Noctua NH-U12F: Quiet Air Cooling from Austria
by Wesley Fink on April 25, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Noise
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if that increases system noise levels.There are virtually no power supplies that do not include a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make an expensive fanless power supplies, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the power supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter of the high performance power supplies.
We have also measured the Corsair 620-watt and Mushkin 650-watt power supplies which are reported to be quieter than the OCZ. Both the Corsair and Mushkin are indeed quieter at idle or start up speed. However, as soon as load testing begins and the PSU fan speed kicks up the measured noise level is almost exactly the same as the OCZ PowerStream 520 watt power supply.
We are currently in the process of evaluating "quieter" power supplies for an update to our cooler test bed. We will make changes to that test bed as soon as we are confident in the noise measurements and test procedures with a variable speed quiet PSU. We plan to evaluate additional power supplies and configurations in our upcoming 120mm fan roundup, at which point we will complete the transition to a revised and lower noise cooler test bed.
The noise level of the power supply was 38.3 dB from 24" (61cm) and 47 dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4 dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
We measured noise levels with the Noctua NH-U12F under both load and idle conditions. Results were then compared to the system noise floor. In all cases - stock fan, SilenX cooler, and dual Noctua fans in push-pull - the measured noise levels were below the system noise floor. The Noctua is also subjectively an exceptionally quiet heatpipe tower.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with an open side of a mid tower case 6" and 24" from the HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case resulting in a further reduction in noise. The measured noise levels at 6" and 24" are below the system noise floor in all tested Noctua configurations. The Noctua heatsink and the Noctua S12 fan seem to be carefully tuned for an optimum balance of air flow and silence.
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HeatMiser - Thursday, April 26, 2007 - link
Wes -- how far does this Noctua cooler hang over the edge of the motherboard closest to the Power supply? Just trying to figure out if I have room. Thanks for the great reviews on these coolers.Bumtrinket - Friday, May 4, 2007 - link
It largely depends on the motherboard - if the CPU socket is close to the top edge, you could have problems if there's not much space between the mobo and PSU. This also applies to the Thermalright Ultra 120 and other similar designs. The design of the heatsink mounting lets you rotate it through 90 degrees, but that's not the preferred orientation.There's more info at Noctua's site, but they say this in the FAQs:
"How much space between mainboard and power supply is required when the NH-U12 is installed upright?"
"When installed upright (see picture below), the NH-U12 may jut out over the upper edge of the mainboard. In this case, the gap required between the upper edge of the mainboard and the power supply in the case is (depending on the position of the CPU socket on the mainboard) up to 25mm. Measured from the upper mounting holes of the CPU socket, the required distance to the power supply unit is 35mm."
n7 - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
I am a big fan of Noctua, so nice to see their heatsink do as well as i expected.Their fans are very good @ providing a mix of performance & realtive quietness, & it appears this heatsink is no different.
I too would really like to see a TT Big Typhoon added to the reviews, mainly to see how it does compared to the new leaders, something the Typhoon used to be.
I also look forward to seeing your testbed redone with a quieter PSU.
TA152H - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
OK, I read this article with some interest, and as usual find the remarks about fanless power supplies completely off-base.I mean, if you're measuring overclocking a CPU, or some high end gaming system, or some high-end Peltier cooler, I could see the point in not using a fanless power supply because such a power supply wouldn't be useful in that configuration. But, I don't buy power supplies with fans anymore, and guess what type of heatsink I go after when I buy them? Yes, very quiet ones. So, when you're testing a heatsink/fan that is made to be especially quiet, or for example, fanless video cards, you SHOULD test with a fanless power supply.
I know most of the reviewers here think shooting space aliens is what everyone does, and they need 600 watt power supplies, but it's just not true. Most people in fact don't need anything that large, so try to think within the market of the product instead of personal preferences. I'm not knocking video games, by the way, they are a much better escape than drugs, or other bad things people do, or even TV. I'm just saying that you guys need to stop thinking everyone does this and needs equipment to handle these foul machines, especially when reviewing items that would never be put in one.
customcoms - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
I agree that in order to get more accurate noise ratings a more quiet system based on a fanless psu would achieve higher accuracy. However, anandtech tests have generally catered to enthusiasts and overclockers, and imo, these tests do that well. For starters, they compare cooling performance with noise as a secondary consideration (mainly to see if the cooler advertised is quiet, but as it sates in the article, they are more curious about its cooling/overclocking ability than the noise). Yes, anandtech is using what could be considered a "noisy" test bed, but X6800's and 7900GTX's don't exactly come to mind when I think "silent" pc. Nor do the power, hungry, hot Nvidia 680i based boards. I suggest looking elsewhere for reviews on components that make up silent pc's, such as http://www.silentpcreview.com">http://www.silentpcreview.com. I'll stick with anandtech's review because I could care less about noise if it lets me gain an extra 300mhz out of my processor.TA152H - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Then why review a heatsink that is focused on being quiet? You completely missed the point. I don't have a problem with them reviewing noisy items, but you don't review a heatsink/fan that is made to be especially quiet, with a noisy power supply or video card. If the heatsink were a cooling beast that didn't pay much mind to noise problems, absolutely go with appropriate stuff. People that want it will not care about noise with the other components. But when someone is considering getting a unit because it is quiet, you don't use a noisy baseline because that same person is likely to look for that same quality in their other components.Ajax9000 - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Agreed.The "proper" (but time consuming :-) thing to do would be to have a "performance" testbed (which is also investigated for noise as a secondary test), and a "silent" testbed (which is also investigated for overclockability as a secondary test). I.e. people who want "quiet" systems don't automatically excude overclocking, they are just less concerned about it (and vice versa).
Paradox999 - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Great review and comparison.As an owner of a Scythe Ninja equipped with a silent fan, I can attest to it's effectiveness.....but your batch of reviewed HSF's is missing my personal favorite, the Thermaltake Big Typhoon. It's one of the best at cooling nearby capacitors since the fan blows DOWNWARDS onto the motherboard. I've replaced the original fans for some slower and silent Silenx fans since the core2duo isn't as hot as my old overclocked 820D.
Works awesome good.
Do us all a favor and please include the Big Typhoon (and not it's weaker cousin, the Mini Typhoon) in your review
Spanki - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
I couldn't get my comments posted in here, so I added them as http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">a new thread in the forums.Deusfaux - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
"We also ran brief test results comparing the cooling efficiency and noise of the Scythe SFLEX SFF21F 64cfm/28 dB-A fan that was used in Thermalright reviews and the SilenX fan used in several of the most recent reviews. Cooling results were similar with either fan on the Noctua heatsink, with the SilenX providing better cooling on some overclocks. Both fans were quiet and came in below the noise floor of our test system, but the SilenX was subjectively quieter than the SFLEX. "REALLY. I have trouble believing this, but I guess we'll find out for sure in the upcoming roundup.