- Review -

05.07.2013 RWLabs.com

The performance of both the NH-U12S and NH-U14S was extremely good. In today's market All-in-One water-coolers are all the range, but as you can see these air cooled heatsinks were just as efficient as some of the best water coolers on the market. To make a direct comparison, the NH-U14S is roughly as efficient as water-cooler with a double-wide radiator, and the NH-U12S performs about the level of a single-wide 120mm water cooler. Both of the heatsinks also proved to be efficient in either a dual or single fan configuration, so even if you only have one fan the thermal performance will still be very good. [...] Down to the packaging, everything included with the heatsinks is just phenomenal. The mounting brackets for both AMD and Intel come separated in their own boxes and the accessories are in their own box as well. The build quality of the heatsinks is also top-notch. Some heatsinks have fins that bend easily and you can just tell the materials used are not high-quality. The Noctua coolers are the exact opposite, as all the materials used are of the highest quality and Noctua goes as far to give the base a near mirror-like finish. It is this attention to deal that makes their products stand out. The fans included with the heatsinks are also some of the best on the market. Noctua has put a lot of effort into the design of their fans and it shows. With technologies such as Inner Surface Microstructures, an Advanced Acoustic optimization frame, and SSO2 bearings these fans are able to provide excellent performance all while remaining extremely quiet. Not to mention the maroon and brown color scheme just looks phenomenal l in any system. The installation bracket included with the Noctua heatsinks is also another aspect of the coolers we really liked. It was extremely easy to secure the heatsinks to the CPU and since they comes with the mounting bracket and fan attached out of the box it makes things that much easier. The only concern we had was if the heatsink would prevent us from installing memory in the first DIMM on our motherboard once installed. Things were close, but in the end all four DIMMs were useable, so in most cases these coolers won’t prevent you from being able to install memory. Overall, the Noctua “S” series heatsinks are all-around winners. The only complaints we had were that they are expensive and it would be nice if the second fan was included and not optional. Other than these though, Noctua has created a heatsink that is as thermally efficient as high-end All-in-one water coolers that cost more than the “S” series heatsinks.

"Both the Noctua NH-U14S and NH-U12S are superb heatsinks that can match the thermal performance of All-in-One water coolers, but they come with a slightly lower MSRP. We say slightly because the NH-U14S, and NH-U12S have an MSRP of $79.99, and $64.99 respectively, with is high for an air-cooled heatsink. This is the case with all Noctua heatsinks though, as their products don’t come cheap, but for the price you get excellent thermal performance, low acoustics and unbeatable quality. In other words you get a Noctua." (Chris Ledenican, RWLabs.com)