NH-U12P

The NH-U12P has a couple of previously reviewed products packaged with it. For all intents and purposes, this isn’t technically a wholly new product, and instead it takes the premium components that have already proven their worth and puts them into one easy to use package. You get the heatsink itself, and a NF-P12 fan to go with it and to make sure that the heatsink makes perfect contact with the core, you also get a small tube of NT-H1 heatpaste. The fan is literally the best we’ve tested in regards to airflow and noise, while the heatpaste score highly compared to the base-line AC5. You get the perfect package providing the heatsink itself is up to the job; a quality fan and a quality paste.

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The heatsink itself is packaged in a cuboid box with the usual brown and blue colour scheme Noctua are known for, with a window allowing you a peak at the front of the fan provided. The sides of the box explain the basic features in the usual PR way, making everything sound awesome and far better than the competition.

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Once out of the box, you get a vast array of mounting plates, and all kinds of screws. All of this allows the heatsink to be strapped to either an AM2 socket or LGA775. Noctua have recently spread word that they will furnish you with a free socket F, 939, 940, or 754 bracket should you need them. This makes the heatsink one of the most compatible ‘sinks for your PC, and widens their possible market considerably. The press release about the free sockets explains that customers were inquiring about fitting the cooler to servers in particular, something that Noctua are very keen on. All you need is proof of purchase and typing fingers that can access the Noctua site to get these mounting plates.

The heatsink contents are very similar to the Coolink Silentator, with the same overall feel to the manual and the accessory bags. There is a simple reason for this; Coolink are the budget range while Noctua are the premium range of products from the same company. Considering how good the Silentator is, this cooler should definitely surpass the trend set by it.

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Looking at the bare aluminium of the heatsink fins and the nickel plated copper heatpipes and base itself, you can immediately tell that Noctua’s quality control worked over time on this model, with everything being perfectly machined and sealed. There are no corrosion marks, no scratches, no unfinished machining, it is simply a masterpiece of engineering although the aesthetics’ won’t necessarily mean that it performs well.

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The top of the cooler has a Noctua logo stamped on it, which would be visible from outside of your case if you are lucky enough to own a windowed enclosure. There are also the tips of the four U-shaped heatpipes that are finished with either a dome or a crimp. You can read how heatpipes work here. The individual fins of the cooler are quite thick and hard to bend, meaning that you won’t end up with bent fins after a few minutes of handling.

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The bottom of the cooler is where the four U heatpipes reach their apex and make contact with the interface pad that will eventually sit on top of your CPU. The base of the cooler is flat although there are very fine machine marks present, and its amount the same size as an AM2 processor IHS meaning that it will completely cover your CPU when installed. You can read about the differences of the base of heatsinks here, and how they affect cooling.

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The fins have the option to mount two 120mm fans, and there are the respective components to do this is the packet; with four fan clips (two per fan) and four rubber strips which sit on the edges of the fan lowering the amount of vibration sent to the heatsink itself. This means that if you are lucky enough to own a pair of Noctua fans, you can install both and use a push-pull airflow system where one fan blows in, while the other blows out. Of course you can use any fans that you have to hand, and are in no way locked into using the Noctua merchandise.

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The fan comes with the much loved L.N.A and U.L.N.A (which as a tale of XSR lore, when combined created the Mega Ultra Low Noise Adaptor Zord), which lowers the speed of the fan in order to reduce the amount of noise created although the airflow is also reduced as a result. In our previous testing, these adaptors are pretty much unnecessary as the fan is silent at stock speeds. The fan terminates in a 3 pin connector which allows you to connect it straight to your mobo fan header, rather than using the basic molex type of connector. Unusually, Noctua haven’t provided a 3 pin to molex converter that is present in the standalone fan. The reasoning behind this is that a case fan may not have a spare mobo header for it, while a CPU cooler always has its own dedicated header for use with the cooler; making an adaptor unnecessary.