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.
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Noctual NC-U6 Chipset Heatsink Performance
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