We here at OCMS have reviewed several products from our European pals at Noctua and I was very pleased to hear they contacted me again for some new products up for review this time is the “Noctua NH-C12P” CPU cooler.
Ding dong! Oh, Jolly! The frigging mail dude arrived with a nice big package that looked a bit too big for just a cooler. I was mistaken, for when I first opened the package I was in a slight shock of the size of its display box, even more so when I took out the actual heatsink.
All Noctua products use their familiar Blue-Brown and beige color palette, keeping in line with their renowned fans. To go with its easily identifiable box is all the necessary information you need, such as sizing charts and package contents, but you can forget about that as you can be damn sure Noctua added all you needed and then some.
Sporting 6 heat pipes and the award-winning, psycho-acoustically optimized NF-P12 120mm fan, the NH-C12P achieves excellent performance and outstanding quietness. The down-facing c-type design doesn’t only allow for optimal motherboard and case compatibility, but also provides additional cooling for motherboard components through two Airflow-Gaps. Outfitted with the professional SecuFirm™ mounting system and Noctua’s much acclaimed NT-H1 thermal compound, the NH-C12P is a premium-class silent cooler through and through.
| 6 heat pipes 6 heat pipes, excellently soldered joints and widely-spaced cooling fins guarantee optimal heat dissipation even at low fan speeds. |
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| C-type design with Airflow-Gaps Due to the down-facing design and two large Airflow-Gaps, the NH-C12P provides additional cooling for near-socket motherboard components. |
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| NF-P12 120mm premium fan The award-winning NF-P12 has been specifically developed for high-impedance applications such as CPU coolers. Thanks to psychoacoustic optimizations and Noctua’s premium-grade SSO-bearing, the NF-P12 achieves exceptional quietness and long-term stability. |
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| Excellent compatibility The down-facing c-type design allows for low height as well as excellent motherboard and case compatibility. |
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| SecuFirm™ multi-socket mounting system Noctua’s professional SecuFirm™ mounting system for LGA 775, AM2 and AM2+ provides superior reliability and contact pressure. K8 (939, 940, 754) kits are available on request. |
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| Noctua NT-H1 high-end thermal compound Noctua’s much-acclaimed NT-H1 is an pro-grade TIM solution that provides minimum thermal resistance, excellent ease-of-use and outstanding long-term stability. |
Now I’m sure it’s not the biggest air-cooled heatsink that’s available. I’m accustomed to the small copper blocks on water-cooling heat exchangers, but putting this “beast” inside a case, or rather on my cpu was a bit… how shall I put it… erm different.
All my worries put aside of a 730 Gramm block extended from my motherboard ready to rip it to bits at any time, it actually is held on very securely with the use of the brackets (included in the box), and provides a wide selection of sockets to chose from. And if that isn’t enough you can even get a LGA1366 mounting kit for the I7 core CPUs from Intel.
Quote;
The LGA1366 SecuFirm2 Mounting-Kit makes all Noctua CPU coolers compatible with Intel’s LGA1366 socket for Core i7 processors. Designed to combine outstanding reliability, optimal contact pressure and easy, straightforward installation, SecuFirm2™ is an enthusiast-grade mounting system that meets the highest demands in safety, performance and ease-of-use.
And here is the best part, it’s FREE! Yes you heard it right, Noctua comes through once again. If you’re worried of the future and if your recently-purchased heatsink will be up for its job then there is nothing to worry as long as it’s a Noctua! All you need is a “proof of purchase (photo, scan or screenshot of the invoice) of both a Noctua CPU cooler and either a socket 1366 mainboard or socket 1366 CPU are required.”
Also a nice thing to know it’s that it’s backward compatible with all Noctua coolers since 2005, making them a “safe long-term investments that can be used for several CPU generation” not strange as they’re willing to give a total of 6 years of warranty.
Right, enough with the marketing talk. But truth be told: do you know any other cooler manufacturers that will give you a mounting kit for your new CPU for free?
In the box you`ll find the mounting brackets for Intel’s LGA775 and AMD’s AM2 and AM2+ sockets so your set for today’s standard.
The heat sink itself composes of 6 nickel-plated copper heat pipes sandwiched in between a nickel-plated copper base, with aluminum cooling fins wrapped around.
Now when I first viewed the base of the cooler I noticed it still had machining marks, they weren’t deep and you had to run your nail across it to actually feel them, worried by this being a flaw I quickly emailed our contact at Noctua, if the base is meant to be finished this way, and got a fast response.
Quote;
“Yes, the base finished is supposed to be this way. If we went for a mirror finish, the risk of uneven dispersion and air pockets would be higher when used with high-viscosity pastes, the micro grooves reduce the risk of uneven dispersion and air pockets when using high-viscosity thermal compound such as AS5 or our NT-H1”
On that side note they reassured me that there are no compatibility issues with other 3rd party’s TIM (Thermal Interface Material) then again they already supplied you with a tube of their own high quality paste, so why not use that. For more info about their NT-H1 compound check http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=13&lng=en
To go with the heatsink is their NF-P12 fan, a SSO Bearing 120mm fan, which has an RPM of 1300, pushing 92,3 cubic meters of air an hour. This fan produces 19.8 decibels when not using the supplied LNA (Low Noise Adapter) and ULNA (Ultra Low Noise Adapter). These adapters are a set of resistors placed on the fan’s power lead; a simple plug and play system.
So would you need the LNA? Well that’s a personal taste for me the standard fan without the use of any LNA is not even audible over the sound of the hard drives. They make the most noise inside my case not my case fans. Then again my case fans are also Noctua branded so no wonder there. A nice side note it’s MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is greater than >150.000 hours
Another nice touch is Noctua’s way to reduce noise caused by vibration of the fan itself, so they supplied you with 2 silicone strips which have a sticky backing so you can adhere them on the indentation slots along the cooler so the fan itself can’t pass any vibration into the rest of the assembly decreasing unwanted noise.
So apart of its flawless finish a nice Noctua logo stamped into the fins of the heat sink does it have the cooling performance to match its looks.
Remember when I was shocked about the size, I was about to be shocked again this time by its cooling performance, I was running my water cooling kit for over 2 years now so I do think the lines and radiator are somewhat clogged so not running at it should but still the difference in temperatures where astonishing.
The cooler included a well documented installation sheet and is a basic screw-on platform. Basically you place the holding backplate behind the motherboard and screw in the Secufirm plates. Once that assembly is complete, just screw down the heatsink using the provided spring screws, which provide necessary tension to press against the CPU die. Obviously, your motherboard needs to be removed to perform this installation, which isn’t abnormal for advanced cooling systems, including watercooling gear, so I don’t see this as a negative. I’d prefer to have my coolers securely fastened rather than trust 4 plastic pins against gravity anyhow.
Test platform was an Asus P5W DH Deluxe, with a core 2 duo e6600 overclocked to 2,8ghz. I kept the fan on the radiator on its low setting matching RPM of the Noctua (1300 RPM) room temperature was kept at a constant temperature.
Noctua NH-C12P Performance
| Idle | Load | |
| Watercooling | 39 | 56 |
| Noctua | 36 | 54 |
| Stock | 41 | 67 |
| Zalman CNPS9700 | 36 | 53 |
| Tuniq Tower 120 | 35 | 52 |
The Noctua NH-C12P CPU Cooler had actually out preformed a high quality water cooling set. I originally chose water-cooling for its great cooling capabilities, as well as its silence. This has kind of stuck to me and I never went back to air cooling, but back then all air coolers where noisy things that didn’t perform well. Obviously times have changed, and new technologiy allows air-cooled heatsinks to work in whisper silence, even on “plain” air.
Now I’m well aware if I cranked up the fan on the radiator it would easily outperform this cooler but it would be anything from being silent and more like a jet airplane taking off.
So to wrap it up I couldn’t find any flaw that was mentionable, basically with this cooler should last you at least 5 years as its got enough cooling capability for the CPUs to come, and with a free mounting kit for the future you truly can’t go wrong with this cooler.
The looks the feel the packaging everything is top notch, as expected from Austrian quality, they certainly dint have too many kirsch snaps when designing this and came up with a seemingly perfect product. Hence forth I can only award this with the full 5 star ranking and a gold medal on top.
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