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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Hulk - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
1. Equip all fans with a variable speed controller and adjust the speed so that the decibel level is exactly 40dB, 45dB, etc... Record the temps. This would isolate the thermal transfer efficiency of the cooler. For better isolation of cooler thermal efficiency you could use the same fan on all coolers.2. This time adjust the fan speed to acheive the same load temperature. This time record the fan RPM and the noise level. Of course some units might not even make the temp at full speed but that would be okay. As it is right now you have to take into account cooling performance when looking at noise. It be nice to see how much noise they make when they are all drawing away the same amount of heat from the processor.
3. In order to really give these coolers a workout how about adding an overclocked quad core to the tests?
I enjoy reading these reviews. Great job!
yacoub - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
No word on fitment again. Fitment is really the number one thing people want to know: Will this fit on my board? If it doesn't fit their board, it doesn't really matter to them how well it cools. Would be great to hear if it does or doesn't clear a variety of boards you have around the testing labs, particularly a couple 680i, 650i, P965, and 975. Pick one that's fairly reference in design and a couple of the ones people tend to purchase that often have passive cooling heatsink/pipe configurations on the northbridge and MOSFETS, and let us know how well the darn thing clears it all, especially if it requires a back brace and some boards have stuff on the back beneath the CPU socket (like the MSi P6N-SLI Platinum) and whether or not it still fits.Thanks.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, April 26, 2007 - link
The Noctua is narrower than most heatpipe towers, but as wide as a thermalright. The shape is much like a thermalright. The top plate can be installed in two directions and the cooler can be turned 90 degrees if necessary, so mounting is very flexible.The Noctua fit the EVGA 680i (barely, due to width and very tall chipset cooler near the socket), Asus, Striker, Asus Commando, and Asus P5W-DH Deluxe. We did not have the MSI board you specify in the lab to check, but the back plate has an open center and is designed to clear back components.
yacoub - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Any word on fitment on an MSi P6N-SLI Platinum? This is important as the board supposedly has a few items on the back such that certain backplates do not fit too well and it would be important to know if this hsf can clear them alright.mostlyprudent - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Very nice. I like the balance of low noise and above average performance. Any plans to look at the Thermalright HR-01 fanless cooler with the ducting that can connect to a rear case fan? I would love to see the cooling abilities of such a configuration.xsilver - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
hey wes; how many more hsf setups are still in the pipeline for review? care to list?is the thermalright ultra 90 one of them?
or anything else that is of the "cheaper" level?
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
We have a few more top-line HSFs and then we will do an "under $30" HSF roundup. We also have a wide assortment of 120mm fans in the labs for a fan roundup.xsilver - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
oh also, was there any plans to put some "classic" coolers in the chart as a control reference?Im thinking thermalright xp-90/120
zalman 7000/7700
how do these type of coolers compare to the ones currently being reviewed? no full review is really needed but putting them in the charts would be nice.
puffpio - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
The 'Final Words' page is actually a duplicate of the 'Noise' pageWesley Fink - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
The posting error on Final Words has been corrected.