NH-U12A

Best temperature control of any air CPU cooler I’ve ever purchased!💯 This replaced a prior Noctua cooler, the NH-D15S, which in its right was great too. But this one ships with faster & slimmer 120mm fans & able to clear many tall RAM kits (the NH-D15S was good for the latter too), and is quieter, even on Performance Mode with some MB’s. The fans runs in full mode to 2,000 rpm, but typically slows in Performance Mode (best option). This mode allows for great control depending upon load. BTW, these are better fans than the earlier, thicker model which it replaced, the airflow is superior in both speed & lower. The cooler itself, while single tower versus dual, does an excellent job, keeping a Ryzen 7 9700X in the middle 30’s to mid 50C range during normal usage. Gaming and other high intensive usage may mean higher temperatures, but not overwhelmingly so. Just be sure to check compatibility on the Noctua site. This model is standing with their top line coolers when it comes to getting the job done. One warning, make sure your case is deep enough. Mine was a mid tower model (NZXT H5, I believe), those with mini towers need to look at a different model. I’m happy, despite the price increase. Not much we can control about this. We either pay or go for lower quality, period. I’d rather pay for peace of mind.

I recently upgraded my CPU from a Ryzen 5 2600X to a Ryzen 7 3800X. I knew I was moving up to a 105C processor but I thought I could get away with my Prism Spire Cooler because I am not gaming. This is a CAD workstation part time, otherwise general office use. The original AMD Spire cooler was keeping the machine between 60-80C most of the time but it did bump the 90C max limit a few times which was a little discouraging. I might have lived with it except for the fact that the fan was howling all day long and nearly driving me out of my mind. I began my search and decided upon the Noctua NH-U12A because of the low noise specifications. Let me be clear, I really didn't want to pay the high price for this cooler. In hindsight, I wish I had just stayed back with a 65W CPU, but I was already past that point and needed to deal with it. The Noctua cooler performs as well as the specifications indicated and it keeps my processor in the 29C Min - 33C Average - 60C Max temp range (according to HWiNFO64) after a full day of use under my toughest loads. This is a high quality cooler, I won't deny that. It does a great job cooling and it does it quietly averaging < 22dBA (barely audible) in my use with the case closed up. It will probably run louder for gamers who keep a constant load on their CPU's. The title to my review stands, it is expensive for a cooler but I would recommend this to anyone trying to cut down the office noise by a LOT! Make sure you have the space for it. I have a full size tower and it almost touches the side panel when I put it back on. It is large as you can see in my picture looking through the clear side panel of my PC.

I have used an aio on my last 5 pc’s but this time i decided to use an air cooler for simplicity,and i am very pleased with the results,i loved no wiring and my pc actually stays much cooler,time will tell,the Noctua NHU12a is small and efficient and works well

Can't say enough good things about this cooler, with the one draw back being that it is very pricey. However, it does come with 2 of Noctua's new NF-12Ax25 fans which by themselves are $30 each. So the actual heatsink is only 1/3 the total price and is a consideration when looking at the cost/value proposition. Heatsink: The heatsink itself is very good. Has 7 heatpipes which is the most I've seen in a 120mm tower cooler. It also doesn't cover/block any of my ram slots (even on my mini-ITX board) with the fans mounted. My Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO with the fan mounted would still cover the first ram slot, so I'm not sure how Noctua managed to pull this off as according to the specs the Noctua bare heatsink is 7-8mm wider than the Coolermaster. Mounting system is typical Noctua SecureFirm and fantastic. Fans: The 2 included fans are Noctua's new fans that took them 3 years to develop. There's never been so much hype on a fan than these, and you should read up on why it took so long to develop, it's an interesting article. What I can say after using them is that they are much quieter at a given RPM than my other high performance fans. I have to put my ear with in an inch or two to hear them under normal operation (about 50%-60% speed is where they normally running at) and they are barely audible at 100% when they spin up to full speed when I first turn on my PC. Note that the fans have pretty short power cables, and the heatsink does not include extension cables like you get if you purchase the fans separately. Performance: I am using one fan on the heatsink in a push configuration and the other fan as a case exhaust fan about one inch away from the heatsink. So it's similar to the intended push/pull configuration, but with a small gap between. Under 100% synthetic load my delidded i7 7700k runs in the high 50s low 60s degrees Celsius at ~1.3v vCore and ambient temp of 24C (75F). Under real word gaming load, the CPU was running at an average 48C with occasional short spikes into the 50s. All this in a very small, but well ventilated ~13L mini-itx case. This is fantastic performance and rivals bigger coolers like the Noctua D15 but is so much easier to fit in a small mini-itx case. Overall: I think the performance of this cooler is the best you can get at this size point. Compared to my Hyper 212 EVO, it performs better, is quieter under load, doesn't cover my RAM, and has a MUCH better mounting system. All this comes at a price, it's considerably more expensive than a Hyper 212 EVO. But in my opinion it's worth it if you aren't on an extremely tight budget. Noctua products are premium products, the best of the best, and the quality shows both in performance and ease of installation.

Great product. We’ve been using it for ages when building custom workstations. Quiet and durable. May be a bit expensive but it’s worth the money if what you’re building is a power station.

Calidad Noctua y se nota. Lo compré para ponerlo a enfriar un i5 13600K y va sobrado. No es excesivamente grande y enfría más que la mayoría de disipadores por aire del mercado, incluso mucho más voluminosos que este. Viene con 2 ventiladores de 120mm en formato Push Pull (Entrada y salida de aire) con un splitter para conectarlo al CPU fan y que funcionen ambos para maximizar la eficiencia y apenas hacen ruido. Además trae 2 cables más llamados "Reduction Noise" que sirven para limitar el máximo de vueltas a las que pueden llegar los ventiladores y que no giren al 100% de su capacidad cuando haya mucha temperatura y por tanto mitigan el ruido a muy altas vueltas. Yo no los estoy usando porque en un uso normal ni se oyen. Contentísimo con la compra. Totalmente recomendables si quieres tener lo mejor en cuanto a refrigeración por aire.

Davvero imponente, installato su MSI x570 gaming plus e CPU Ryzen 7 3800xt. Sì fatica un pochino a fare i primi giri di vite durante il montaggio, seguendo bene le istruzioni tutto sommato non sorgono grossi problemi. La paura di fare danni è tanta, specialmente se è il primo Noctua che ti capita di montare. Eccellente riguardo la rumorosità, le due ventole fanno il loro lavoro egregiamente. Ideale per chi non è interessato ad effetti luminosi o estetici, anche se di fatto fa un bel contrasto, ma poco importa il mio cabinet non ha vetri e le luci che vanno tanto di moda non avrebbero senso. Non ho messo ancora alla frusta il processore, non intendo comunque fare overclock, ma per quel poco che ho potuto provare le ventole non si sono mosse dal loro minimo impostato, segno che il dissipatore disperde molto bene il calore, durante un carico medio. Un giudizio più obiettivo potrò farlo solo un uso intenso, ma se le premesse sono queste non potrà che essere positivo. Lato negativo è ingombrante e pesa tanto, quasi 1,2kg, sulle istruzioni sconsigliano il trasporto da montato, per evitare danni alla scheda madre. Se intendete trasportarlo spesso, o lo smontate oppure opterei era uno più leggero e meno ingombrante. Valutare anche l'ingombro nel cabinet è veramente alto. Il sito del produttore da indicazioni su compatibilità con CPU, schede madri e svariati cabinet, molto professionale. Consegna Amazon sempre perfetta e puntuale.

Não existe defeito!

Good performance acceptable size. Easy to install.

Rien a redire, je suis passé d'un Noctua NH-U12P a ce NH-U12A, soit de la version 2 a la 5eme et j'ai gagné 15°c en mode silencieux et 20°c avec le ventilateur au max. Le packaging est complet et efficace. Top !