At first glance, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the NH-C12P and Thermalright’s classic—the XP90. Taking a closer look, however, the similarities end very quickly beyond the basic shape of the cooler.
This is Noctua’s first down-draft cooler. You can see quite a few design elements that were carried over from their NH-U series heatsinks.
The fins are spaced pretty widely, like the NH-U12P. They are also waved to provide maximum surface area at the edge of each fin. The wide fin spacing is good in that the heatsink should work well with quieter fans. Healthy spacing is also very important in down-draft designs as keeping the heatsink too restrictive impedes its ability to cool the motherboard.
Noctua has used six “C shaped” heatpipes with the NH-C12P. If you haven’t already guessed the “C” in the model name is based on the heatpipe configuration. Down-draft coolers are typically not as effective as towers when it comes to CPU cooling performance—this is likely why Noctua opted for two additional heatpipes over the NH-U12P.
The heatpipes are spaced evenly throughout the fin bank, which is ideal. The Noctua logo is embossed on the front side of the heatsink.
The most interesting feature of the NH-C12P is the airflow gaps. They serve two purposes—allowing for access to the mounting hardware below, and to provide unrestricted airflow to key areas of the motherboard. Noctua could have cut out little holes for screwdriver access, but instead opted for large cut-outs. We’ll see how these make a difference in the lab.
The NH-C12P is not a suspended heatsink. Many of the fins actually make contact with the base—a design not used frequently these days. It makes a lot of sense though, as heat not transfered via the heatpipes can be dissipated directly via the fins over the base.
The base of the NH-C12P is highly polished—something we have not seen with the NH-U series. It is very slightly concave as verified during “straight edge” testing. The effect is slight and should not have any significant impact to performance.
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