Noctua NH-U12A CPU Cooler Review
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Noctua NH-U12A CPU Cooler Review
Noctua NH-U12A: Introduction
The Noctua NH-U12A is a new high performance tower CPU cooler designed to pack in a lot of performance in a 120mm package! Noctua advertises 140mm performance out of the 120mm size. The heat sink uses seven copper heat pipes, which are soldered to the base and to the fins for optimal thermal transfer!
To cool the heat sink, Noctua includes two NF-A12x25 120mm PWM fans for push-pull setup. These fans use the latest innovations in aerodynamic engineering to push the boundaries of performance while keeping sound down. Included are Low-Noise Adapters that lower the maximum fan RPMs from 2000 to 1700. The CPU cooler has a 6-year warranty, and is built to last. Noctua offers a free service for past and future CPU socket mount upgrade kits, allowing users to upgrade their system and keep the NH-U12A in service!
Noctua NH-U12A: Closer Look
All sides of the box except for the bottom have the cooler model written boldly on them, with each side getting different minor information underneath — barcodes, dimensions, website URL, and so forth. The front of the box has part of an image of the base of the heat sink along with the seven heat pipes going into some fins, overlaid with the Noctua cream and brown colors they are known for. Eight features are described: 100% RAM compatibility on LGA115x and AM4, 120mm tower size for excellent case and PCIe compatiblity, dual NF-A12x25 120mm fans, PWM support and Low-Noise Adaptor, SecuFirm2 multi-socket mounting system, included NT-H1 thermal compound, and 6-year manufacturer’s warranty. The opposite side of the box has a paragraph describing the NH-U12A in eight different languages. The top of the box repeats the information from the front, with an embossed circle declaring 140mm class performance in 120mm size. The first side of the box uses ten different black and white pictures to further emphasize features of the NH-U12A in detail, while the opposite side has specifications for the heat sink, fans, and the included contents.
Opening the box reveals a smaller package inside, with the different hardware and accessories drawn and labeled nicely. Lifting that out reveals the CPU cooler protected well, with the fans already installed. Accessories include hardware and guides for mounting to AMD, Intel LGA115x, and Intel LGA20xx systems, Low-Noise Adapters (a pair of fan-resistor cables to lower maximum fan RPM from 2000 to 1700) and a fan y-cable to join the fans to one header, and a syringe of NT-H1 thermal paste.
Noctua NH-U12A: Closer Look Continued
The Noctua NH-U12A is a clean, simple, elegant design. Just looking at the front of the cooler, you can see the lengths Noctua went to to reduce noise — the housing has circular reliefs in the front, and the fan impeller blades have three teeth to disturb airflow, which spreads noise out across different frequencies to make perceived noise quieter. The inner face of the impeller blades have three different angles, along with a lip at their leading edges to help as well. The removable rubber grommets absorb vibrations at every screw hole.
To reduce resistance and increase efficiency, the rear of the fan housing reduces back pressure by opening up as much as possible after the impeller, and the hub mounts are angled on the impeller side with reliefs on the opposite for less drag against the incoming airflow. The NF-A12x25 fans use SSO2 bearings — a second generation of Noctuas’ proprietary self-stabilizing oil-pressure bearing — SSO2 is essentially an upgraded fluid dynamic bearing-maglev bearing hybrid, with the main bearing design using hydrodynamic pressure while a magnet at the end of the shaft adds stability especially on startup when pressure hasn’t yet been built up.
The side view shows the wire clips that hold the fans to the fins, which are simple to use although lining them up can take a couple tries. Six of the heat pipes come up square from the base, while the seventh comes up at an angle — the heat sink is offset so that users with tight confines can run a single fan on the recessed side if needed.
The heat pipes are soldered to the fins directly, and are clipped into each other, making the heat sink feel much more solid than models that are just press-fit! The top view shows the heat pipe layout: the second and third heat pipes are staggered so that one end comes nearer the center of the fins and the other nearer the edges, with the first and last two heat pipes centered in-between them to spread heat out across the fins better than if they were all in a row. A hole in the center allows Noctua to mount their SecuFirm2 multi-socket mounting system to the heat sink base. Reliefs and teeth are cut into the fins, likely to both help reduce sound further and balance airflow. Fan hubs create a dead spot when mounted up next to the fins, so the bigger the gap you can create between the hub and fins the better the performance you will achieve! The base is ground flat and polished, but it does still have some grooves. Lapping the base further could bring improvements, but they would likely be very minor since the base is already so flat. E-clips hold the spring-loaded female shafts in place for user convenience, and to apply a more equalized pressure to the CPU.
Noctua NH-U12A: Specifications
Cooler Specifications
Socket compatibility
Intel LGA1200, LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156, LGA2011, LGA2066 and AMD AM4, AM3(+), AM2(+), FM1, FM2(+)
Height (without fan)
158 mm
Width (without fan)
125 mm
Depth (without fan)
58 mm
Weight (without fan)
760 g
Height (with fan)
158 mm
Width (with fan)
125 mm
Depth (with fan)
112 mm
Weight (with fan)
1220 g
Material
Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminium (cooling fins), soldered joints & nickel plating
Max. TDP
see CPU compatibility list max_tdp
Fan compatibility
120x120x25
Scope of delivery
2x NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm fan
2x Low-Noise Adaptor (L.N.A)
4-pin PWM y-cable
SecuFirm2™ mounting system for Intel and AMD
NT-H1 thermal compound
Noctua Metal Case-Badge
Warranty
6 Years
Fan Specifications
Model
Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM
Bearing
SSO2
Max. rotational speed (+/- 10%)
2000 RPM
Max. rotational speed with L.N.A. (+/- 10%)
1700 RPM
Min. rotational speed (PWM, +/-20%)
450 RPM
Max. airflow
102,1 m³/h
Max. airflow with L.N.A.
84,5 m³/h
Max. acoustical noise
22,6 dB(A)
Max. acoustical noise with L.N.A.
18,8 dB(A)
Voltage range
12 V
MTTF
> 150.000 h
Information Courtesy of Noctua @ https://noctua.at/en/nh-u12a
Noctua NH-U12A: Testing
After getting the Noctua NH-U12A unboxed and set up, it is time to install it and see how well it performs! For the sake of fairness, the same settings are used between the different CPU coolers, with an i7-8700K overclocked to 4.5GHz AVX-stable across all cores. Temperatures are recorded at their peak and valley plateaus to prevent issues such as thermal runaway, heat soaking, and other thermal oddities.
Testing Setup
CPU
Intel i7-8700K @ 4.5GHz 1.15V
CPU Cooler
Noctua NH-U12A
Graphics Card
MSI GeForce RTX 2070 ARMOR OC 8GB
Motherboard
ASUS Prime Z390-A
RAM
CORSAIR Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4 4x8GB @ 3200MHz 16-18-18-36 1.35V
Storage Drive
Sabrent 2TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD
Power Supply
Fractal Design Ion+ 80 Plus Platinum 860W
The load temperature numbers are more important to me personally, the Noctua NH-U12A did the best at idle but it was a close run. More importantly it was only a couple degrees hotter than the 240mm Corsair H100i water cooler at load, and several degrees cooler than the massive Corsair A500 tower cooler!
Conclusion:
Noctua has done it again! The NH-U12A performed exceptionally well in testing while maintaining a reasonable size and noise profile.
The NH-U12A easily cleared the nearby RAM and motherboard components, and operated very efficiently when left to throttle based on heat. At full speed the fans are audible while not being noisy, and they move a lot of air! Compared to competing 120mm fans with similar airflow, the NF-A12x25 PWM fans are at least several decibels quieter if not more!
The NF-A12x25 PWM fans are designed to be balanced between airflow and pressure performance, and are a great general purpose fan! They are the first Noctua fans to be built with Sterrox liquid-crystal polymer, prior models used the less stable Fibre-glass reinforced PBT. Increasing stability in the impeller with the new Sterrox LCP reduces vibrations, the primary goal in this case is decreasing noise.
Some people may not like the classic Noctua fan colors, they are certainly unique. When you see those colors they are a telltale sign of quality fans, but they don’t fit well with a lot of modern aesthetics. Thankfully there are new black fans and CPU cooler variants recently launched by Noctua, such as the NH-D15 or NH-U12S Chromax Black.
Hopefully soon Noctua will also release an NH-U12A Chromax Black model in the near future as well, roughly Q1 2021 as outlined on their roadmap of upcoming products. Users have tried to paint the fans in the past, but Noctua specifically cautions against this and doing so voids the warranty, because it can affect the balance and lifespan. RGB lighting still isn’t on the list of upcoming product options, but I for one welcome the black fans for builds where color scheme aesthetics matter! Q1 2021 may also bring white fans, and a heat sink cover for the NH-U12A that hides the heat pipes and allows for different color schemes!
The Noctua NH-U12A is a true high performance tower cooler that can handle a lot of heat efficiently!
Source link neoseeker.com
