[Test] Combat au sommet – Noctua NH-U12S & NH-U14S & NH-D14 : Specs | CPU | Hashrate | Review | Config

Hi all !

Today nothing is going well! This is not the test of a cooler, or even two, but three coolers! Noctua was kind enough to send me the NH-U12S, NH-U14S and the monstrous NH-D14 allowing me to offer you this test, which had some surprises in store for me in terms of results.

Before starting, a little word about Noctua, unlike many competitors it does not rely on rapid renewal of its products, the products have a very long lifespan. The key words at Noctua are Quality, Reliability and first-rate after-sales service, if you buy a cooler and in 5 years you want to install it on a new processor Noctua will send you the fixings adapted to the new socket free of charge! To my knowledge, there is no other brand that does the same (fixing kits are generally priced at around € 10). So will one of these coolers be found in your pc config?

Noctua NH-U12S

In the box, everything is tidy, a small box for AMD sockets, one for Intel sockets and a box of accessories:

As you can see, there is everything you need in terms of accessories, 1 tube of thermal paste, 1 Phillips screwdriver, 2 mounting brackets for a second fan, 4 anti-vibration pads for the use of a second fan (thicker than the standard pads of NH-F12 fans in order to attenuate vibrations, we think of everything at noctua), 1 LNA adapter allowing the fan to go from 1500 to 1200 RPM as well as 2 anti-vibration bands .

Noctua NH-U14S

The contents of the boxes being the same as for the NH-U12S, I will give you the same photos!

With the effigy of the NH-U12S the bundle is complete, we see that special attention has been paid so that the buyer does not lack anything when mounting the cooler.

Noctua NH-D14

The bundle varies slightly from the other 2 coolers, there are 2 ULNA adapters, 1 Y-cable to connect 2 fans to a 3-pin socket, 4 fixing screws for fan, 4 anti-vibration mounts for fan, 1 tube of NT thermal paste -H1, 1 AMD and Intel fixing kit as well as a Phillips screwdriver.

Radiators

As we can see, the NH-D14 looks like a monster, both in size and weight. The NH-U12S and NH-U14S are discreet and have full compatibility on all RAMs, in fact the “Slim” format of these coolers allows you to no longer worry about the height of your memory, which is not the case with NH-D14. Here is a photo of the top so you can really see the depth of the 3 coolers:

Fans

NH-U12S

NH-U14S

NH-D14

As we can see the NH-D14 being older comes with older generation fans (No anti-vibration pads in the corners, SSO-Bearing instead of the SSO2) and no unfortunately not PWN.

Les NH-U12S & NH-U14S

The assembly of the 2 coolers is similar, the fixings being the same.

To start, you have to put the back plate under the motherboard, being careful to put it in the right direction:

You must then turn over the motherboard, and put the black plastic spacers like this:

Then put the 2 metal plates and screw them, you can put them in 2 directions according to the desired final orientation. We finish with a little thermal paste!

Then gently place the cooler (fanless) and screw it to the 2 plates, like this:

And There you go ! your cooler is fixed, we must admit that the new Secufirm 2 system is really very easy to install

Attention: For the NH-U14S considering the width of the beast if you have a motherboard with a PCI-e 16x port right next to the processor then it will be unusable because the cooler will encroach on it! like this :

Le NH-D14

The assembly of the NH-D14 differs a little from the 2 previous ones, because the fixing system is the first secufirm of the name, first of all, if you install it on a socket 1150/1155/1156/1366 you have to remove the overlay black on the back plate:

Put it under the motherboard and put the screws there:

On the other hand, you have to pay attention to the location where you put the screws, each socket having different dimensions so you must not be mistaken, for example there are 3 ABC locations which correspond to 3 dimensions:

A : Socket 1366

B : Socket 1150 / 1155 / 1156

C: Socket 775

Then the process remains very similar to the other 2 coolers, namely put the black spacers around the socket:

Then we screw the 2 metal legs:

We place the cooler delicately and we screw (without the fans!):

And There you go! Your NH-D14 is properly assembled, just put the fans back in place and voila! The assembly was however a bit more complicated than with the 2 other coolers but nothing insurmountable.

The test platform

The Noctuas have been tested on the configuration below:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 875K @ 3,2 Ghz
• Motherboard: Asus P7P55D
• Memory: Kingston HyperX 4 x 2 Go 1600Mhz
• Hard disk: WD Raptor 150 Go
• Graphic card: Sapphire Toxic 5850
• Food: Seasonic S12 600Watts

The test protocol

The core i7 875K has been slightly overclocked to 3.2Ghz. The temperatures under load are an average of all the cores for 3 tests of 30 minutes on OCCT, the temperatures at rest were taken after 15mins on the desk (still an average of the 4 cores).

The coolers were tested against the Thermalright HR01 equipped with my control fan the Nexus Basic Silent 12cm (1050 rpm @ 12v).

The temperatures

And that’s the tragedy, but what happens with the NH-D14? The one with the biggest dissipation surface, the heaviest, the most everything? Well he gets put back in place by his little brothers, in vain I redo the editing 3 times telling me that something was wrong, nothing did. I contacted Noctua about this when seeing the results and there are indeed cases where NH-D14 does worse than NH-U12S and NH-U14S, here is one! I don’t know what the engineers at Noctua did, but hats off.

What can we deduce from these temperatures? And although the latest kids from Noctua are doing really well!

The NH-U12S surprised me with its performance compared to its small size, it is almost on par with its big brother the NH-U14S when the fans are at 12v on the other hand it runs out of steam and the gap widens when the fans run slower.

The NH-U14S is for me the big winner, it is very efficient when the fans are at full blast but above all the temperatures remain excellent even with the fans at minimum, 7 ° difference between 2 fans @ 12V and 1 fan @ 5v c is simply excellent.

Noise pollution

Attention : Part to be taken with a grain of salt, unfortunately not having access to the appropriate equipment and using an android application to take the readings the measurements below are only indicative! The readings were taken 15cm from the cooler.

As we can see, when using 2 fans at full power, it blows! The noise is very present and it is not very pleasant to stay next to the coolers, without being a turbine noise like some graphics cards of course. In addition, the fans tend to vibrate so this is reflected in a fairly serious noise that will certainly not delight lovers of silence.

On the other hand, at minimum speed the fans are very quiet, the android application cannot differentiate them from the ambient noise and you have to bring your ear very close to hear a fairly serious noise characteristic of Noctua fans which is not in use. nothing annoying and which in any case disappears as soon as you are more than 50cm away.

We are coming to the end of this comparison, now it’s time for the notes!

NH-D14

Okay so to say that the results are more than mixed, I really did not expect performance down compared to its 2 little brothers, I was unfortunately not able to test it on another platform to check if the results agree or if they are exceptional. This is why I will not rate this cooler for the moment. As it stands, I cannot recommend it against a smaller, lighter NH-U14S which is not subject to a restricted choice of RAM!

The +

• Bundle complet
• Good fixing system
• It exudes quality
• Noctua after-sales service during the evolution of sockets

The –

• Performances relatives
• Congestion
• Price

NH-U12S

The smallest cooler in the comparison, however, do not rely on its size because it will cool your processor as it should while being compatible with all RAMs and will not encroach on PCI-e ports. If you don’t have a lot of room around your motherboard, or your case doesn’t have room for a too high cooler, the NH-12S is an excellent choice!

The +

• Very good performance
• Small size
• Bundle complet
• Good fixing system
• It exudes quality
• Noctua after-sales service during the evolution of sockets

The –

NH-U14S

For me the undisputed winner of this comparison, high-level performance in all circumstances while having 100% compatibility with RAM, however, we must pay attention to its height (16.5 cm) and its width which will block the pci-e port closest to the processor. If you have room in your box and are looking for top-notch performance in all circumstances, don’t hesitate! It will also look great for your next Config Gamer 🙂

The +

• Excellent performance
• RAM compatibility
• Bundle complet
• Good fixing system
• It exudes quality
• Noctua after-sales service during the evolution of sockets

The –

• Price
• Few condemn a PCI-e port depending on the chosen orientation

A big thank you to Jakob from Noctua who allowed me to do this test.

Where to find the NH-U14S NH-U12S NH-D14?

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