Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU Cooler and NF-P14 FLX 140mm Fan

Our new Noctua NH-U12P Special Edition 2 CPU cooler and NF-P14 FLX 140mm fan review is part of our Performance meets Value series that we began last month by comparing AMD’s value platform versus Intel’s performance platform, Core i7.  The last CPU cooler that we reviewed was Cooler Master’s thirty dollar Hyper 212 Plus here.  Since we have also been using it to overclock our Core i7 920 to 3.8 GHz, it is natural that we will make comparisons and contrasts with it.

However, as important as saving money on hardware is, this editor believes that the choice of a CPU cooler is critical to any PC build. The cooler should never be cheap or retail. Too much depends on it if you value keeping your CPU cool or especially if you plan to overclock. I would recommend that you instead look for sales and perhaps even rebates to save money.  At the time of writing this article, the Noctua NH-U12P SE 2 CPU cooler has been on sale at NewEgg.com for the last few weeks for $74.99; $5.00 off the MSRP.  It can sometimes even be found for less at Amazon.com

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608014

This review is not just about “value”.   If you want to cool the hottest Phenom II X4, a value CPU cooler such as Hyper 212 Plus will suffice.  You will pay half for AMD’s quad-core platform compared to what an Intel user will pay for entry level Core i7 920’s platform.  Unless you are supplying radical voltage to the AMD CPU to get higher than 4 GHz, a budget cooler will work nicely.  The stock AMD cooler for Phenom II 955 X4 will easily get you to 3.6 GHz and the Hyper 212 Plus will get you to 3.9 GHz with good temperatures using +.2V applied to the cores.

As you can note in the image below, even stock heatsinks are evolving to keep up with the hotter running quad-core CPUs.  On the far left is Intel’s retail stock Core i7 920 heatsink/fan.  They are using more fins and a larger fan than for their last generation of Penryn quads.  AMD has moved to a redesigned fan and heat-pipes to cool their 955 X4 on the far right as compared to what they use to cool their dual- and tri-core CPUs.  And Intel has adopted a round design much like Noctua’s 140mm fan for more efficiency.

Intel’s new Core i7 and i5 CPUs mark a new and exciting advance in processing power, but they definitely require a higher quality heatsink than for our Q9550S or our Phenom II 955 X4, especially if you want to cool them without excessive noise. Noctua offers an easy entry into the world of premium quality quiet cooling with the NH-U12P SE2, a premium value package that offers everything you need to cool Core i7 or i5 CPUs quietly.

Heat is drawn away from the CPU by the base of the heatsink and is transferred up into the array of hi-grade aluminum fins for dissipation. A large 120mm fan spins on each side of the heatsink fins array in a “push-pull” configuration, blowing CPU-heated air through and away from the heatsink. The fans’ support for PWM allows the BIOS to control the speed of the fans based on the CPU’s thermal needs – raising the fans’ RPMs to maximum speed as necessary and also lowering the fans’ speed and its noise during the off-peak cycles.

The NH-U12P SE2 ships with Noctua’s SecuFirm2 multi-socket mounting system that has the easiest and most straightforward installation that I have encountered on the Intel LGA1366 platform.  It is also adapted for 1156 and 775 platforms as well as AMD socket AM2, AM2+ and AM3 platforms. A relatively large tube of Noctua’s professional grade NT-H1 thermal compound is included.

Besides comparing the premium NH-U12P SE2 to our budget Hyper 212 Plus, we can give you impressions of our ThermalRight Ultra Extreme 120 which is now cooling our 3.9 GHz Phenom II 955 X4.  We would have liked to make a direct comparison between it and the Noctua SE2 cooler with our Core i7, but we purchased it last Summer – long before Core i7 was launched – and the older version will not work with it. We also used it successfully to get our Q9550S from its stock 2.83 GHz to 4.0 GHz without the thermals rising out of the safe zone.  Both are premium coolers and both have superb true mirror finishes on their contact plates.  Both are priced about the same and have similar street prices.  Here the similarities end.

The Noctua NH-U12P SE2 has two very special 120mm fans included in the box; with the Thermalright cooler, you have to to pick your own and they can be quite pricey, even on sale.  In fact, Noctua includes all the hardware and accessories you could possibly want – including a very decent Philips screwdriver and a very large tube of their own pro-grade thermal compound.  We tried Noctua’s thermal compound on our Phenom II 955 X4/Thermalright Ultra 120 combination and it matched or cooled slightly better than our Arctic Silver that we have always used as a standard to which other high-quality thermal compounds are often measured.  The Hyper 212 plus also included Cooler Master’s thermal paste, but it would not suffice for a finely machined and polished surface for either the Noctua or the Thermalright coolers.

In fact, you can see the Hyper 212 has scuffed up our Core i7 CPU (below left) with its relatively rough machined surface (below right).  Note the contrast with the mirror surface of the Noctua’s contact plate (above):

For some people it is really important that their CPU cooler fan(s) be quiet.  In this situation, the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 with two 120mm fans is definitely quieter than my single Scythe 120mm fan with all of them running at their maximum RPMs.  When I purchased the Scythe 120mm fan separately from my ThermalRight UltraExtreme 120, there was a choice of three fans with three fixed speeds and thus three stages of cooling. I chose the fastest, noisiest and most effective 120mm fan that Scythe had at the time.  With the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 you don’t have to make a choice as two adapters to slow your fans down to into inaudibility are provided right in the box.

I have no way to measure this accurately, but the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 is definitely a very quiet cooling solution.  Of course, I was running with a GTX 280 and would have to momentarily stop its fan just to be able to hear any extra sound coming from the Noctua’s fans.  I normally run with 4 case fans which also had to stop, just so only the PSU fan was running so as to even hear it at all.

With the 140mm Noctua NF-P14 FLX fan running in the side case, a quiet power supply unit, and the Noctua SE2 cooler and the GTX 280 at idle, my PC was really quiet – even in the dead of night.  So I can whole heartedly recommend this combination to people who require performance and quiet from their cooling solution.  I can be certain of this as Noctua also supplies adapters to lower the RPMs of your fans into complete inaudibility.  Since I was once an audiophile with a true high-end stereo system (stacked and imaged Dahlquist DQ-10s, Mark Levinson modified tube preamp; 1000 watts per channel RMS GAS amps, Grado Signature cartridge and a Thorens turntable), I can still appreciate the need for quiet and extreme performance.

As you can see in the above image, adapters are included with both the 140mm FLX fan (left image) and the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 HSF (right) that will quiet the fans.  Of course they accomplish this by slowing the fan’s rotation and thus offering more quiet but progressively less cooling with each of two step downs.  The 140mm Noctua fan was even quieter than the Cooler Master 120mm side panel case fan that it replaced and yet it moved even more air, helping to further cool my Gladiator 600 case and in turn, my hot, overclocked to 4.0 GHz, Core i7 920 along with a GTX 280 plus an open-design 8800-GTX for PhysX which made for an extremely hot case indeed.

You also need to remember that a high-quality universal CPU cooler like the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 will likely last through several builds if you plan ahead. The manufacturer’s warranty is six (6) years for this Noctua cooler!  Another thing you should consider is “noise” – ideally you do not want your CPU’s cooling fan adding much noise.  Here we see Noctua taking a similar approach to the CPU cooler that we reviewed a few months ago – the Hyper N520 which uses two much smaller 92 mm fans in push-pull configuration for quiet and effective cooling for about $45.00 on NewEgg.

In contrast, the budget thirty dollar Hyper 212 Plus by Cooler Master uses a single, slower-running 120mm fan to keep noise down while still doing effective cooling.  In fact, they allow for some even further cooling by letting you install another second (optional; not included) 120mm fan in a push-pull configuration much like the Hyper N520 – except these fans are much bigger!  Generally, by using the second fan, we gained about 1-3 degrees Centigrade more cooling over using a single fan.

Here are the two compared, side-by-side:

They certainly look similar.  They both use two 120mm fans in a push-pull configuration.  Yet the Noctua NH-U12P Special Edition 2 CPU cooler was able to effectively cool our hot overclocked Core i7 920 at 4.0 GHz well within safe thermal temperatures while our Hyper 212 Plus ran into extremely dangerous temperatures from 3.50 GHz to 3.80 GHz.   What is the difference?  Well, we shall explore.

We are not out of order by insisting on the Noctua NH-U12P Special Edition 2 CPU cooler to cool an overclocked Core i7 920.  We are helping to get the word out that retail and cheap CPU coolers will perhaps even shorten a hot-running CPU’s life; and they will certainly limit your overclocking potential.  And a premium cooler such as our Noctua Noctua NH-U12P SE2 being reviewed today, will allow you to reach your CPU’s maximum overclocking potential in safety compared to even a very good budget cooler.