the results and the improvements."
We have a final production sample with improvements on the way. We also have requested an IFX-14 for review.