Many computer motherboards still cool their chipsets with a standard aluminum heatsink and a small fan. While these may work fine at first, the fans tend to break down or become noisy, or just aren’t sufficient when overclocking. Motherboard chipsets are running hot, especially since more northbridge chipsets are taking on additional tasks like audio and video processing. There are several third party chipset coolers, all with varying degrees of pros and cons. Some are just as bad as the OEM heatsinks, while others offer extreme cooling while remaining virtually or completely silent.
Noctua is aiming to deliver high quality computer products and proudly proclaim their products are “Designed in Austria”. Their answer to the chipset cooling problem is the Noctua NC-U6 chipset cooler, which is a high-rising copper and aluminum heatsink with heatpipe technology that looks rather impressive.
How do heatpipes work?
A heat pipe is a heat transfer mechanism that can transport large quantities of heat with a very small difference in temperature between the hot and cold interfaces.
Heat pipes use evaporation and condensation to move heat quickly from one place to another. A typical heat pipe is a sealed tube containing a liquid and a wick. The wick extends from one end of the tube to the other and is made of a material that attracts the liquid–the liquid “wets” the wick. The liquid is called the “working fluid” and is chosen so that it tends to be a liquid the temperature of the colder end of the pipe and tends to be a gas at the temperature of the hotter end of the pipe. Air is removed from the pipe so the only gas it contains is the gaseous form of the working fluid.
The pipe functions by evaporating the liquid working fluid into gas at its hotter end and allowing that gaseous working fluid to condense back into a liquid at its colder end. Since it takes thermal energy to convert a liquid to a gas, heat is absorbed at the hotter end. And because a gas gives up thermal energy when it converts from a gas to a liquid, heat is released at the colder end.
You can read more about how heatpipes work (including how they are constructed) from this link.
These specifications are taken directly from the Noctua website. The NC-U6 measures 3.4″ high by 2.75″ wide and is 0.93″ thick and has a 1.3″ square base. It has a total combined surface area of 77.5 square inches and weighs in at 4.6 onces (rather beefy for a chipset heatsink). Since this cooler has flexible mounting hardware and a robust six-year warranty, it’s sure to last through several upgrades.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Included within the package are only a few small mounting components, a folded installation manual, and the heatsink itself. One can’t help but notice that this cooler is very similar to the Thermalright HR-05, but has four heatpipes instead of two. There are twenty-nine aluminum cooler fins soldered onto the copper heatpipes, which are then soldered onto the pure copper base. The fins are spaced far enough to allow adequate airflow, and there is a threaded screw mount in the center of the base which is used to secure the mounting clips.
Attached to the bottom of the copper block that should be removed before installation. Removing this pad reveals that the base is very flat, but some circular milling ridges can still be seen. Cooling effectiveness could be improved by sanding down this block to a mirror finish. A cooler in this class should be milled perfectly.
Installation
The folded installation manual has straightforward instructions with lots of illustrations. A small tube of thermal paste is included, but most users buying a heatsink of this magnitude will already have some Arctic Silver or other high-performance compound.
Two clips are included that allow this heatsink to be mounted on a variety of motherboards, whether the mainboard uses loop or hole mounts. This clever solution allows for a wide range of compatibility. The cooler can even ben rotated up to 120 degrees to allow clearing of other items in your cramped case, such as long video cards.
The clips are mounted by a screw in the center of the copper block. There is a hole that goes all the way through the aluminum fins, so a screwdriver can be inserted straight down to tighten the mounting clip. Depending on your mounting method, the clip will either hook onto loops or plastic pins, but there will be no wobble as you can tighten the clip as much as you want.
Testing
The Noctua NC-U6 was tested using the following components:
- Foxconn 975X7AB Motherboard
- Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo Socket 775
- 2GB OCZ XTC DDR2 PC2-4200 Gold Dual Channel memory
- Zalman CNPS9700 NT Heatsink
- Ultra X3 1000 Watt Power Supply
- 3x Western Digital SATA Hard Drives
- Lian Li V1000 Black Aluminum Case
The stock Northbridge cooler on the Foxconn motherboard is an active aluminum sink with a 40mm fan. To try and remain fair, I attached an 80mm fan to the NC-U6 and tested both with and without their fans running. I replaced the stock thermal compound with Arctic Silver, so that both heatsinks would be using the same compound. The chipset was cleaned with alcohol before each heatsink installation. Load was simulated using 3dMark06 in a continuous loop.
Noctual NC-U6 Chipset Heatsink Performance
|
|||||||||||||||||
The Noctua NC-U6 Chipset cooler does what it claims. The product is machined well, is rather attractive, and offers clever mounting solutions. In addition to that, it performs well, too!
All of this “Austrian Engineering” comes with a price, but not much more than the Thermalright HR-05. There are some chipset heatsinks that are cheaper, but they are in a different class as they usually have less surface area. This cooler does not have any native fan mounting methods, and performs rather well considering its passiveness.
If you have the room in your case, thenthe Noctua NC-U6 is a good way to cool your rig while simultaneously lowering the noise level.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||