Noctua NH-U12S Review
Category : Aircooling
Published by Christian Ney on 12.12.13
With their NH-U12S, Noctua has yet another single tower cooler in its portfolio. The company, which has it's roots in Austria, is very well known for making high-end after market coolers, which offer great cooling performance as well as a low noise levels. We're quite curious to find out if Noctua is able to continue with this tradition and the fact, that this cooler is rather slim makes it quite interesting.
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Noctua is that very company that almost re-invented the market for aftermarket coolers, when they first launched their NH-U12P tower cooler. The build quality of their products was exceptional already years ago, which also meant they were raising the bar by quite a bit, when it comes to high-end aircoolers. If everything goes according to Noctua's plan, the NH-U12S might be another great successor of the U12P. Like its predecessor, the NH-U12S is a single tower cooler and it features the same, exceptionally high build quality. There is a total of five heatpipes, which all have a diameter of six millimeter. All of them pass through a nickel plated copper base plate. Additionally there is Noctua's NF-F12 PWM fan, which starts rotating already at 300 RPM and then it can go all the way up to a very reasonable 1'500 RPM.
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Some of you might remember the NH-U12P SE2, compared to this model the NH-U12S looks rather small. The reason for that can be found with the fact that the NH-U12S is quite a bit slimmer around the waist than the NH-U12P SE2 - 45 milliemter in case of the NH-U12S and 71 millimeter for the U12P SE2. On the other hand it's actually quite surprising that both of these coolers are equally heavy.
A closer look at the materials used, shows you get the usual Noctua mix. There is a nickel plated base plate, five - also nickel plated - copper heatpipes, which all feature a diameter of six millimeters as well as an aluminum fin stack, that has been nickel plated too and soldered to the heatpipes. For optimal heat transfer the heatpipes have not been aligned to cover a large surface. Examining the base plate reveals there isn't a mirror finish but still manufacturing quality, also with this part of the cooler, is very high.
When it comes to the fan it is nothing short from the heatsinks build quality. The NF-F12 PWM fan comes with bearings that allow RPM to go all the way down to 300 RPM. In the end this means, that it's definitely possible to run this fan at speeds, where you won't be able to hear it. We also liked that there are anti vibration rubber pads in all four corners and on both sides of the cooler.
What's worth noticing is that although cooler and fan combined don't take a lot of space, the fan has to be unmounted in order to install the heatsink on the motherboard.
Specifications |
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| Model | NH-U12S |
| Type | Classic 120mm tower |
| Provided Fan(s) | 1x 120x25mm NF-F12 PWM |
| Supported Fan(s) | 2x 120mm |
| Base Material | Nickel plated copper |
| Fins Material | Nickel plated aluminium |
| Socket Support | AMD AM2(+), AM3(+), FM1,
FM2 Intel LGA 1150, 1155, 1156, 2011 |
| Thermal compound | Noctua NT-H1 (Tube) |
| Product Page | NH-U12S |
Basically, when you buy a Noctua cooler the fun starts with the unboxing. You will notice, that everything is perfectly packed. Inside, there is the SecuFirm2 mounting kit, which supports AMD sockets, Intel LGA115x as well as LGA2011 sockets, a screw driver, Nocuta's NT-H1 thermal compound, a metal case badge, a low noise fan adaptor and additional mounting parts for a second fan including anti vibration pads and fan-clips.
In case of warranty this cooler get backed by a 6 years plan, which is rather long, especially when you compare it to competitor's products.
| Page 1 - Presentation / Specifications |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Installation & Test Setup |
| Page 4 - Absolute Performance |
| Page 5 - PWM Performance |
| Page 6 - Conclusion |
Photo Gallery
| Page 1 - Presentation / Specifications |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Installation & Test Setup |
| Page 4 - Absolute Performance |
| Page 5 - PWM Performance |
| Page 6 - Conclusion |
Installation
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When it comes to mounting kits Noctua is still defining the state-of-the-art. SecuFirm is very well thought and also tough, so your cooler will sit very thoroughly on the beloved CPU. The installation itself is as simple as it can get and the pressure with which the cooler is being push onto the CPU is definitely sufficient to spread the thermal compound equally over the entire surface area. Thanks to the fact, that this is a rather slim cooler, there are no compatibility issues with memory that features large heatspreaders. Should you decide to install a second fan on the back side of the NH-U12S, no problem, Noctua thought about everything by including two different clip positions for wide compatibility and if you want to use spacers in-between. The Austrian also provides a set of anti-vibration rubber pads that will fit any 120mm fan.
Test Setup |
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| Mainboard | ASUS Z87-Deluxe (BIOS 1602) |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4770K Stock (Turbo On / HT On) |
| Memory | ADATA XPG V2 2x4GB DDR3-2800 CL12 1.65V |
| Video | Intel HD Graphics 4600 |
| Software |
Windows 7 x64 wPrime Benchmark v2.10 CPUID HWMonitor 1.24.0 |
| PSU | Seasonic Platinum SS-660XP2 |
| Fan Controller | Lamptron FC5 V3 |
| Thermal Compound |
Pre-applied or bundled GELID GC-Extreme else |
| Page 1 - Presentation / Specifications |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Installation & Test Setup |
| Page 4 - Absolute Performance |
| Page 5 - PWM Performance |
| Page 6 - Conclusion |
Absolute Performance
Temperatures
7 V
To measure cooling capacity we took temperatures in idle and load with the fans at 7 and 12 V. The idle temperature represents the lowest temperature hit by the processor package after 10 minutes in idle. The load temperature is the highest temperature hit by the processor package after one pass of wPrime v2.10. The wPrime test takes 4 minutes and puts load on all 8 threads. Room temperature is 25°C.
12 V
Fan Speeds
Fan speeds (RPM) at 7 and 12 V.
Noise Levels
Decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) has been placed 1 meter away from the cooler. Measurements are conducted in a quiet room, where there are no other noise source. 32 dBA is the lowest we can get in our room. Also here the measurements are conducted at 7 and 12 V.
| Page 1 - Presentation / Specifications |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Installation & Test Setup |
| Page 4 - Absolute Performance |
| Page 5 - PWM Performance |
| Page 6 - Conclusion |
PWM Performance
Temperatures
At this point we plugged the fan(s) to the motherboard CPU fan header and let the motherboard take care of fan speeds. In other words the motherboard will ajust the fan speed via PWM signal according to CPU temperature. The idle temperature is the lowest temperature hit by the processor package after 10 minutes idle. The load temperature is the highest temperature hit by the processor package after one pass of wPrime v2.10. The wPrime test takes 4 minutes puts load on all 8 threads. Room temperature is 25°C.
Fan Speeds
Values are in RPM, we took the lowest speed hit by the fan(s) in idle and the highest under load.
Noise Levels
Decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) has been placed 1 meter away from the cooler. Measurements are conducted in a quiet room, where there are no other noise source. 32 dBA is the lowest we can get in our room. Also here the measurements are conducted at lowest and highest fan speeds in idle and under load respectively.
| Page 1 - Presentation / Specifications |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Installation & Test Setup |
| Page 4 - Absolute Performance |
| Page 5 - PWM Performance |
| Page 6 - Conclusion |
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| When it comes to high-end after market coolers,
Nocuta is one of the companies that manages to set the benchmark
everytime they release a new cooler. The NH-U12S is no exception and
therefore it's no surprise, the Austrians come up with yet another great
aircooler. Performance wise this cooler can keep up with all-in-one watercoolers and in case of noise level this thing is extremely silent. Other than that there is the exceptional bundle as well as the six year warranty plan. |
- Cooling capacity
- Noise levels - Quality - PWM - Noctua - Warranty - Free mouting upgrade - Delivery |
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| Installation | + | - | |
| Installing the Noctua NH-U12S is as easy as it can
get. There is good pressure on the CPU and the mounting kit makes the
cooler compatible to Intel as well as AMD sockets. Other than that
materials used are of high quality after having installed the cooler
several times, there wasn't one single scratch or damaged thread. Included in the
delivery there is an extra long screw driver to make sure installation
is going to be piece of cake. Another great addition are the extra anti
vibration rubber pads and clips for the installation of a second fan.
Fan installation is also easy and practical. Unfortunately, this cooler does not support Intels Sockets LGA775 and 1366. For overclockers this might be a drawback. |
- Easy and practical
- Compatible Intel and AMD - Noctua NT-H1 |
- No LGA 775/1366 compatibility | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| There is nothing to complain at this point. It didn't matter if we drove the fan with 7 Volt, 12 Volt or via PWM mode, performance is always very good. When we added a second fan to the back side of the cooler, temperatures dropped by up to 4°C and the NH-U12S can easily keep up with today's all-in-one watercoolers. | - Cooling performances | ||
| Noise Levels | + | - | |
| Next to performance, noise level is the single most important thing with a CPU cooler. We were quite impressed to see, that the fan in the delivery is noiseless with even 900 RPM. In PWM mode and with two fans in place, the fans never surpassed 750 RPM and they were therefore inaudible. In case you should need it there is a low-noise adaptor (L.N.A) included in the bundle. |
- Noise levels
- Silent |
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| Recommendation / Price | + | - | |
| Checking prices reveals that the NH-U12S goes for 56 Euro these days. Considering this is a cooler of exceptional quality and performance as well as noise level are very good too, this piece of hardware is definitely worth every cent. We can recommend this cooler to anybody who's looking for a great after market aircooler. | - Price | ||
| Rating | |||
| We gave the NH-U12S from Noctua 5 out of 5 stars. | |||
| Page 1 - Presentation / Specifications |
| Page 2 - Photo Gallery |
| Page 3 - Installation & Test Setup |
| Page 4 - Absolute Performance |
| Page 5 - PWM Performance |
| Page 6 - Conclusion |