Noctua NH-U12S Review

Published by Christian Ney on 12.12.13
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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
 
 
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
 
 
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






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Noctua NH-U12S Review - Cooling > Aircooling - Reviews - ocaholic