Noctua NH-U12P SE1366

Manufacturer:
Price:	£55.78 inc VAT
Reviewer:	Clive Webster
Review Date:	Feb 2009
Cooling	32/40	80%
Design	26/30	87%
Value	23/30	77%
Overall	81%

Verdict: Quiet Core i7 cooling.

Fans of Noctua products will find this latest cooler very familiar. Noctua has bundled two 120mm NF-P12 fans with its NH-U12 heatsink and added the SecuFirm2 LGA1366 mount to the box. With Noctua supplying a SecuFirm2 mount to existing customers with a valid receipt, you could very easily upgrade an old Noctua NH-U12P to this spec.

Included in the box is a range of useful accessories, including an Allen key screwdriver, a big tube of viscous NY-H1 TIM, and rubber strips to stick between the heatsink and fans to absorb vibrations. There are four optional fan attachments too, the blue set being the Ultra-Low-Noise adaptor to throttle fan speed from 1,300rpm to 900rpm (and cut noise to a quoted 12.6dBA). The black set throttles the fan speed to 1,100rpm with a subsequent reduction of noise to a claimed 16.9dBA. The cooler is easy to install. The backplate and socket mount is separate from the cooler, so you can attach it quickly and then screw the cooler into the socket mount.

As you have to use a backplate, and will therefore need to remove the motherboard from the case, our 'ease of installation' rating automatically drops to 'bad', but if you're building a Core i7 PC from scratch, you can ignore this.

The Noctua is a large cooler, as it has to accommodate two 120mm fans. It measures 158mm high and 126mm wide, although as it has 40mm of clearance between the motherboard and lowest aluminium fin, it should fit most motherboards.

With the fans at standard speed, our overclocked and overvolted Core i7 ran 19°C cooler with the Noctua than with the reference Intel HSF, while producing a negligible low hum. Using the black fan adaptors, the Noctua lost no cooling ability and was a touch quieter. The blue fan adaptors reduce the noise from the fans to a barely perceptible level, although our CPU ran 2°C hotter. In contrast, the sub-£30 Akasa Nero cools the same CPU to 21°C below the reference cooler, although it's noticeably louder.

Conclusion

The Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 is a large heatsink with two quiet 120mm fans bolted to it, which means that it's reasonably effective at cooling while remaining unobtrusively quiet. If low noise is more important to you than pure cooling ability, this HSF is a great choice.