Not long after the release of the very impressive NH-U9B, Noctua has returned with a brand new design. Tower heatsinks are certainly very popular among enthusiasts. One look at our review of Noctua’s NH-U12P proves that a good implementation of the design can be incredibly potent at taming toasty CPUs. As effective as towers are, however, they are not very good all-around cooling solutions.
Image courtesy of Noctua
If you look at OEM cooling solutions from both Intel and AMD, you’ll notice that they both employ some sort of down-draft heatsink and fan combination. This is done because the CPU fan is relied upon to not only cool the CPU, but also motherboard VRM components, the memory and even the chipset in some implementations. With tower designs, all airflow is directed away from the motherboard—hopefully venting out of the case by an exhaust fan. This is very positive for the CPU, but can leave many hotspots around the socket.
Noctua’s latest down-draft heatsink, the NH-C12P hopes to provide the performance of a tower while maintaining the versatility of a down-draft cooler.
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