Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler Review

Test Setup

We tested the Noctua NH-U12S using our new standard i7 LGA1511 setup. We test two configurations, stock at 3.7Ghz/4.7Ghz with Turbo and overclocked at 4.8Ghz. We keep the CPU Turbo setting enabled for both stock and overclocked configurations, however, this would only be in effect with the stock test due to the way we overclocked the CPU using the multiplier.

The Intel i7-8700K is a little more unusual than older CPUs with a specific per core Turbo clock or rating. It’s not new by any means, but it’s a very precise way to manage the Core Frequency, that means that we have a large window of stock performance, so we pushed our overclock test just outside of the max Turbo frequency, or our overclocking benchmarks would crush some of the smaller coolers we may be testing in the future.

We use a standardized set of software for both load test and temperature capture;

• HWiNFO64
• AIDA64 Engineer

We ran the AIDA64 Engineer stability test in 30 minute batches and recorded the results. We used the Core Max result as there is typically a variance across the cores of a couple of degrees. We only select the cache, FPU and CPU tests, so no other component would generate impacting heat during the tests. We always “run in” our CPU cooler installations, essential to maximizing the performance of the cooler before testing begins.