3 - Noctua NH-U12P

The Noctua NH-U12P

First up, Noctua. They brand name is slowly getting more ground here in Europe. And we've certainly have tested their products before, and there's no way ignoring it .. they offer some really good product. They are not cheap though.

For this test we'll be using their newer NH-U12P cooler which is a complete kit for all sockets. The cooler is equipped with a four heatpipes design. It has aluminum cooling fins with a total surface area of more than 3800cm² and soldered joints for most the favorable heat-transfer, at 600 grams it's actually one of the lighter models tested today. The kit is very complete up-to rubber stands to prevent fan resonation and even a sample of their new NT-H1 thermal paste is included.

The new model 120mm fan is just awesome .. completely silent, very high performance and it even looks good. As our tests will show, Noctua offers a leading product.

Leading; yet at over 50 EUR the Noctua is the most expensive kit tested today. Very complete though.

Installation
Alright, after unpacking everything and grabbing the items we need to install the cooler on a Socket LGA 775 platform (Core 2 Duo) we stumble into the fact that a backplate needs to be seated behind the mainboard. I find it to be a growing annoyance to have to remove a mainboard to just install the cooler. With the Noctua kits that's unfortunately the same. Where everything about this kit is near perfection, the installation is a tad messy.

You remove the mainboard, fit a backplate, then at the front you secure two metal guides to the backplate. For the cooler block you fit two retention shims, and then you mount it together with two screws and springs.

The next step in the development applying decent cooling, has got to be finding a better solution that this.

Very high performance versus really silent noise levels. Noctua shows to offer a real good quality product as our tests will confirm.