Noctua NH-U12A cooler review

Cooling 190 Page 11 of 12 Published by

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Core i7 8700K OC at 4800 MHz 1.3 volts

Core i7 8700K OC at 4800 MHz 1.3 volts

1.3 V and higher voltages can cause serious problems for Coffee Lake CPUs because of the TIM used under the heat spreader (instead of a solder like in the Sandy Bridge range). Our (delidded) Core i7 8700K was set to 4800 MHz, at 1.3 volts. We used wPrime 2.10 (3 times, 1024 M) this time as well. IDLE temperature measurements were taken in the desktop, with almost no stress to the CPU. 

  

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The temps shouldn’t go beyond 90°C, as otherwise, the CPU might degrade and also throttling can occur (especially applicable to the AMD Ryzen range, which normally operates at lower temperatures). AIO and high-end air coolers usually perform very well with our delidded Core i7 8700K. The Noctua NH-U12A is no exception. Let’s try it with a voltage higher than 1.3 V. 

Core i7 8700K OC at 4800 MHz beyond the 1.3 volts

 There are five stages for the charts below:

  • Default
  • 4.8 GHz @ 1.3 V
  • 4.8 GHz @ 1.35 V
  • 4.8 GHz @ 1.4 V
  • 4.8 GHz @ 1.45 V

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The NH-U12A managed to keep the CPU temperatures under control until 1.4 V. At 1.45 V the temps went north of 80 degrees Celsius, but the final result is still good, and most users will not find this an issue.

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