NH-U12A

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.

Decided to go with air cooling over an AIO for my Ryzen 9 5900X, against my better judgement. However, I haven't come to regret the decision. I've never seen temps go over 80 during heavy load/gaming sessions (and the times it has have been very rare), and during idle or light/medium loads, it stays in the 30s. I expect this to work even better with any lower-end chips. The noise level is very quiet, especially during those lighter workloads. Couple this cooler with Noctua's case fans and you're golden. Obviously you'll be hearing it when the CPU does reach those high temps during heavier loads. The cooler comes with all the adapters and anything else you need for installation depending on your CPU manufacturer. Installation was very easy, though one of my screws did have a bit of trouble going through at first. And on my particular unit, the cooler itself is just ever-so-slightly rotated. It's very hard to even notice as the rotation is so light, and it has not affected performance as far as I can tell. Appears to only be a cosmetic issue. Aside from that negative, if you can even call it one, this cooler is perfect and well worth the buy.

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.

My computer CPU was reaching 100 degree C temps and subsequently ruined a 400 dollar motherboard and that was with water cooling. I am not sure if my water cooler was defective or what. I decide I did not want the complexity of another water cooler breakdown. So, I went with this device. I was confused about the types of thermal paste to use, some are goopy and thin and melt away and some are thick and still melt away with hot temps. So, I went with an, "Innovation Cooling Graphite Thermal Pad" (on Amazon). I was thinking it was a fail-safe approach. With those installed, my idle temps on a 12 core non delidded I9 are 'under' 40 degrees C and the temps rarely ever hits 60 degrees under load and that is only for moments and it goes back down usually. That is with rendering huge 3D scenes with tons of geometry. You cannot go wrong with this combo Noctua NH-U12A and the thermal pads. Just check the fins for dust every few months. This cooler solved a huge heat problem for me and I am glad I am not relying on a pump working right and/or possible air bubbles in a factory sealed system... I can just look in through the side of my case and see if the fans are still running. Runs quiet too! I recommend this cooler for a non-dellidded I9 cpu and whatever else it fits. It completely cleared my RAM and I have a large case with fans blowing in and sucking out. I thought it might be heavy on my motherboard but running as cool as it does it is not too heavy and the mounting system seems completely stable and solid. I do not plan to overclock my CPU... It is not worth possibly damaging a $1000.00 processor even if it does stay below critical temps.. Lots of RAM and dual (non overclocked) 1080ti graphics cards will provide me with the headroom I need while keeping things cool and stable on the processor end. The performance of this product far surpasses my expectations! Some complain about the look of this cooler but I prefer function over fashion. Buy it, (and the thermal pads) they are worth very single penny.

I have a Predator Orion 5000 and it was overheating when I ran demanding programs on it. It was regularly hitting 100 deg C and crashed if I let it run continuously. After installing this product it runs the same workloads and rarely gets over 80 deg C and does not crash at all.

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.

(PLEASE SEE MY EDIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE REVIEW) Like most, I decided on this particular Noctua model because it offers excellent cooling in a relatively small form factor. This is my first "proper" air cooler. Pros: - It *does* work, and amazingly well. My system consists of a Ryzen 5 3600, an MSI X570 Motherboard, 32GB of RAM, and some M.2 drives. With the stock AMD cooler, idle temperatures (just Chrome open) were 55 to 62 degrees, which was simply insane and unacceptable. With the Noctua, my system now idles at 35 degrees. Impressive! Heavy loads never exceeded 75 (this was running Cinebench... I never actually saw those temperatures again). Con: - This is a biog deal to me. The Noctua was supposed to be "silent", as per all the reviews I read everywhere. Not so. In fact, it is considerably louder than the stock AMD cooler, and the noise is very, very noticeable in a quiet room and inside my Corsair Carbide 600Q case, which is optimized for silence and includes lots of noise-dampening materials. I suffer from hyper-accusis and a silent system is a MUST, and I'm disappointed at this aspect. I may return the cooler if I am not able to live with the noise. And this is with the noise reduction adapter that Noctua includes in the box, which does really help, although by no means makes the cooler silent. Torn... Cooling-wise, it performs admirably and I think the price is justified when you consider all the accessories included. But if you are sensitive to noise like I am, and work in a quiet room, this is *not* a silent cooler. EDIT: I take the above "con" back. I did not realize this, but it seems the fans were essentially spinning at their full speed. This is why I felt they were not really as silent as I had hoped. It turns out there is a setting in the BIOS of my motherboard (and MSI X570 Godlike) that allows you to enable "Smart Fan" mode. I selected this option and the RPM's immediately dropped from about 1800 to about 500, and the noise was gone. Just like that, the Noctua was now almost literally inaudible from a distance of about 3 feet. I strongly recommend enabling this mode and/or using a similar setting if your hardware offers it. Even *after* this change, the Noctua still keeps everything nice and cool. Fan speeds alternate between 20% and 45% and using the Windows "Balanced Plan" the CPU stays at 40 / 42 degrees. Impressive!

When I was pulling together the components for my recent computer build, I was toying with the idea of water-cooling the I9 CPU, but opted to try air-cooling first. Enter the Noctua NH-U12A and the online reviews indicated that it was designed to provide better clearance over the taller RAM DIMMs on the market. When I test-fit this cooler onto the I9 mounted on an ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme motherboard, it looked like it would indeed mount nicely with some overlap of the RAM DIMM slots. Unfortunately, the forward fan doesn't clear my DIMMs, but there is an interesting workaround. The way Noctua mounts these fans to the radiator, they can be mounted higher and moving the fan up half of an inch up did the trick. Everything fits and works quietly. The only downside was the brown fans and rather than replace these, I mounted a 120mm Phanteks Lux RGB fan frame which plugs into the Aura port on the motherboard and computer case to provide an integrated look and mask that brown fan. As for cooling, I ran some overclocking stress tests on my system and the Noctua air-cooler kept the CPU below 70 degrees Centigrade while overclocking around 5 GHz on the CPU. Your results will vary based on overall airflow through your case, I am using the Phanteks Evolv X with the glass doors closed and having great airflow. One note of caution - the NH-U12A is tall, and by offsetting the front fan higher, you may have clearance problems in a narrower computer case. This offset works fine inside the Evolv X.

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.

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 !

It's completely compatible with latest amd mb am5 socket and latest intel mb lga 1700 socket. I installed at a ryzen 5 3600x cpu in Corsair spec 01 cabinet with msi b550 gaming carbon wifi mb. After that at ideal mode, I get 38-40°c temp at cpu. At gaming mode, I get 60-65°c temp at latest game for pc God of war, Jedi Survivor, Spider-Man, Uncharted the legacy of thieves. You will clearly see the 10°c temp difference between ryzen 5 3600x stock cooler to Noctua nh u 12a. And very less noise. The name Noctua is enough to trust build quality. Though some corner fins and middle fins(where clips of fans should be locked) slightly bends due to packaging or Amazon delivery service. And It clearly doesn't hang over the ram you can clearly see from the given images. You will really see the improved performance of your system.

Uso em um Ryzen 7 7700x e a temperatura não passa dos 80ºc, super silencioso e charmoso.

Assez habitué à cette marque depuis un moment, pour ma nouvelle config basée sur un Ryzen 9 3950X sur ASUS TUF B550M, je cherchais donc un ventirad performant. En regardant les nouveautés mon choix s'est porté sur ce NH-U12A. Je précise qu'on m'a un peu ri au nez quand je disais que je comptais refroidir ce cpu en aircooling... mais c'est mal connaître Noctua, je vous le dit... hé bien je confirme ce que je pensais, c'est un sacré produit. Comme d'habitude chez la marque autrichienne, rien à dire sur le packaging, c'est parfait, bien présenté et pratique. Le niveau de compatibilité est vraiment élevé, ce ventirad se monte facilement les instructions fournies sont nombreuses et claires. 2 ventilateurs NF-A12 sont fournis. C'est fourni avec une bonne pâte thermique, NT-H1 personnellement j'ai préféré encore grimer l'enchère avec une Krygonaut Grizzly. Résultat, mon CPU est remarquablement refroidi, dans un niveau de silence bien confortable... en burn 100% sur les 16 coeurs ça n'a jamais atteint 75°C, sachant que mon boîtier offre un niveau de circulation d'air qu'on peut qualifier de mauvais. Autre point fort : outre le niveau de performance très élevé, il faut mettre en avant le faible encombrement de ce ventirad qui avec ses ventilateurs de 120mm rentrera dans l'écrasante majorité des boîtiers ainsi qu'un risque affaibli de problèmes au niveau des barrettes mémoires... il n'y a plus qu'à surveiller compatibilité de la carte mère (liste disponible sur le site de Noctua) ! Je pense en lisant le commentaire de Plop qu'il y a un gros souci de montage chez lui, je partage sans concession l'avis de Marc. T. Je pense qu'avec ce produit, Noctua possède sur son catalogue ni plus ni moins que le meilleur ventirad du monde actuellement même si le prix est en conséquence. Beaucoup de gens font monts et merveilles sur les NH-D14/15 sans citer celui ci... pourtant c'est bien la nouvelle référence. Ne vous prenez pas la tête à prendre un AIO à prix équivalent voire supérieur qui fait certes joli mais qui ne donnera certainement pas de meilleurs résultats pour ne pas dire moins... prenez un vrai matériel comme ici et vous verrez la différence. Et je parle pas des garanties et du suivi potentiel chez Noctua où il est probable que vous puissiez garder ce ventirad pour des configs futures, c'est à prendre en compte dans ce qu'on peut appeler finalement un vrai "investissement".