50 Noctua Air Cooler Review: NH-U12S Redux vs. Stock AMD Coolers & More
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Date: 2021-09-07
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Comments and reviews: 9
Andrews
Just had my first ever experience with Noctua Support as a single fan clip was missing from my NH D15 chromax accessories box. After putting in a support ticket letting them know the item was a gift and I didn't have the receipt I had a reply within 24hours telling me that wasn't an issue they just needed a picture of the product along with model number and my shipping information. Once they had that info my item was shipped however Canada post lost it so when I contacted them to let them know of the situation they apologized for how long its taking for me to get my item and instantly sent out another set with express shipping. Sorry for the long message but I was just so impressed with how I was treated, the speed in which things were done and on top of that the legit quality of their products I had to share my story.
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Just had my first ever experience with Noctua Support as a single fan clip was missing from my NH D15 chromax accessories box. After putting in a support ticket letting them know the item was a gift and I didn't have the receipt I had a reply within 24hours telling me that wasn't an issue they just needed a picture of the product along with model number and my shipping information. Once they had that info my item was shipped however Canada post lost it so when I contacted them to let them know of the situation they apologized for how long its taking for me to get my item and instantly sent out another set with express shipping. Sorry for the long message but I was just so impressed with how I was treated, the speed in which things were done and on top of that the legit quality of their products I had to share my story.
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TheGhostik
I had to buy a AIO cooler for my Ryzen 5600X, any better air cooler would do fine too, but the stock one is not usable at all on my configuration maybe the preapplied paste was old or had bad contact not sure. I had 70C in desktop in summer and when gaming or video rendering the cpu was around 95C all the time downclocked... at the same time it felt like sitting next to a heater in middle of the summer making the room tempeture 2-4C higher. Once I switched to AIO and customized the fan curve, the CPU does not go over 70C even in full load for hours and the fans are way more quiet.
I did really like the fan that was included with Ryzen 2700X that one was sufficient and I had no problem with it. The one on 5600X is not good enough not even for stock ( I never overclocked it)
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I had to buy a AIO cooler for my Ryzen 5600X, any better air cooler would do fine too, but the stock one is not usable at all on my configuration maybe the preapplied paste was old or had bad contact not sure. I had 70C in desktop in summer and when gaming or video rendering the cpu was around 95C all the time downclocked... at the same time it felt like sitting next to a heater in middle of the summer making the room tempeture 2-4C higher. Once I switched to AIO and customized the fan curve, the CPU does not go over 70C even in full load for hours and the fans are way more quiet.
I did really like the fan that was included with Ryzen 2700X that one was sufficient and I had no problem with it. The one on 5600X is not good enough not even for stock ( I never overclocked it)
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Last
I don't see myself recommending the Redux. There's a bunch of compromises over the OG U12s (which itself got caught up to by competition) and the price is not low enough. There's a number of good coolers in the 40-60 range that would performs just as good or better. Arctic's Freezer 34 eSports (Duo) costs less and should perforrm same or even better (1 extra heatpipe). Fuma 2 is better allround and it's worth the extra price. Thermalright has a bunch of good coolers, others are there too...and many have lower height than U12s.
If you absolutely must have a Noctua without paying a lot, then go right ahead...otherwise, it doesn't stand out in any way and there are many good competitors out there.
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I don't see myself recommending the Redux. There's a bunch of compromises over the OG U12s (which itself got caught up to by competition) and the price is not low enough. There's a number of good coolers in the 40-60 range that would performs just as good or better. Arctic's Freezer 34 eSports (Duo) costs less and should perforrm same or even better (1 extra heatpipe). Fuma 2 is better allround and it's worth the extra price. Thermalright has a bunch of good coolers, others are there too...and many have lower height than U12s.
If you absolutely must have a Noctua without paying a lot, then go right ahead...otherwise, it doesn't stand out in any way and there are many good competitors out there.
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Cory
The Zalman CNPS9X Optima cooler is basically the same thing but 20 with AMD as the default mounting bracket. The fan is not great but a cheap upgrade you could replace it with a different one, or even a Redux fan or Regular Noctua fan and still have it cost less then the Noctua cooler. Also it's not mounted sideways like most end up being, you guys should check it out if you get the chance. Great Budget option. The Zalman CNPS 10X Performa is also a great option and the Zalman CNPS9500AT looks interesting and isn't too bad but is too expensive for what it is, if you want to maybe make Budget Cooler Round up episode so you can fit a few coolers in one episode.
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The Zalman CNPS9X Optima cooler is basically the same thing but 20 with AMD as the default mounting bracket. The fan is not great but a cheap upgrade you could replace it with a different one, or even a Redux fan or Regular Noctua fan and still have it cost less then the Noctua cooler. Also it's not mounted sideways like most end up being, you guys should check it out if you get the chance. Great Budget option. The Zalman CNPS 10X Performa is also a great option and the Zalman CNPS9500AT looks interesting and isn't too bad but is too expensive for what it is, if you want to maybe make Budget Cooler Round up episode so you can fit a few coolers in one episode.
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juurus
Upgrading my friend's new gaming PC: we decided to pick up this cooler for a 5800x due to practicality and space constraints in his PC case, and it does the job! He didn't want to change the case as the old one works just fine, in other words, has appropriate structural integrity and airflow... We tend to use our computers for at least 6 years before upgrading so we thought an air cooler would be a more reliable choice than an AIO water cooler.
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Upgrading my friend's new gaming PC: we decided to pick up this cooler for a 5800x due to practicality and space constraints in his PC case, and it does the job! He didn't want to change the case as the old one works just fine, in other words, has appropriate structural integrity and airflow... We tend to use our computers for at least 6 years before upgrading so we thought an air cooler would be a more reliable choice than an AIO water cooler.
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Robin
Have you seen Noctua's NSPR?
A benchmark that describes a cooler's thermal dissipation potential as a primary metric (an actual TDP rather than Intel/AMD's claimed CPU TDPs) could be used across multiple manufacturers, and would be easily readable for viewers/consumers.
The noise vs fan speed vs load vs contact patch all make nice graphics... but they're not really the numbers we need.
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Have you seen Noctua's NSPR?
A benchmark that describes a cooler's thermal dissipation potential as a primary metric (an actual TDP rather than Intel/AMD's claimed CPU TDPs) could be used across multiple manufacturers, and would be easily readable for viewers/consumers.
The noise vs fan speed vs load vs contact patch all make nice graphics... but they're not really the numbers we need.
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The
I recently bought a deep cool gamma max gte V2 rgb same price as a hyper 212
It's a hell of an upgrade from my amd wraith stealth cooler which reached 75C while gaming and 90C while coding or benchmarking cinebench ambient 30C
Now it's at barely at 54C gaming and 70c max at all times
1600 rpm compared 2000 rpm
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I recently bought a deep cool gamma max gte V2 rgb same price as a hyper 212
It's a hell of an upgrade from my amd wraith stealth cooler which reached 75C while gaming and 90C while coding or benchmarking cinebench ambient 30C
Now it's at barely at 54C gaming and 70c max at all times
1600 rpm compared 2000 rpm
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bzdtemp
A Noctua fan here :-)
I my current rig the CPU cooler is one I bought from Noctua back when a Core i7 870 was the thing, so call me impressed when almost a decade later they shipped me a AM4 mounting kit for free. Also the two fans on the cooler are the original Noctua fans, they run like when they were new.
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A Noctua fan here :-)
I my current rig the CPU cooler is one I bought from Noctua back when a Core i7 870 was the thing, so call me impressed when almost a decade later they shipped me a AM4 mounting kit for free. Also the two fans on the cooler are the original Noctua fans, they run like when they were new.
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Felix
I find the noise normalized performance of the passive cooler amusing. Technically, the noise normalized performance of a passive cooler should be infinite, as it does not produce noise. No idea what you are doing there, but it's not a noise normalization. Don't include it on this slide.
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I find the noise normalized performance of the passive cooler amusing. Technically, the noise normalized performance of a passive cooler should be infinite, as it does not produce noise. No idea what you are doing there, but it's not a noise normalization. Don't include it on this slide.
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