Noctua NH-U12F - Mishima Review!

excellent review, should be made sticky....

i too have the Noctua NH-U12F cooler replaced the standard intel on a qx6700 and my temps were greatly reduced whilst also having almost silence from my whole system...

Can highly recommend the cooler to anyone out there, i think its excellent balance between really good cooling and noise levels..

would love to see what it could do if you strapped a couple of delta 120mm's too it... delta focused flow 120mm

i have one of these fans that i use for cooling model car batteries during charging (i can push 10amps into the cells for charge in about 20mins, without this fan the cells would explode!!). the fan pushes some series volume of air... u couldn't live with the noise of 2 of them on your cooler, but it'd be nice just to see it working... temps etc.

mof
 
ammusing that the Noctua U12 has such close packed fins..... especialy as the fans they make are reported to have some backpresure problems in restricted environments due to the large gaps and sharp fan angles.

Delta would be an interesting experiment, but there must be a limit to the amount of heat the pipes can shift to the fins..... note the improvement of the Ultra-120 eX over the stock Ultra-120 just by putting another 2 heatpipes in (no increase in fin size/density).
 
davejm said:
Any chance this will fit in an Antec Sonata case?
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Easily fits into my Akasa Zen and the Sonata is a wider case. Should have no problems there :)

Thanks for the support guys I appreciate your nice comments. Just as a small update for this review from my case mod project. I swapped the orientation to the traditional position and attached another Noctua S12 1200RPM, the temperatures have dropped quite significantly - a good -6C drop.

anothernoctua.jpg
anothernoctua2.jpg


finished_main.jpg
 
sorry if I skimmed through the thread but what was the load temp in the first review (I assumed that 31C is at idle?) ? then later you said 6C drop with 2 fans in push-pull but drop on what? at idle or underload? did your ambient temp remain the same as the last time you measured? is your 6600 is at stock and so is the vcore? also it seems that you had very low ambient temp because your HDD was only at 22C in the first post :)

the only information I can count as valuable is from jamrowls because he stated his speed/voltage/idle/load temp, he didnt mention his ambient though. unless his computer is in a very hot room, those temps (63 idle/74 underload) are very high :o many other heatsinks can do better than that ;)

I know you have put a lot of effort into the review but would be better if you could be more details, especially when reviewing a heatsink because many factors can affect the results. right now it seems to be more like an picture tour of the heatsink ;)
 
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Fair comment. If you read the full review you will notice the CPU is clocked at stock (2.4GHz). The temperatures there in the review were on my E6600 at stock speeds with a single Noctua S12 fan mounted.

The above photos show the cooler mounted with two S12's and the quoted temperatures are with a 25% overclock - 3GHz (FSB333). So not only has the temperature dropped a few degrees it is also overclocked and in warmer conditions. The review/test was performed during end of winter and the current overclock was reported just two weeks ago (mid spring).
 
mishima said:
Fair comment. If you read the full review you will notice the CPU is clocked at stock (2.4GHz). The temperatures there in the review were on my E6600 at stock speeds with a single Noctua S12 fan mounted.
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I did read the review, in fact I read it twice just to make sure I didnt miss the load temp but it wasnt there:p so the 31C was the idle temp? if so then it pretty much meaningless IMO, it is the loadtemp that most people care about :) my stock cooler can keep the cpu temp around 30ish at idle but it shoots up the sky underload :p

mishima said:
The above photos show the cooler mounted with two S12's and the quoted temperatures are with a 25% overclock - 3GHz (FSB333). So not only has the temperature dropped a few degrees it is also overclocked and in warmer conditions. The review/test was performed during end of winter and the current overclock was reported just two weeks ago (mid spring).
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I think you should included all that in the post so everyone will know about the condition when the test was carried out (the cpu speed/voltage/idle/load temp should be included and ambient temp if possible). Its like saying my car is very fast and no figures/numbers to back up :)

Im not trying to pick on your review or anything. Very nice pictures and write up but I just think that there are some missing information ;)
 
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Hey mishima,

Just a couple of things. Any chance you could do a TAT IDLE/LOAD shot like this please:

mye6300eb2.jpg

L/R: Idle - Full TAT Load - Ultra 120 (Closed Case)

I don't know what it does but pressing both the 'start' buttons in TAT heats the cores up like nothing else, it would almost be impossible to replicate this load under normal use, even Full Orthos Small FFTs load is about 6°C cooler!

I came very very close to buying this cooler today (for a second build), it looks very similar to the Thermalright Ultra-120 (which I am using). I got put off by people saying it was fiddly to mount, or that they needed to employ an extra set of hands to get the Noctua fitted!

Dunno if you tried the Ultra-120? but its the nuts, apart from cooling well it is so easy to fit. Apart from having to take the mobo out to stick on a new backplate its got the best mounting system I have personally used, I do believe I could do it with one hand.

I will deffo keep a close eye on NOCTUA heatsinks from now on, they do look extremely well made!
 
Hey mishima, which oreintation would you say would be best in a akasa zen with just a single fan?

finished_main.jpg


Having the fan on the left so it's right next to the rear exhaust or having it on the right?
 
Hi,

Sorry I haven't got back to you I was suspended from the forums for listing a competitor. I would have the fan closest to the RAM blowing across the heatsink in the direction of the exhaust.
 
What thermal paste you using?? AS7?

As i'm getting 40-45idle. with my 6600 (lapped) at stock. (got a feeling its my warm room too, but this isn't helping).

With 2 120mm fans on the cooler, 1 120 fan exhausting and a 120 fan feeding the case wiht air in 1 line.
 
I'm using Thermalright paste. Try lowering the voltage, the temperatures should drop. I'm overclocked to 3.5GHz with my E6600 and I have exactly the same setup as you with the fans and I'm reporting 37C idle and 50C fully loaded.
 
Try lowering your vcore to 1.19v that should improve the temperatures at stock. You probably won't be able to get away with that voltage when overclocking though, but at stock its ideal.
 
waso_dude said:
What thermal paste you using?? AS7?

As i'm getting 40-45idle. with my 6600 (lapped) at stock. (got a feeling its my warm room too, but this isn't helping).

With 2 120mm fans on the cooler, 1 120 fan exhausting and a 120 fan feeding the case wiht air in 1 line.
Click to expand...

I am having the same problem, see here
 
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