The Noctua NH-U12S Redux Cooler Review: Bringing Noctua's Best To a Lower Price

Conclusion

The NH-U12S Redux is a fresh approach to the market from Noctua, as it is one of their first attempts to significantly reduce the cost of their products and make the company more approachable to budget-driven users. Noctua’s reputation may be legendary, but there's no getting around the fact that the mainstream market for coolers is quite price-sensitive, making the development of the NH-U12S Redux a strategic diversification attempt that should open Noctua up to a larger percentage of PC builders.

In order to make the NH-U12S Redux ($50) more affordable, Noctua removed some of the items they usually bundle with their coolers, such as the thermal paste syringe and the low noise fan adapter, and removed one heatpipe from the body of the cooler. The quality of the body was also reduced, as the aluminum fins are no longer welded onto the heatpipes. Such differences may be subtle, even unimportant for typical PC users, yet they will not stay unnoticeable to experienced builders and experts.

However, in terms of performance, the NH-U12S Redux has little to fear from the more expensive cooler it was based upon. As promised by Noctua, when compared toe to toe with the NH-U12S, the NH-U12S Redux offers about the same thermal performance. The only difference is that, all else held equal, the Redux is technically noisier for the same level of cooling performance. And we say "technically" because while there is a difference, you're going to be hard-pressed to notice them, especially as the absolute noise levels are still well below what anyone would consider a noisy cooler. If anything, the NH-U12S Redux is one of the quietest tower coolers with a 120 mm fan that we have ever tested, and it's less noisy than Noctua’s own NH-U12A, a cooler that costs nearly twice as much.

In fact the stock performance of the cooler is so good that there's little benefit to be had from trying to improve it with a second NA-FK1 fan. Using a second fan tends to be counterproductive, as it does not significantly improve the performance of the NH-U12S Redux. Instead, it mostly serves to push the total price of the setup to nearly that of the NH-U12S, making the purchase of the NA-FK1 a practically pointless choice.

We believe that the great overall performance and good build quality make the NH-U12S Redux a very competitive product. It is a product that makes a lot of sense in today’s market – far more than the monstrous, ludicrously expensive behemoths, at any rate. For many users, who just want a plug-and-play solution for a PC that they are not planning to fiddle with for years, the NH-U12S Redux is an excellent, cost-effective choice.