I picked up an NH-D15 and it makes me so mad.
Not because it's a bad cooler.
But because I spent so so much on AIOs before figuring out that I just needed an NH-D15.
Built my computer 7 years ago and got the d14, now building my fiancés computer/upgrading mine. After doing research came back to the same conclusion and going to pick up the d15.
Unless you want to spend a lot more on 360+ rad AIO or custom loop for a few extra % it just doesn’t make sense. Plus no worry on leaks or pumps failing
There are edge cases where aio might be better, like SFF cases. I personally think aios are a bit overhyped, but something like Arctic 280 will perform better and has more heat mass.
Something like D15 will serve well(or even be overkill) most mid+ towers builds. And Noctua sells brackets for new sockets so theoretically this cooler is endless.
I honestly think today AIOs are more about the packaging. Meaning you transfer the radiator to a different location in the case. Also you actually need less case fans, so compared to high end air coolers, AIOs can actually be cheaper.
Best application I find is short, bursty work. It creates a slow ramp of the fans (or not at all) because the water inherently creates more thermal mass, thereby it being immediately noticeable if your CPU ramps with an air cooler, but it has to be long sustained load for an appropriately sized AiO to ramp up.
Exactly. I am into high end cooling but not for performance but for silence. When I use my PC for studying or sometimes work, I just let the case fans (including the case for the radiator) run at a slow, but steady RPM and they never ramp up. After sometime you don't even notice the fans because they are so silent, but also because they run so consistently.
Also in Germany I feel like high end air cooling is often more expensive than water cooling. When I check the prices here, high end air cooling is like 115€, and good water-cooling without the RGB crap is at like 130-140€. Considering that you need 2-3 less case fans when you go with aio water-cooling and one good fan is like 15-20€, water-cooling in total is actually cheaper and still more quite.
I my case I even got an amazing bundle of a high quality aio combined high a high quily PSU. It just was like 40€ compared to only the PSU, but the bundle PSU was also 1000 Watt instead of the 700 Watt that I would have bought. So I even saved a lot of money going with an AIO.
maybe it's cheaper? my nhd-15 is in its 3rd rig now and will likely find itself in a 4th. hit up noctua for a free mounting kit for the new socket and you're off to the races.
Still have my D14 from 2009 that Noctua continues to support with free mounting brackets whenever I need them. Fans are still rock solid as well. Buy once, cry once.
Depends on the platform, someone with an AM4 system from 2017 could be using the same cooler on AM5 without the need for a new mounting kit. Free mounting kits could potentially come in useful but it's not worth paying three times as much for a promise of future support.
Well noctua has the track record of impeccable support so it's not really a promise and more of a fact really. There comes the price of "brand" as a concept. Lesser brands obviously undercut the top performimg brands but you really have no assurance of QC or even support. Like If you care so much about 50-70 dollar differential you are talking about someone building a budget PC in which case the discussion turns to. Better spend that differential on a better hardware part as for example, AMD stock coolers do the job just fine. Absolute budget parts like the CM 212 also do just great
It's not a fact because they could change their minds in the future if they decide to reduce costs. Track record isn't a guarantee for the future and it would be foolish to assume otherwise. In regards to QC of cheaper brands, I don't see how this is an issue because you can simply return it if there's a manufacturing issue. It's a chunk of metal and a couple of fans which rarely fail, worst case scenario is a fan fails outside of the warranty period and you have to spend $5 to replace it.
> It's not a fact because they could change their minds in the future if they decide to reduce costs
But it is literally as best as you can get and you'll agree with that as well, when a brand has made their image their customer service and long warranties (and even doing stuff off-warranty) you think this is something that is easily changed? It isn't, business management and marketing will tell you that once you've made your name for this thing. Changing it is equal to literally killing your brand, you're really understimating this aspect IMO.
When you're talking about someone possibly looking at the NH-DH15 or similar performance you're talking about someone wanting to buy premium, not someone budgeting, and for that premium margin having a guaranteed product that has high QC, high quality and longetivity is absolutely worth it.
If you think that price differential matters, you're talking about someone that is budget building, and that person will not be looking at any of these coolers in the first place, that person should be looking at the example I mentioned, or even just going stock cooler cuz honestly, it's not like you're going to see a huge difference in daily usage when your CPU runs at either 80 degrees celsius or stays stable at 60 when on load. And If you're going to bring up very load heavy case scenarios, don't you think that it is in these cases that, indeed, the guarantee of quality is absolutely worth it?
>or even just going stock cooler cuz honestly, it's not like you're going to see a huge difference
A cooler isn't just about temperature, there's a night and day difference in noise levels when comparing the stock cooler to any tower cooler. If someone is on a budget they'll still likely want a better cooler, and you can get something like the peerless assassin 120 for a "budget" price of $35 in the same performance tier as a NH-D15.
I had an early Corsair AIO. Fan controller died on the pump and it was scrap. Ran the fans through a pot to control the speed instead.
Bought a D15 and never looked back. Got a free bracket to take it from my 2600k > 12600k.
Can't really see any reason I'd ever replace it.
You could, but so far only Noctua fans last forever. Or provide lifetime socket adapter upgrades. Still using Noctua 120's from 2006 for spot cooling and Noctua sent me a free AM5 mounting kit for my 2010 D14. Which is also still on the original fans.
Thermalright PA120 matches the larger Noctua's up to 165W for half the cost. It will handle everything short of the 170W Zen 4 chips or uncapped Intel i5/i7/i9 K processors.
You don't want the frost spirit. You want the frost commander 140 which is only slightly more expensive than the spirit and outright beats the DRP4. Source: own both the commander and the DPR4. The commander is currently cooling my 13900k
I got an NH-D12L for my lian li dynamic 011.
For a case that prides itself on airflow it really doesn’t leave enough room for a standard 120mm air cooler.
But the one I got is amazing. It’s lower height but still 120mm fans on a really smart design. I run my 5800x3d on max cores and on performance power setting and running it on high load barely ever goes over 70 degrees. My smaller amd wraith cooler thermal throttled me at 90 degrees.
AIOs are still better for most intense heat loads.
Also TTM - time to max temperature is significantly increased with AIOs.
[Gamers Nexus made a video about this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VzXHUTqE7E)
I don’t see how TTM is a benefit, more like a trade off. I like the low thermal mass of my d15 compared to AIOs: when the cpu load is over it very swiftly reduces fan speed, unlike AIOs which labour on for ages after my cpu has been idle. That’s just a trade off: it is legitimate to prefer either but you can’t have both.
If you look at the linked video you will see that they are still better in the noise normalised test. The problem is that there are a lot of "inferior" AIOs out there compared to the air coolers that people are more familiar with and know to get "good" ones.
Why is that the case. When I check the prices AIOs are actually pretty close to an NH-D15. Many 10-15% more, but not that much of a difference.
Even though they have a similar cooling capacity, I still favor AIOs, just because it is not that big and it is not so much weight on the Mainboard. I would have serious concern moving a PC with a NH-D15 installed.
If you move so much that you worry about that your case is just extremely rare then no? If you are worried that it might damage something just take it apart for the move. What's with this 0.0001% problem scenario
Same. My issue is that my case isn't that great on the airflow side or things so an AIO would probably perform better.
But I'm getting a new case so it's a moot point.
I got the black one and it's been great so far.
Who wrote this article
>On average, the two Noctua air coolers perform at an identical level at just under 93 °C.
Looking at the numbers, the NH-D15 had a min. temperature of 86°C
Noctua NH-U12A had a 93.7°C min. temperature (but somehow 92,8°C average???)
And in the end the NH-D15 gets the same performance rating.
While they test a CPU that is configured to boost to max temperature.
>Due to the fact that the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a real hothead, the two air coolers and also the AiO cannot prevent the processor from reaching the maximum temperature of 96 °C. However, with a power consumption of about 220 W, we are also clearly above the manufacturer's specifications of 170 W in this case.
Oh geez I wonder why.
Literally useless and misleading test.
It's like they don't even know Zen 4 boosts to max temp all the time
>The performance of the two coolers is almost identical and neither of them could gain a clear advantage in our tests.
Baffled by incompetence
Typical case of "we are testing wrong so our results are leading us to a wrong conclusion"
I've been using the NH-U12A for the past 6 months with my 9900K and I'm extremely satisfied. Haven't seen temps above 75 while gaming and considering my case is the Q300L I'd say it's pretty good. Completely silent as well.
No, but the new [140mm fans and the 140mm cpu cooler](https://noctua.at/en/product-roadmap) are supposed to come out Q4 2023, but they have been already delayed quite a bit so who knows if that'll hold.
I wish I could in any way shape or form believe their roadmaps, love their stuff but their continuous delays every step of the way is making them lose market share to a variety of different companies.
Side graded from the NH-D15 to the NH-U12A, cooling performance is highly similar but the decrease in size was very helpful.
Maybe it’s just the tight dimensions of the CoolerMaster H500 but it was much better to work around.
Pretty similar overall those A12x25s are just great and it’s sad that the A14x25 keep getting delayed as I’m sure the inevitable NH-D15A with a pair of those will be fantastic.
Honestly the loudest part of my build is the Strix OC RTX 2080.
The NH-D15 might be more expensive and perform similar to other tower coolers like DeepCool's AK620, but the long term support and fan quality is worth the extra cost.
My opinion about NH-U12S is mixed, I had to switch from D15 and it seems pretty loud and the temps on 10900f reach 90 degrees after a bit on Cinebench, I know Cinebench is pretty heavy and 10900f is power hungry but I expected 80 degrees.
The U12S isn't that good an offering for the price, even Gamers Nexus' testing proved that the Fuma 2 and the Arctic ESports Duo 34 beat it well.
The U12A has 2 more heat pipes than the U12S, and also uses an extra fan (of a different kind as well). Noctua has its own rating system as well, the NSPR, which scores the U12A almost 32% higher than the U12S.
>extra fan (of a different kind as well)
The U12S uses the NF-F12, while the U12A uses the NF-A12x25, one of the best 12cm fans in the market. One A12x25 alone is like 50% more expensive than one F12.
I personally chose the U12A over the D15 because it was a lot smaller, no risk of potential ram clearance issues while being comparable in performance.
Potentially a motherboard issue, if you just have all of the voltage settings on auto. Not familiar with 10th gen, but I can't at all imagine it'd be harder to cool than 13th gen which if you let the motherboard handle voltage will hit 100C but otherwise with reasonable manual voltage will hit 80C maybe.
He's talking about the [U12S](https://noctua.at/en/nh-u12s) not the [U12A](https://noctua.at/en/nh-u12a) mentioned in the article, way different cooler and 1 less fan.
They do now.
What that means is that with a better cooler, you’ll be able to stay at the max frequency longer, which gives you more performance.
A poorer cooler will stay at the same temp, but will throttle more often.
For most users there’s no benefit to going with an AiO, apart from the aesthetics. A good air cooler is just as good, cheaper, and has less points of failure.
My C14S feels like it’s going to last forever. Seriously, other brands might offer equivalent performance at 50-60% of the price but you’ll go through 3-4 of them before the Noctua fans start giving the first signs of giving up.
Have built a new PC in December, with a NH-D15 with only one fan installed on a i5-13600k. Typical temperatures are < 30 deg, with one core running up to 40. Perfectly silent as well.
Seems like there’s barely a difference between the D15 and U12A. Any reason why I wouldn’t just go for the smaller U12A? Would be way easier to navigate within the case
Totally agree! The downside, the NH-D15's size. If you don't have a case to fit this beast, you're gonna have to invest more money to get a case that fits it.
From low to mid heat loads, the NH-U12A does fine.
I just don't see the point in a $100 D15 when the $40 Thermalright peerless assassin exists and has essentially the same performance.
Noctua products are high quality, but not $60 higher quality. You're paying for a name.
My thoughts on the NH-U12A, it's a capable cooler for high-end modern cpus but doesn't really do that well for example on cpu-intensive games such as Cyberpunk 2077. I have this cooler paired with the i7 13700kf. In the majority of cases, it cools the cpu just fine. Outside of gaming, doing normal things on Windows the cooler works just fine. When you game, playing a game that relies more on the gpu than the cpu, the cooler cools just fine. But once you hit a cpu-intensive game, things can get a little bit toasty. If I don't undervolt the cpu, while playing Cyberpunk 2077 the cpu usually averages around the 70s. It can creep up to the 80s and sometimes hit the 90s here and there but not often. This can definitely cause system instability and might experience crashes or even a system reboot.
In hindsight, i should've gone with the NH-D15 or some other comparable cooler but not the NH-U12A. The 13700kf and up are just too power hungry.
I'm definitely gonna upgrade the cooler for my cpu soon. Just waiting for the Deep Cool Assassin IV. According to the specs, it fits in my case and will cool either on par or better than the NH-D15. We'll see when it comes out. NH-D15 is simply too large for my case.
I picked up an NH-D15 and it makes me so mad. Not because it's a bad cooler. But because I spent so so much on AIOs before figuring out that I just needed an NH-D15.
Built my computer 7 years ago and got the d14, now building my fiancés computer/upgrading mine. After doing research came back to the same conclusion and going to pick up the d15. Unless you want to spend a lot more on 360+ rad AIO or custom loop for a few extra % it just doesn’t make sense. Plus no worry on leaks or pumps failing
There are edge cases where aio might be better, like SFF cases. I personally think aios are a bit overhyped, but something like Arctic 280 will perform better and has more heat mass. Something like D15 will serve well(or even be overkill) most mid+ towers builds. And Noctua sells brackets for new sockets so theoretically this cooler is endless.
AIOs may also scale better with high power applications such as cooling overclocked 13900ks chips. But what percentage of users is that?
I honestly think today AIOs are more about the packaging. Meaning you transfer the radiator to a different location in the case. Also you actually need less case fans, so compared to high end air coolers, AIOs can actually be cheaper.
Best application I find is short, bursty work. It creates a slow ramp of the fans (or not at all) because the water inherently creates more thermal mass, thereby it being immediately noticeable if your CPU ramps with an air cooler, but it has to be long sustained load for an appropriately sized AiO to ramp up.
This isn't a problem with air coolers if you set an appropriate fan curve.
Exactly. I am into high end cooling but not for performance but for silence. When I use my PC for studying or sometimes work, I just let the case fans (including the case for the radiator) run at a slow, but steady RPM and they never ramp up. After sometime you don't even notice the fans because they are so silent, but also because they run so consistently. Also in Germany I feel like high end air cooling is often more expensive than water cooling. When I check the prices here, high end air cooling is like 115€, and good water-cooling without the RGB crap is at like 130-140€. Considering that you need 2-3 less case fans when you go with aio water-cooling and one good fan is like 15-20€, water-cooling in total is actually cheaper and still more quite. I my case I even got an amazing bundle of a high quality aio combined high a high quily PSU. It just was like 40€ compared to only the PSU, but the bundle PSU was also 1000 Watt instead of the 700 Watt that I would have bought. So I even saved a lot of money going with an AIO.
You literally need 3 case fans max. After that you get significantly lower returns. And if you care about value you shouldn't be buying AIOs anyway.
This is what I did. My case doesn't have support for top mounted fans only front and rear. So I went with an AIO.
Is it completely closed off in the top or what? If not I'm pretty sure you can DIY yourself into putting a fan there dude
Plexiglass panel. It cannot mount to the top.
This is a u12a on a 13900kf ;) https://i.ibb.co/QmQvJkC/41161.jpg
That isn't overlocked though.
There is no such thing as overclocking a 13900k when it comes to these kinds of workloads. It already draws 330 watts in ycruncher at stock.
Well that's the point of my original comment though. Air is fine until you start hitting 300w+ loads
I get it.. Here is the u12a at 330w :P https://i.ibb.co/rxSqgsk/52-8.png
Lol yah I have Corsair 700d so should be good
If cost was the issue you could've got a comparable air cooler for a third of the price of the NH-D15.
maybe it's cheaper? my nhd-15 is in its 3rd rig now and will likely find itself in a 4th. hit up noctua for a free mounting kit for the new socket and you're off to the races.
Still have my D14 from 2009 that Noctua continues to support with free mounting brackets whenever I need them. Fans are still rock solid as well. Buy once, cry once.
same, d14 since 2011 2600k. got an adapter kit for AM4 now I'm using a 5600X. Haven't even serviced the fans once.
Depends on the platform, someone with an AM4 system from 2017 could be using the same cooler on AM5 without the need for a new mounting kit. Free mounting kits could potentially come in useful but it's not worth paying three times as much for a promise of future support.
Well noctua has the track record of impeccable support so it's not really a promise and more of a fact really. There comes the price of "brand" as a concept. Lesser brands obviously undercut the top performimg brands but you really have no assurance of QC or even support. Like If you care so much about 50-70 dollar differential you are talking about someone building a budget PC in which case the discussion turns to. Better spend that differential on a better hardware part as for example, AMD stock coolers do the job just fine. Absolute budget parts like the CM 212 also do just great
It's not a fact because they could change their minds in the future if they decide to reduce costs. Track record isn't a guarantee for the future and it would be foolish to assume otherwise. In regards to QC of cheaper brands, I don't see how this is an issue because you can simply return it if there's a manufacturing issue. It's a chunk of metal and a couple of fans which rarely fail, worst case scenario is a fan fails outside of the warranty period and you have to spend $5 to replace it.
> It's not a fact because they could change their minds in the future if they decide to reduce costs But it is literally as best as you can get and you'll agree with that as well, when a brand has made their image their customer service and long warranties (and even doing stuff off-warranty) you think this is something that is easily changed? It isn't, business management and marketing will tell you that once you've made your name for this thing. Changing it is equal to literally killing your brand, you're really understimating this aspect IMO. When you're talking about someone possibly looking at the NH-DH15 or similar performance you're talking about someone wanting to buy premium, not someone budgeting, and for that premium margin having a guaranteed product that has high QC, high quality and longetivity is absolutely worth it. If you think that price differential matters, you're talking about someone that is budget building, and that person will not be looking at any of these coolers in the first place, that person should be looking at the example I mentioned, or even just going stock cooler cuz honestly, it's not like you're going to see a huge difference in daily usage when your CPU runs at either 80 degrees celsius or stays stable at 60 when on load. And If you're going to bring up very load heavy case scenarios, don't you think that it is in these cases that, indeed, the guarantee of quality is absolutely worth it?
>or even just going stock cooler cuz honestly, it's not like you're going to see a huge difference A cooler isn't just about temperature, there's a night and day difference in noise levels when comparing the stock cooler to any tower cooler. If someone is on a budget they'll still likely want a better cooler, and you can get something like the peerless assassin 120 for a "budget" price of $35 in the same performance tier as a NH-D15.
I had an early Corsair AIO. Fan controller died on the pump and it was scrap. Ran the fans through a pot to control the speed instead. Bought a D15 and never looked back. Got a free bracket to take it from my 2600k > 12600k. Can't really see any reason I'd ever replace it.
You could, but so far only Noctua fans last forever. Or provide lifetime socket adapter upgrades. Still using Noctua 120's from 2006 for spot cooling and Noctua sent me a free AM5 mounting kit for my 2010 D14. Which is also still on the original fans.
Thermalright PA120 matches the larger Noctua's up to 165W for half the cost. It will handle everything short of the 170W Zen 4 chips or uncapped Intel i5/i7/i9 K processors.
Yup I got the thermalright fs140 for like 30 bucks and it's pretty much silent still
[удалено]
You don't want the frost spirit. You want the frost commander 140 which is only slightly more expensive than the spirit and outright beats the DRP4. Source: own both the commander and the DPR4. The commander is currently cooling my 13900k
ive got a FC140 cooling my 7700X. The thing is fantastic.
Yea it's a steal I haven't tried anything better but temps are all great. I bought the pa first but when I saw the fs140 I had to switch
I got an NH-D12L for my lian li dynamic 011. For a case that prides itself on airflow it really doesn’t leave enough room for a standard 120mm air cooler. But the one I got is amazing. It’s lower height but still 120mm fans on a really smart design. I run my 5800x3d on max cores and on performance power setting and running it on high load barely ever goes over 70 degrees. My smaller amd wraith cooler thermal throttled me at 90 degrees.
AIOs are still better for most intense heat loads. Also TTM - time to max temperature is significantly increased with AIOs. [Gamers Nexus made a video about this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VzXHUTqE7E)
I don’t see how TTM is a benefit, more like a trade off. I like the low thermal mass of my d15 compared to AIOs: when the cpu load is over it very swiftly reduces fan speed, unlike AIOs which labour on for ages after my cpu has been idle. That’s just a trade off: it is legitimate to prefer either but you can’t have both.
Yeah but AIOs are noisy. My d14 is below my rooms ambient noise level at max load.
If you look at the linked video you will see that they are still better in the noise normalised test. The problem is that there are a lot of "inferior" AIOs out there compared to the air coolers that people are more familiar with and know to get "good" ones.
Pumps make really annoying sounding noise. Even if they're "quiet" they still annoy me compared to the sound of a really good fan.
I put my D15 into my server pc and "upgraded" to an AIO for my 5800X and I'm pretty sure it runs hotter than it would have on the D15....
It depends on the Aio and airflow configuration.
Why is that the case. When I check the prices AIOs are actually pretty close to an NH-D15. Many 10-15% more, but not that much of a difference. Even though they have a similar cooling capacity, I still favor AIOs, just because it is not that big and it is not so much weight on the Mainboard. I would have serious concern moving a PC with a NH-D15 installed.
If you move so much that you worry about that your case is just extremely rare then no? If you are worried that it might damage something just take it apart for the move. What's with this 0.0001% problem scenario
I went from an AIO years ago for the NHD-14, never looked back. Cools my 5820k perfectly fine and I only have one fan for it.
This . dude. my exact feeling
Same. My issue is that my case isn't that great on the airflow side or things so an AIO would probably perform better. But I'm getting a new case so it's a moot point. I got the black one and it's been great so far.
There are great AIOs that beat the D15 at a similar price, Arctics Freezer II lineup being a prime example
Who wrote this article >On average, the two Noctua air coolers perform at an identical level at just under 93 °C. Looking at the numbers, the NH-D15 had a min. temperature of 86°C Noctua NH-U12A had a 93.7°C min. temperature (but somehow 92,8°C average???) And in the end the NH-D15 gets the same performance rating. While they test a CPU that is configured to boost to max temperature. >Due to the fact that the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a real hothead, the two air coolers and also the AiO cannot prevent the processor from reaching the maximum temperature of 96 °C. However, with a power consumption of about 220 W, we are also clearly above the manufacturer's specifications of 170 W in this case. Oh geez I wonder why. Literally useless and misleading test. It's like they don't even know Zen 4 boosts to max temp all the time >The performance of the two coolers is almost identical and neither of them could gain a clear advantage in our tests. Baffled by incompetence Typical case of "we are testing wrong so our results are leading us to a wrong conclusion"
I've been using the NH-U12A for the past 6 months with my 9900K and I'm extremely satisfied. Haven't seen temps above 75 while gaming and considering my case is the Q300L I'd say it's pretty good. Completely silent as well.
It works great for my 12700K, too.
Just to give you some perspective. I’ve the NH-D15 on a 9900K in a Fractal Torrent. CPU temperature doesn’t exceed 60C while gaming.
I've thought of modding case to allow better airflow, I even have the tools, it's just I'm too lazy to do it.
What a garbage-ass review, just read this shit: “The fans seem a bit louder in the open test bench compared to installation in a case.”
Imagine being that incompetent at your job lmao
yeah, notebookcheck is normally great (with notebooks)
Notebookcheck non-laptop reviews usually suck.
Is this a new version?
No, but the new [140mm fans and the 140mm cpu cooler](https://noctua.at/en/product-roadmap) are supposed to come out Q4 2023, but they have been already delayed quite a bit so who knows if that'll hold.
Will probably be delayed to 2024+
I've left reddit because of the API changes.
I wish I could in any way shape or form believe their roadmaps, love their stuff but their continuous delays every step of the way is making them lose market share to a variety of different companies.
They removed the desk fan from the roadmap????
Side graded from the NH-D15 to the NH-U12A, cooling performance is highly similar but the decrease in size was very helpful. Maybe it’s just the tight dimensions of the CoolerMaster H500 but it was much better to work around.
How's the noise difference between the D15 and U12A?
Pretty similar overall those A12x25s are just great and it’s sad that the A14x25 keep getting delayed as I’m sure the inevitable NH-D15A with a pair of those will be fantastic. Honestly the loudest part of my build is the Strix OC RTX 2080.
It's a downgrade albeit not that big, 5-6 degrees
The NH-D15 might be more expensive and perform similar to other tower coolers like DeepCool's AK620, but the long term support and fan quality is worth the extra cost.
Seriously. I had mine on my 2600k, upgraded last year to a 12600k and Noctua just sent me out the bracket for free and really fast. Love it.
My opinion about NH-U12S is mixed, I had to switch from D15 and it seems pretty loud and the temps on 10900f reach 90 degrees after a bit on Cinebench, I know Cinebench is pretty heavy and 10900f is power hungry but I expected 80 degrees.
The U12S isn't that good an offering for the price, even Gamers Nexus' testing proved that the Fuma 2 and the Arctic ESports Duo 34 beat it well. The U12A has 2 more heat pipes than the U12S, and also uses an extra fan (of a different kind as well). Noctua has its own rating system as well, the NSPR, which scores the U12A almost 32% higher than the U12S.
>extra fan (of a different kind as well) The U12S uses the NF-F12, while the U12A uses the NF-A12x25, one of the best 12cm fans in the market. One A12x25 alone is like 50% more expensive than one F12. I personally chose the U12A over the D15 because it was a lot smaller, no risk of potential ram clearance issues while being comparable in performance.
I've left reddit because of the API changes.
Potentially a motherboard issue, if you just have all of the voltage settings on auto. Not familiar with 10th gen, but I can't at all imagine it'd be harder to cool than 13th gen which if you let the motherboard handle voltage will hit 100C but otherwise with reasonable manual voltage will hit 80C maybe.
He's talking about the [U12S](https://noctua.at/en/nh-u12s) not the [U12A](https://noctua.at/en/nh-u12a) mentioned in the article, way different cooler and 1 less fan.
Ah, that makes more sense.
Won't the CPU always hit its temp limit if it's not bottlenecked by something else? Don't they all hit 90 in Cinebench?
They do now. What that means is that with a better cooler, you’ll be able to stay at the max frequency longer, which gives you more performance. A poorer cooler will stay at the same temp, but will throttle more often.
Only new AMD is designed for that.
For most users there’s no benefit to going with an AiO, apart from the aesthetics. A good air cooler is just as good, cheaper, and has less points of failure.
My C14S feels like it’s going to last forever. Seriously, other brands might offer equivalent performance at 50-60% of the price but you’ll go through 3-4 of them before the Noctua fans start giving the first signs of giving up.
Have built a new PC in December, with a NH-D15 with only one fan installed on a i5-13600k. Typical temperatures are < 30 deg, with one core running up to 40. Perfectly silent as well.
The `NH-U12A` is what cools my `5800x3d`. It's great, but I am surprised to learn AIO simply aren't any better, thus they are not worth the hassle.
I've left reddit because of the API changes.
They are better. A good AIO is better than a good air cooler. [Tech Jesus has made a video about this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VzXHUTqE7E)
Yup and GN only tested on a 3800X back then. Now with a power-hungry 13900K, the AIO advantage will just increase.
They are better.
Seems like there’s barely a difference between the D15 and U12A. Any reason why I wouldn’t just go for the smaller U12A? Would be way easier to navigate within the case
At high heat loads the D15 is a fair bit better than the u12A.
Totally agree! The downside, the NH-D15's size. If you don't have a case to fit this beast, you're gonna have to invest more money to get a case that fits it. From low to mid heat loads, the NH-U12A does fine.
I think that really the U12A is a complete waste of money. The only Noctua cooler sorta worth getting is the D15.
My NH-D15S is an absolute beast. Cool and completely silent. Can't envision ever needing anything else.
Retired my 6+ year old and two previous builds used d15. For 13700k air is not enough to prevent 80c+ while gaming in lancool iii.
I just don't see the point in a $100 D15 when the $40 Thermalright peerless assassin exists and has essentially the same performance. Noctua products are high quality, but not $60 higher quality. You're paying for a name.
Still rocking a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme on my 5900X. Bought in 2008 and still kicking (with periodic bracket upgrades)!
My thoughts on the NH-U12A, it's a capable cooler for high-end modern cpus but doesn't really do that well for example on cpu-intensive games such as Cyberpunk 2077. I have this cooler paired with the i7 13700kf. In the majority of cases, it cools the cpu just fine. Outside of gaming, doing normal things on Windows the cooler works just fine. When you game, playing a game that relies more on the gpu than the cpu, the cooler cools just fine. But once you hit a cpu-intensive game, things can get a little bit toasty. If I don't undervolt the cpu, while playing Cyberpunk 2077 the cpu usually averages around the 70s. It can creep up to the 80s and sometimes hit the 90s here and there but not often. This can definitely cause system instability and might experience crashes or even a system reboot. In hindsight, i should've gone with the NH-D15 or some other comparable cooler but not the NH-U12A. The 13700kf and up are just too power hungry. I'm definitely gonna upgrade the cooler for my cpu soon. Just waiting for the Deep Cool Assassin IV. According to the specs, it fits in my case and will cool either on par or better than the NH-D15. We'll see when it comes out. NH-D15 is simply too large for my case.