Noctua NH-U12P
Put simply, the Noctua NH-U12P is a fantastic heatsink. It is a phenomenal performer on both LGA775 and AM2 platforms, is not overly large or heavy and has the best mounting system I have seen to date. The lower fin density of the NH-U12P means that it performs remarkably well with near-silent fans. Noctua went the extra mile and included some great accessories with the NH-U12P as well, including a top-quality 120mm fan, two in-line fan RPM limiters, a tube of their premium grade thermal paste and extra fan clips for dual-fan configurations. Even the included documentation far exceeds my expectations. The NH-U12P retails in the $50-60 range—not cheap but worth every penny in my opinion. Lots of thought has clearly gone into the design of the NH-U12P and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a quality HSF. That being said, I’m happy to award the Noctua NH-U12P Icrontic’s “Outstanding Product Award”. I very much look forward to what Noctua has in store for the future!
We’d like to sincerely thank Noctua for providing us with this sample and for their continued support of this and other tech communities across the web.
Pros:
- Excellent Performance (the best of nine heatsinks we’ve tested)
- Great performer across both LGA 775 and AM2 platforms.
- Fantastic mounting system (the best we’ve seen to date)
- High quality fan and premium grade thermal paste included
- Great physical dimensions and board compatibility
- Fairly light weight at only 600g (considering its cooling performance this is a feather)
- Excellent included documentation
Cons:
- Very slightly convex base (barely worth mentioning)
SilverStone Nitrogon NT06-Lite
The SilverStone Nitrogon NT06-Lite packed a few surprises in the performance department but there are quite a few good things to say about it. Firstly, the overall downdraft design is quite good. There is ample clearance at the top of the board thanks to intelligently designed top-plates and elevated fin bank. The bolt-through post system works very well and gives the NT06-Lite waterblock-like mounting stability. It was held very securely on our AM2 system. The heatsink present over the base was a welcome addition that allows some extra heat dissipation as well. The NT06-Lite can be rotated by 90 degrees, even on AM2 systems giving some extra flexibility and control over where to direct the downward airflow on the mainboard. As we saw in the performance section, the Nitrogon NT06-Lite did an excellent job keeping mainboard components cool—the second best we’ve tested to date in this regard. The NT06 is also designed to work semi-passively in SilverStone’s popular Sugo cube case, utilizing the PSU fan for cooling—a great proprietary feature for those with this case.
The SilverStone Nitrogon NT06-Lite is a very interesting performer—it did well with lower heat loads and outperformed heatsinks twice its weight. Unfortunately, its cooling performance tapers off as the load increases, and eventually it is no longer able to stabilize CPU core temperature. We saw this occur on both our Intel Q6600 test rig, as well as our AMD X2 6000+ when voltage was greatly increased. As long as vcore increases are kept in check, the Nitrogon does very well across both platforms. Although it may not be the best choice for extreme quad-core overclocking, it does still have a place in cooling solutions where mainboard cooling is important. As mentioned in the review, SilverStone needs to offer an alternative “X shaped” backplate for LGA 775 based systems. Many newer Intel motherboards, including two we have in the lab, have protruding pins that will interfere with the included backplate.
The Nitrogon NT06-Lite currently retails for around $50. Although it is a high quality heatsink, I would consider this too high—especially without a fan. There are simply better downdraft and tower heatsinks available at this price point, I’m afraid. Although the NT06 is SilverStone’s flagship heatsink, it is now almost two years old and was probably never designed with 3+GHz quad-cores in mind. I think that there is definitely a lot of potential in the design of the NT06, it just needs to be updated for higher heat loads and modern Intel mainboards. I do look forward to what SilverStone is planning in the future.
We’d like to sincerely thank SilverStone for providing us with this sample and for their continued support of this and other tech communities across the web.
Pros:
- Performs well with lower heat loads and moderate overclocks on both AM2 and LGA 775 plaforms
- Effective downdraft cooling keeps mainboard components cool
- Excellent base quality
- Nice and light
- Good socket compatibility (LGA775/478/AM2/939/754)
- Can be used semi-passively with Sugo cube cases
Cons:
- Can not stabilize core temperature with higher heat loads and significant vcore increases
- Backplate not compatible with many newer Intel mainboards
- Expensive considering no included fan
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