Noctua NH-U12F: Quiet Air Cooling from Austria
by Wesley Fink on April 25, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Installation
The installation instructions for the Noctua are so good they should be a model for other cooler manufactures. Details and photographs are in the included manual and they are also available at the Noctua website. You first decide the mount kit you will use and then consider how you want the cooler to be oriented on the motherboard.
Noctua clearly spells out that the motherboard needs to be removed from the case to mount the cooler. For socket 775 the adapter mount can be attached with the mount holes in either direction.
You can use whichever configuration fits your board the best, since Noctua includes two sets of universal mount clips that allow any of the installations to be turned 90 degrees if necessary.
Universal mounting clips, which work with all mount adapters, are then screwed to the heatsink base. Shown are the standard universal mounts, but also included are optional horseshoe or u-shaped mounts, which install on the heatpipe sides and allow the Noctua cooler to be "turned" 90 degrees for mounting.
Self-adhesive elastomeric anti-vibration strips are then attached to the fan side mount(s) as shown.
For most configurations it is much easier to mount the heatsink to the motherboard before installing the fan(s). With the standard universal clips the fan covers the screw used for mounting. With the "horseshoe" shape mounts the supplied screwdriver fits the round holes near the end of the long direction of the heatsink. This allows mounting the cooler even though the heatsink covers the mounting screws.
All of this does not mean the mounting of the Noctua is any easier than some other heatsinks. Manipulating and aligning the under-the-board brace and the aboveboard washers/clips/screws is frankly a pain. The good news is that the only thing you need to install at that step are the small clips - not the huge heatsink. However, the clear instructions make a difficult task more bearable and there's a little less urge to throw things out the window.
While the Noctua NH-U12F is undeniably heavy and large, the back brace and very secure feel of the finished installation does inspire confidence that the cooler is not going to fall off the motherboard. However, as with any large and heavy cooler, you probably should avoid moving the mounted cooler around a great deal, as it could stress the board. None of the large heatpipe towers are really designed for a LAN party computer that is frequently transported.
UPDATE: Noctua has provided the following information on transporting the NH-U12F: "The mounting system of the NH-U12F was designed with LAN gamers in mind and we encourage users not to take the cooler off during transport. With many thousands of coolers sold, we haven't had one single problem from transporting a system with the Noctua cooler."
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Hulk - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
1. Equip all fans with a variable speed controller and adjust the speed so that the decibel level is exactly 40dB, 45dB, etc... Record the temps. This would isolate the thermal transfer efficiency of the cooler. For better isolation of cooler thermal efficiency you could use the same fan on all coolers.2. This time adjust the fan speed to acheive the same load temperature. This time record the fan RPM and the noise level. Of course some units might not even make the temp at full speed but that would be okay. As it is right now you have to take into account cooling performance when looking at noise. It be nice to see how much noise they make when they are all drawing away the same amount of heat from the processor.
3. In order to really give these coolers a workout how about adding an overclocked quad core to the tests?
I enjoy reading these reviews. Great job!
yacoub - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
No word on fitment again. Fitment is really the number one thing people want to know: Will this fit on my board? If it doesn't fit their board, it doesn't really matter to them how well it cools. Would be great to hear if it does or doesn't clear a variety of boards you have around the testing labs, particularly a couple 680i, 650i, P965, and 975. Pick one that's fairly reference in design and a couple of the ones people tend to purchase that often have passive cooling heatsink/pipe configurations on the northbridge and MOSFETS, and let us know how well the darn thing clears it all, especially if it requires a back brace and some boards have stuff on the back beneath the CPU socket (like the MSi P6N-SLI Platinum) and whether or not it still fits.Thanks.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, April 26, 2007 - link
The Noctua is narrower than most heatpipe towers, but as wide as a thermalright. The shape is much like a thermalright. The top plate can be installed in two directions and the cooler can be turned 90 degrees if necessary, so mounting is very flexible.The Noctua fit the EVGA 680i (barely, due to width and very tall chipset cooler near the socket), Asus, Striker, Asus Commando, and Asus P5W-DH Deluxe. We did not have the MSI board you specify in the lab to check, but the back plate has an open center and is designed to clear back components.
yacoub - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Any word on fitment on an MSi P6N-SLI Platinum? This is important as the board supposedly has a few items on the back such that certain backplates do not fit too well and it would be important to know if this hsf can clear them alright.mostlyprudent - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
Very nice. I like the balance of low noise and above average performance. Any plans to look at the Thermalright HR-01 fanless cooler with the ducting that can connect to a rear case fan? I would love to see the cooling abilities of such a configuration.xsilver - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
hey wes; how many more hsf setups are still in the pipeline for review? care to list?is the thermalright ultra 90 one of them?
or anything else that is of the "cheaper" level?
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
We have a few more top-line HSFs and then we will do an "under $30" HSF roundup. We also have a wide assortment of 120mm fans in the labs for a fan roundup.xsilver - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
oh also, was there any plans to put some "classic" coolers in the chart as a control reference?Im thinking thermalright xp-90/120
zalman 7000/7700
how do these type of coolers compare to the ones currently being reviewed? no full review is really needed but putting them in the charts would be nice.
puffpio - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
The 'Final Words' page is actually a duplicate of the 'Noise' pageWesley Fink - Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - link
The posting error on Final Words has been corrected.