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Socket 775 and AM2 heatsink roundup II

Socket 775 and AM2 heatsink roundup II

The Noctua NH-U12P

Noctua has made quite a name for themselves over the last year or so with the very successful NH-U12. Noctua has since updated the NH-U12 design and what we have today is labelled the Noctua NH-U12P. The entire fin stack has been raised to improve mainboard compatibility with large chipset and other motherboard coolers. Noctua has also bundled their NT-H1 premium thermal paste and included their premium quality, nine blade NF-P12 fan. After reviewing the surprisingly capable Coolink Silenator, which is essentially a trimmed down version of the now discontinued NH-U12, I was very excited to get the NH-U12P in the lab.


The Noctua NH-U12P is of the tower variety, employing four heatpipes and 36 “widely spaced” soldered fins.

Image courtesy of Noctua

Specifications (taken from the NH-U12P product page at www.noctua.at)

  • Combined Dimensions: 126 x 71 x 158mm
  • Weight (without fan): 600g
  • Material Types: Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminium (cooling fins), soldered joints, nickel plated
  • Supported Sockets: Sockets 775, AM2 and AM2+. (support for 939/754 and Socket F is available with an add-on kit. Available free for NH-U12P owners!)
  • Fan Dimensions: 120 x 120 x 25mm
  • Bearing Type: SSO Bearing
  • Noise Level: 19.8dBA (12.6dBA with in-line adapter)
  • Air Flow: 54.3CFM (37.3CFM with in-line adapter)
  • Speed: 1,300RPM (900RPM with in-line adapter)

The Noctua NH-U12P is not overly heavy at about 600g without a fan. It also has a relatively thin footprint at only 71mm wide. This generally makes mounting much less painful and greatly improves compatibility. It appears that Noctua nickel-plated the NH-U12P. The discontinued NH-U12 was not nickel-plated. In a very uncommon move, Noctua is actually offering an add-on socket compatibility kit for the NH-U12P at no cost to owners. The kit adds compatibility for socket 754/939 and even socket F. Unlike the Coolink Silenator, support for both AM2 and LGA 775 is included in the box—this I was very happy to see.

The fan included is the NF-P12. It boasts some impressive design features and is also available as a separate purchase. It is certainly nice to see a premium quality fan included with the NH-U12P. The NH-U12P does support dual fan configurations and extra fan clips are included.

A Closer Look

The NH-U12P came packaged in an oversized cardboard box with all contents very securely packaged.

Noctua’s packaging looks very professional—you can tell they take a lot of pride in the engineering and technology that goes into their products. Lots of information is provided on the box including specifications and a see-through window showing the familiar brown/off-white colour NF-P12 fan.


There are lots of included accessories with the NH-U12P. It looks like the NH-U12P continues to use Noctua’s “SecuFirm” mounting system that we were so fond of when we reviewed the Coolink Silenator. This is still the best heatsink mounting system that we have seen to date. The included instruction manual is very thorough. It opens like a book with two unfolding instruction manuals—on the left, AM2, on the right, LGA 775. It is very well written and again, one of the best we’ve seen to date. Any questions you may have regarding installation are almost certainly in the manual. I was happy to see that Noctua includes two sets of fan clips—just add another NF-P12 fan for a push-pull configuration.

The heatsink itself is an impressive sight. It is tall at 158mm but feels surprisingly light. It has a very high quality look and feel.

Above you can see the four copper, nickel-plated U-shaped heatpipes. You can see the same punched out fins towards the centre of the heatsink that were in the Coolink Silenator design. The heatpipes fit into machined grooves and appear to make very good contact with the base. This is very important as there must be good thermal conduction between the base and heatpipes for any tower design to work effectively. There is some additional space between the base and the fin bank compared to the older NH-U12 and Coolink Silenator.

The base of the NH-U12P is polished and slightly textured. It appears to be very slightly convex when I conducted the straight edge testing. The effect is so minor that it should not impact performance. Overall, base quality is good.

With the NH-U12P and Coolink Silenator side by side, there are quite a few differences. Clearly, the NH-U12P is wider for increased surface area. It also has more ridges gradually sloping inwards as opposed to a curved indentation on the Silenator. This helps to increase surface area. You can also see the NH-U12P’s slightly higher fin bank. It is only a couple of millimeters taller than the Silenator.


The included fan is a premium model dubbed the NF-P12. As you can see, it has a sleeved cable and a very unique nine blade design with notches out of each fin. Noctua rates this fan for a very quiet 19.8dBA. It still manages to push about 54CFM, which is impressive given the dBA rating. We’ll be running a quick test on the NF-P12 to see how it compares to our reference Scythe S-FLEX. Noctua included an extra NF-P12 so I’ll have the opportunity to test this heatsink in a dual-fan push-pull configuration. Although I did not take SPL measurements, I can tell you that the NF-P12 is so quiet that they will never be heard over any other fans in your system. A lot of careful engineering went into the NF-P12 and it really shows. There is lots of good information on the NF-P12 on Noctua’s product page.

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Comments

  1. GHoosdum
    GHoosdum That Noctua looks like a real winner...

    Coincidentally, prices on it seem to be going up since the review was published. Hmm...
  2. lemonlime
    lemonlime It is an excellent heatsink--especially when you consider its footprint, weight and fin spacing.

    It is unfortunate that newegg does not seem to carry Noctua products. Canadian buyers can find it at NCIX in the $49-59 range. There should be other US based retailers that carry it.
  3. Leonardo
    Leonardo Thanks, Mike. Good review. I'm always eager to learn of the latest in air cooling for CPUs.

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