Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4, Premium CPU Cooler for AMD AM4 (Brown)

I prefer the Austrian version. As someone who has worked with Cooler Masters for years and has never spent more than $30 on a CPU fan, I decided to give Noctua a try this time because of their well-known performance and the fact that the CM coolers for AM4 were out of stock. What the hell, I figured. I'm going to treat myself. br>br>Since I don't have any experience with cooling efficiency, all I can say is that this thing keeps my CPU in the 60-degree range. Under heavy loads, the 65C zone is quite effective. That's a Ryzen 1700 @ 4GHz, which means it has a lot of cores and performs admirably. br>br>However, the most amazing thing about this cooler, and the reason I give it five stars, is that it is simple. This is the installation. It's like something out of a nightmare. After having to custom modify backplates for 212s just to keep pins from shorting on me, this is a world of difference. It works with the board's stock backplate, and there are no spring screws or other items that don't appear to exert pressure when mounting the CPU. No, it's a piece of cake. It's all very basic and straightforward. It made me wonder what the 212s were thinking when they were designed by CM's engineers. br>br>Instructions were also done exceptionally well. Everything about the contents of the box screams high-end. This isn't at all typical of CM. The 212s had a habit of having bad instructions, which made the build feel shoddy. You get what you pay for, I suppose. br>br>I'd rather save the money and get another Noctua. These Austrians are true masters of the cooler. A big thumbs up!.

Zander Poole

| May 12, 2021

As the speed of my Ryzen7 3700X increased and decreased every minute or so, I grew tired of the noise from the stock cooler. The Noctua took about half an hour to install, with the majority of that time spent removing thermal paste from the CPU and stock cooler. If you're going to replace a cooler, make sure the CPU is disconnected from the motherboard. Blue tape was used to temporarily secure the back plate to the motherboard. Colors and lights don't matter to me because I'm not a gamer; what matters is silence. br>br>Tested the temperature with the stock cooler first, then the Noctua cooler, using an online stress test. At 100%, all 8 cores were running. With an ambient temperature of around 25 degrees, the maximum temperature dropped from 84 degrees to 74 degrees after installing the Noctua Cooler. The case is a BeQuiet Pure Base 600 (without glass), and the motherboard is a Gigabyte X570 Pro Wifi ATX.

Liliana Moore

| Dec 25, 2020

I started with my tried-and-true Hyper 212 Evo (with CoolerMaster's AM4 bracket). For what it's worth, the 212's AM4 bracket made only shaky contact with the CPU. It also hit 88C at stock 3 in Prime 95. Clocks that operate at a frequency of 6 GHz. Fast forward to when I was looking for something new to look into (I'm not interested in liquid cooling for this build), and this Noctua caught my eye. Installing is, as previously stated in other reviews, a breeze. The AM4 kit came with clear instructions and an AM4 kit. It's a LOT easier than fiddling with the 212's stupid X thingee. It exerts as much pressure on the CPU as you dare. Although thermal paste is included, I chose to use the AS5 that I had recently acquired. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm now running at 4GHz with only 64C on the Prime 95 test; it's more than twice as expensive as any other CPU cooler I've ever had, but it's well worth it! The really ugly fan color may be a drawback for some, but mine is in a partially enclosed desk, so I don't see it anyway, even with a windowed case. Colors and RGB stuff aren't as important to me as low temperatures are. Oh, and in my 20 years of CPU builds, it's also the quietest heatsink I've ever used.

Halo Choi

| Dec 31, 2020

The cooler is a little larger than I had anticipated, but that's fine because it fits perfectly in my NZXT elite case. The packaging was excellent and included everything needed, including the AM4 bracket, which most coolers do not include out of the box and instead require you to fill out a form and wait a few days for the bracket to arrive. Even when gaming or rendering at 3, this beast was able to shave off 20c, and my cpu rarely goes above 50c. With a Ryzen 1600x, you can get up to 7 GHz. I was so impressed with Noctua's products that I purchased additional fans to run a dual fan configuration, which reduced normal temperatures by another 6-degrees. Highly recommended, and I don't miss the coolness of the water in the least. br>br>Long reviewbr>I was living in a very hot environment, and my Ryzen spire cooler was no longer up to the task. My processor was a Ryzen 1600x (1600x does not include the spire cooler, but that's another story) and my temperatures were quite high. It could reach 70 degrees Celsius while gaming, and it could reach 95 degrees Celsius before shutting down while rendering a video in Premiere. I tried using premium thermal paste and reinstalling the cooler, but nothing worked, so I started looking for a better alternative. I spent a few weeks researching a variety of water and air cooling options, including the Corsair AIOs and a variety of other air cooling options. Even though I've used water cooling before, I couldn't bring myself to do it because I didn't want to risk any leaking because, while the warranty may cover any damages, I couldn't be without my PC for long. Originally, I had intended to buy the DH- 15 to get the biggest and baddest cooler possible, but I couldn't because my ram wasn't compatible, so I settled for the U12S, or so I thought. This was my first Noctua product, and while they have some of the best reviews, the main reason I chose them was because this cooler came with the AM4 bracket right out of the box, rather than having to buy the cooler and fill out a form to have one shipped to you. To begin, I was blown away by the packaging, which was well-organized and made unpacking a breeze. The next thing I noticed was the size of the cooler. Despite the fact that it uses 120mm fans, it was very sturdy, and I couldn't imagine how large the DH-II would be. It would have been 15 years ago. However, there were no problems with the size, and it fit perfectly in my NZXT Elite case. The installation was one of the simplest of any cooler I've ever installed. The performance is the most impressive and significant of them all. This device is a cooling beast that reduced my gaming temperatures by 20 degrees. I was so pleased with the results that I purchased two more Noctua fans with higher RPMs to run in a dual fan configuration, which reduced temperatures by about 6-degrees. On my Ryzen 1600x at 3. 0GHz, gaming and rendering video is a blast. 7 at 45 degrees for several hours; money well spent, and I'm a completely satisfied customer.

Gage PARKES

| Dec 31, 2020