Premium Socket 939 Heatsink Round-Up

Reviews: Cooling

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
Sharka Corp
Aug. 29, 2006

Specifications

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Noctua NH-U12

First Looks

The Noctua NH-U12 is packaged very well, with a full color, highly detailed, multi-national manual. The heatsink itself is solid and heavy, though very narrow compared to the other towers. It is the only heatsink of this round-up designed to accommodate two fans, and Noctua includes all the hardware needed to do so. It has four heatpipes doubled into the tower's moderately-spaced vanes, which are notched, presumably to affix the fins to each other and induce turbulence over the fin surface.

Specifications

Dimensions (L X W X H): 70 X 124 X 155mm
Material: Pure copper and aluminum
Weight: 700g
No fan included

Taking a Closer Look

It seems as if there's as much metal included in the form of mounting hardware as there is in the heatsink itself, which is a little alarming - it foreshadows a difficult install.

The mounting hardware is not bi-directional, and the heatsink is limited to mounting horizontally on motherboards with standard mounts, meaning that the air is exhausted towards the power supply in a standard ATX case.

The base has a very smooth finish with no signs of machining, though the reflection off of it is slightly curved.

Install

The first step with this heatsink is to select the Socket 939 mounting hardware and screw it into the base.

Then, two strips of narrow foam tape are applied down the sides of the tower to help prevent the fans' vibration from transferring through the heatsink, theoretically reducing noise. Mine only came with one set of strips, and as far as I can tell, this is normal. It did have two pairs of fan retention clips, and it wouldn't be hard to cut the strips into four or tailor some foam tape for another fan. However, the sound difference was negligible with or without foam tape.

The heatsink is screwed directly into the backplate; the mounting bracket is not used. The Noctua NH-U12 includes a Socket 939 backplate and indicates its use, but it's not absolutely necessary, because the cooler is compatible with standard backplates. So this very well skips the process of removing the motherboard from the computer to perform the install.

After the heatsink is mounted, one or two fans are clipped to the cooler. These wire clips are much easier to use than those included with the Scythe Ninja, mostly because the Noctua NH-U12 is so much smaller.

In Use

The Noctua NH-U12 is the only tower in this round-up without an included fan which cannot be operated without a fan. It just runs too hot.

And frankly, the Noctua doesn't live up to its promise. This is mostly due to the horizontal orientation: it restricts its own airflow and obstructs the normal direction of air through an ATX configuration. There are two perceivable conditions that would alleviate its poor airflow: 1) the motherboard has a horizontal CPU socket, or 2) if there are no, or at least only half-height, expansion cards installed.

Finally, on a standard motherboard, the tower blocks off the first two RAM slots. There may be enough space to have RAM in them if they're installed before the cooler is, and even then changing the RAM will mean removing the heatsink. Taller RAM sticks (like those with expanded heatspreaders or pretty lights) simply will not fit.

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Page 8 of 12

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: An Overclocking Primer
Page 3: The Contenders & Testing Methodology
Page 4: Zalman CNPS9500
Page 5: Zalman CNPS9500AM2
Page 6: Scythe Ninja Plus+
Page 7: Scythe Mine
Page 8: Noctua NH-U12
Page 9: Thermaltake Sonic Tower
Page 10: Thermaltake Mini Typhoon
Page 11: Overclocking & Temperatures
Page 12: Conclusions & Final Recommendations

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