Noctua NH-U12S Review

Noctua NH-U12S Review

Manufacturer: Noctua
UK price (as reviewed): £47.99
US price (as reviewed): $69.99

When all-in-one coolers started hitting the cooling scene a few years ago, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the end of the road for premium air coolers. Noctua is one of the most established and recognised brands out there in the enthusiast scene, but even we have to admit that value hasn't always been one of the company's strong points. In the face of a growing number of super-cheap and capable coolers such as Deepcool's GAMMAXX S40, you might think paying more than £30 for a CPU cooler isn't worth it considering how well the latter performs for just £20.


At £47.99, the NH-U12S isn't even a humongous air cooler and you get a much smaller bit of kit than it's larger sibling, the NH-D14, which retails for just £10 more. However, the NH-U12S isn't about raw cooling. With a maximum rated noise of just over 22db(A) and even less using the included low noise adaptor, this is a cooler for those where noise reduction is just as important as a chilly CPU.


Part of the reason for the NF-F12's high price is the NF-F12 PWM Focused Flow 120mm fan included in the box. This retails for £17 on its own - one of the most expensive fans on the market. There's a whole raft of technical blurb in this fan's specifications but the long and short of it boils down to Noctua claiming it produces a better quality noise by utilising many of these swanky features such as a focused flow frame, varying angular distance and vortec-control notches, plus better airflow and cooling.

The heatsink itself is up to Noctua's usual standards, however, if you haven't seen one of the Austria-designed cooler's in person before, that's essentially the same as saying build quality is epic. Crammed into this diminutive cooler, which measures just 158mm tall and 125mm wide, are five heatpipes built into a compact array of aluminium fins, plus a copper contact plate that sports a nickel plating.


Even the packing is a labour of love, with everything packed into premium-feeling cardboard boxes that are all exactly the right size to take up precisely 100 per cent of the outer box. It's not often we feel compelled to make this sort of comment but it's totally justified here. As such, with everything labelled for each socket, despite the above average amount of mounting components, installation is fairly painless.

The fan clips are second only to SilverStone's latest coolers such as the AR01 , in terms of ease of use - no spindly, awkward things here, which is just as well as you need to fit the single 120mm fan after you've mounted the cooler to the motherboard.


Also included are all the fittings needed to mount a second fan, including the brown antivibration corner pads plus a low noise adaptor that can drop the maximum rpm from 1,500 to 1,200, slotting in between the 3-pin power feed and the standard PWM fan cable. Everything you need is included in the box, including an extra-long screwdriver to reach the mounting screws.

Specifications

• Compatibility Intel: LGA775 and LGA1366 (with optional NM-I3 kit) LGA115x, LGA2011; AMD: AM3(+), AM2(+), FM2(+), FM1
  
• Size (with fan) (mm) 125 x 71 x 158 (W x D x H)
  
• Fan(s) 1 x 120mm, 300-1,500RPM
  
• Stated Noisemax 22.4dB(A)