Introduction

From the Noctua website:

Designed in Austria, Noctua's premium cooling components are internationally renowned for their superb quietness, exceptional performance and thoroughgoing quality. Having received more than 1000 awards and recommendations from leading hardware websites and magazines, Noctua's fans and heatsinks are chosen by more than a hundred thousand satisfied customers around the globe.

Noctua has forged a reputation that sticks out in the minds of PC enthusiasts. The quality of their coolers and the support they offer is second to none. What most will remember, however, is the color scheme, with the customary beige color and those dark brown highlights making sure everyone recognizes that Noctua fan inside your case. That said, the company's popularity is only growing as the support, quality, and exceptional performance are proven again and again with each cooler they release.

The NH-D14, for example, may be rather old now, but this bastion of engineering brilliance still stands as one of today's best-performing CPU coolers. Noctua is not locked into a single design like many other manufacturers. The NH-C14 is an example of this with its down-draft architecture. They don't simply release massive heatsinks either. The NH-L12 is a perfect fit for mini-ITX systems the larger NH-D14 would have serious trouble fitting into. Noctua really has managed to offer quality cooling products to just about every niche of the PC community.

Noctua's reputation is now once again being put to the test as I take a look at their NH-U12S, and with Noctua's many great CPU-cooling designs, my expectations are high. Will the noise levels be as low as previous designs or better? Will it top the charts in performance? It is time to put this cooler to the test to see what it has to offer.

Packaging & Contents

The box that Noctua is using for the NH-U12S measures 22 cm in length, 17 cm in width, and 14 cm in height. The front lists some features, such as 100% RAM compatibility, the SecuFirm 2 mounting system, the six-year long warranty, and inclusion of NT-H1 thermal compound. You will even see the features listed a second time. The next image lists the cooler's specifications. These specs include heatsink size and weight, socket compatibility, scope of delivery, and fan attributes.


Here, we have a short paragraph listing some features, the awards, and some general information on Noctua's NH-U12S. The last side again lists the coolers features, with small pictures next to each description.

Contents

After opening the box, I was greatly surprised by the packaging. Noctua has really separated all items well, storing everything in a way that leaves nothing left to float around in the box. The small boxes containing the mounting hardware and all accessories offer a bit more protection to the parts, which is nice to see; great overall work on the packaging by Noctua.


The smaller boxes are of course clearly labeled with images that show what each contains. Meanwhile, the cooler itself is packaged with the fan pre-installed. I had to remove the fan for a better shot of the heatsink, and it will also have to be removed to install the cooler.


Let us now move on to the mounting hardware. Noctua's SecuFirm 2 mounting system is as always fantastic, and the above image shows that they have included everything necessary for the installation of the NH-U12S on every available socket. Noctua, unlike their competition, even included a screwdriver to help with the install. This simple tool is really a blessing to have for some of their coolers.

Common parts supplied for mounting include:

• 12x Anti-vibration pads
• 4x LGA2011 mounting screws
• 4x AMD mounting screws
• 4x AMD spacers (white)
• 4x Intel spacers (black)
• 4x Thumb screws
• 2x Fan clips
• 2x AMD mounting arms
• 2x Intel mounting arms
• 1x 120 mm x 25 mm fan
• 1x Intel backplate
• 1x Tube of NT-H1 thermal paste
• 1x Phillips screwdriver
• 1x Metal Noctua badge
• 1x Low noise adaptor