140mm class performance in 120mm size. Includes high-end NT-H1 thermal paste and SecuFirm2 mounting system for easy installation.
Renowned Noctua quality backed up by 6-year manufacturer’s warranty, deluxe choice for Intel Core i9, i7, i5, i3 (e.g. 12900K, 12700K, 12600K) and AMD Ryzen (e.g. 5950X, 5900X, 5800X, 5600X)
Delivered @$161.90 including GST. Most people receive it within 5 biz days
Can testify. Bought noctua c14s from new egg about $100. Best cooler under 140mm height
Seems like a terrible value.
https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/noctua-nh-u12s/p/N82E168…
https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/noctua-nh-d15s/p/N82E168…
https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en/noctua-nh-d15/p/N82E1683…
The U12A is 158mm tall, the D15 (with only middle fan) and D15s are 160mm tall, why spend $50 more on a cooler thats weaker?
That's true, unless you have a case limitation. I only bought low profile noctuas for itx cases so far.
Correct, this is for people who have small PC cases that are a bit tight for those big Noctua NH-D15 or Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 Pro, but still want excellent air cooling. Though I do agree the price of this NH-U12A is a bit too high, Noctua should lower it in line with the NH-D15.
Sure, but any case that could fit a U12A could fit a D15.
Not really. Most people who bought the D15 will want to fully utilise its twin fans, sometimes its size can get in the way of the RAM and the graphics card.
I don't know what the 120mm is like but the D15 usually requires the fan to protrude above the top of the front tower to allow RAM to fit.
An 80mm Noctua fan will fit flush with the top of the front tower and low profile RAM.
My NR200 definitely CANNOT fit a D15
Don't listen to this person. He's missing the key difference in his comparison of the first two.
NH-U12S = 5 heatpipes, 1x NF-F12 fan ($26.39 currently)
NH-U12A = 6 heatpipes, 2x NF-A12 fans ($39.60 each currently)
So not only are you getting a better heatsink, you're also getting two fans that are both better at CPU cooling than the NF-F12 in the U12S.
As for the D15s, only the D15 (non-S) is better. Plus, in my experience, Noctua 140mm fans are noisier than the 120mm ones for the same performance (weird, I know). And the U12 range is the largest Noctua heatsinks that will fit in most SFF cases (CoolerMaster NR200 specifically).
NH-U12A has 7 heatpipes. I have an old NH-U12S with 2 NF-F12's and it is much hotter running compared to the NH-U12A.
The U14S despite having single fan and just 93$, can be more silent and beat the 2 fan U12A easily. I have never heard my U14S with a properly adjusted fan curve. Compared to that, this IS terrible value. The only reason to get this over the 14" fan heatsinks the slightly smaller size.
Don't get me wrong, I also went with the U12S back when I built because of the jump in price. However, I regret it mostly due to the fans. I'd honestly probably run a U12A in single fan mode then harvest the spare NF-A12 as a case fan. And as @Sleepycat3 mentioned, the U12S definitely performs significantly worse than the U12A does - but my airflow is so well optimized (custom printed fan ducts to ensure intake of only fresh air) that it wouldn't make much difference.
@trankillity: Oh, I get the difference between the U12S and the U12A. I was speaking about the U14S, which is really good and silent. Upto 150Watts it performs almost as good as the D15. Cheers.
While I agree this isn't a particularly great price, this is wrong re performance. This is only weaker compared to the D15 with both fans, which is only an option if you have 165mm available. It performs on par with the D15S or D15 with one fan (both slightly taller) and better than the U12S (same height) in terms of both temps and noise.
This is the best 158mm tall tower you can buy (from Noctua at least, arguably from anyone)… That's the entirety of this thing's selling point.
Yes it's only 2mm difference to a D15S, but no amount of arguing performance-per-dollar will make your case grow 2mm taller.
$160 for an air cooler!?
As someone who has gone through this phase; high end air cooling, All in one, full custom water cooling, I can confidently say this all is a waste of time/money.
Chasing an extra couple degrees or slightly less noise which is real terms is chasing percentages.
A reminder that a $39 cooler will do the same job: https://www.pccasegear.com/products/49627/deepcool-gammaxx-g….
Tell me the handful of degrees or decibles is worth an extra $120.
Noctua make it worth the investment though (not at $160). They support all their old models with upgraded brackets to support new sockets - and will send you one for free.
I have a D14 thats over 10 years old running in a modern AM4 socket PC.
For what it's worth, I paid $75 for a D14 in 2010
For what it's worth, I paid $75 for a D14 in 2010
Agree with your sentiment, i also bought a D14 around this time for $75. It performed very well and was very quiet.
This cooler is not anywhere near double this however.
Are you saying that cheap Deepcool CPU cooler should be fine for people building a PC with i9-12900 CPU and running in a hot summer 40C climate, without worrying about thermal throttling?
You probably can say the same thing about people spending all the money on blinking their builds with RGB lights, all the money on just fancy lights without any function. Or maybe just forget about adding any case fans.
Are you saying that cheap Deepcool CPU cooler should be fine for people building a PC with i9-12900 CPU and running in a hot summer 40C climate, without worrying about thermal throttling?
Are you saying that a near-$1,000 flagship performance CPU is the common choice against which we should be benchmarking the value proposition? Because if it isn't, then it is a poor justification for why anyone should be spending this much on a CPU cooler.
By that logic we should all justify tyres that cost $1,200 a corner because thats what the high performance car that most of us don't drive uses.
Of course if money is no object them buy whatever the hell you want. For the majority of applications this cringeworthy levels of overkill.
This is OzBargain, not a Cinebench party in the basement of my parents house which is 40C because I don't have money for air conditioning but somehow still managed to buy a $1000 CPU.
the internet equivalent of yelling at the tv
A bargain is the lowest price for something, not the lowest price for something ptenkae personally feels is worth buying.
Yes you can get slightly shittier coolers for much less. That's true of any product. Does it mean the site should only ever allow posts about products which are slightly shitty but very cheap? No. It's fine if that's your thing, but the site wasn't designed only for you.
For some people, a bargain is getting top quality stuff for 5% off RRP - when I don't agree with them, I just keep scrolling. I don't go around replying to every $3000 LG C1 deal by saying it's a waste of money to not buy a $600 ALDI TV, or that "flagship TV performance is not the common choice against which we should be benchmarking value proposition" - whatever the heck that is supposed to mean.
A bargain is the lowest price for something, not the lowest price for something ptenkae personally feels is worth buying.
A bargain is something priced below its true value.
A single Bic 4 pen priced at $899 when the only other Bic 4 pen available is priced at $900 I would argue is not a bargain.
For some people, a bargain is getting top quality stuff for 5% off RRP - when I don't agree with them, I just keep scrolling. I don't go around replying to every $3000 LG C1 deal by saying it's a waste of money to not buy a $600 ALDI TV, or that "flagship TV performance is not the common choice against which we should be benchmarking value proposition".
Agree with the sentiment but not the example. Side by side, there is a material enough difference between a $3,000 TV and a $600 ALDI that the average consumer can see, that could justify the significant difference in price tag.
Here there no material difference. For the average consumer, this is not a deal or bargain as there is no material benefit over an alternative 1/4 the price.
@inittobinit: The difference is "an extra couple degrees or slightly less noise", as you've said yourself. If you don't care about that, then sure, you don't need a $160 cooler… but then why are you even commenting on a CPU cooler deal? Is it that hard to understand that people shopping for a CPU cooler might attribute value to temperatures or noise levels?
Should every person who doesn't personally care about the differences between a $2000 TV and a $3000 TV go around telling others that $3000 TVs are a waste of money, and that everyone should instead buy whatever the cheapest TV that they personally find passsable is?
Every day I see tons of deals posted here where I know the value proposition just isn't for me. But I understand other people might attribute different value to certain aspects of a product than I do, so I keep scrolling and let people be the judges of the value of what they're buying. But hey, you do you - I tried.
@v8o: I see this a lot on ozb, sure that's closed minded, and in some situations incorrect. The two aren't mutually exclusive, you can have a bargain yet it be a poor one at at the same time.
I thought OZB was about bargains,
You have random items that are discounted on an individual level. It's on sale easy to tell if it's a bargain or not…
You have the same item amongst various vendors ie. GPUs, only one Vendor has discounted. Again easy to tell when it's a bargain.
Then the tricky one:
An item in a category that has multiple competing manufacturers and multiple tiers at that. You should be allowed to critique if that item in that tier is a bargain or not, where it sits on it's own merits.
IMO it's to the point that an increasing number of poor deals are being posted just to sell under the guise of 'it's dropped in price' therefore it's a bargain. That's sheeple thinking.
I don't think this is the case for this item but look at the user base sheep sprouting the same tripe in other deals as to why it's a deal and not look at the deal itself.
This cooler is of quality and is highly priced, I think it's overpriced personally but begrudgingly it's a poor bargain.
@Sheep Whisperer: IMHO the main page's job shouldn't be to tell strangers which products to shop for, it should be to help people find discounted prices on whatever products they are personally looking for, regardless of whether the majority collectively agrees on that particular product having a good value proposition or not. Expecting strangers to determine what is worth $X to you seems silly to me.
I'm all for using the "What Should I Buy?" section or the comments section to tell people that this thing will only do a 3°C better job than something which costs a third of the price, but I don't think the existence of an inferior product for cheaper has any bearing on whether this is a bargain or not. Different people will value those 3°C differently… there's no universal, objective measure as to how many degrees of CPU cooling is worth $100.
To me, as long as you can't find a product of at least the same quality for at most the same price, this is a bargain (for anyone who might be shopping for a product of this particular quality, which is not something that is my place to tell them). If this leads to an increasing number of deals being posted which represent poor value for me personally, then I'm fine with just scrolling past them. I'd rather scroll past deals on products I don't want, than never see deals posted for products which I do want (but which a consensus of internet strangers didn't agree was a worthy product to shop for).
So you can afford a $500+ CPU but cannot afford a CPU cooler more than $50?
If you want to compare with cars, it's like buying a Porsche but only fit it with cheap Yum Cha brand passenger tyres.
I'm not saying we all should be spending big to get the coolest CPU air or liquid coolers possible, most of us here are sensible to purchase a decent performing CPU coolers. Many still run the Cooler Master Hyper 212 fine.
So you can afford a $500+ CPU but cannot afford a CPU cooler more than $50?
Nobody said anything about being able to afford anything or otherwise.
If you want to compare with cars, it's like buying a Porsche but only fit it with cheap Yum Cha brand passenger tyres.
Except there is a very real, material difference between a suitable Porsche tyre vs a Yum Cha passenger tyre; aka the difference between maintaining traction vs wrapping it around a tree.
I'm not saying we all should be spending big to get the coolest CPU air or liquid coolers possible, most of us here are sensible to purchase a decent performing CPU coolers. Many still run the Cooler Master Hyper 212 fine.
This supports my point rather than rebutting it? The CM Hyper 212 is exactly the type of cooler im referring to when I say that this cooler is comparitively a terrible deal.
An extra couple of degrees can prevent thermal throttling, and can extend the life of your CPU. Alternatively, it allows you to boost the core clocks significantly higher, safer.
CPU life extension as a justification for additional cooling is a fallacy. Most chips are spec'd to operate safely at up to 105C. Going beyond this might degrade the life of the chip, but by the time it actually dies it will already be in landfill somewhere having been made obsolete many years before this.
No doubt there is more cooling performance to be had the more you spend, but i'll sit here an wait while someone shows me a that there is not a highly deminished, if not completely non-existant rate of return after spending $60-80 (or even less).
Fair cop on the life, especially considering the efficiency of thermal throttling these days. The premium you usually pay is for silence however. You'd be hard pressed to find a air cooler in the $60-$80 range with fans as quiet (normalised to the same CFM/pressure) as the Noctua fans allow.
Makes this seem like a high cost fix for a low cost solution. Premium brand, premium price tag though. You'd have to be pushed into a corner or were bum steered into buying it if you did.
But it is a deal for this item, I'll let the customer decide.
I bought this cooler a few months ago knowing I wouldn't need to upgrade the cooler or move to liquid with subsequent CPU upgrades in my ITX build, so it definitely has its value. Right now on my 5800x it works a treat.
I can respect that, I'm on the other end of the scale, I'm going to try my Cryorg M9i pulled from the old build (3770) and see how that goes on a 11400. If it doesn't satisfy I'll go for an AIO because I have a case made for them (LL 011D Mini).
I agree there's a time and place for them, but that's some outlay you had there.
Totally. Except when you can buy the mounting bracket for the next socket tho. If you think of it as $180/2=90 per socket, the price premium isn't too bad for a noise benefit.
Having said that, I'm rocking a stock cooler, lame 3600 non-x cpu, 16gb of only 3200mhz cl20 ram and a psu with an ugly ass cable right across the window of my 5yo pc case.
Why? Because i know that's all i need for 4k gaming.
I'm tempted to upgrade but always stop myself. Mostly I'd just upgrade the cooler and psu knowing it's only for looks (which this noctua fails at)
Technically you don't even need to buy one, Noctua will send you one for free if you can prove you have a board with a new socket and one of their coolers, which improves the value a bit more
I use a D15 and literally can't hear it on idle and it's much quieter than the system fans under load. People value different things in a system, for example, many would question the point of RGB ram, fans, etc.
The NH-U12A is a top tier cooler and is simply an option, as are the NH-D15 and AIO coolers.
For high TDP cpus, if you want to run them cool and quiet, big tower coolers like the noctua options and the dark rock pro 4 are a great option, and of course have pros and cons compared to an AIO.
I've been using this NH-U12A since the Zen3 launch with my 5900X. I have to say that this is the premium end of air coolers. I'm sure there are others that are cooler or quieter etc, but I have not come across one that has such performance in a small size that fit in my 14 year old case.
In todays world with cases being so big that you can fit almost anything in it, the NH-U12A is not really relevant for a regular large case as there are many other better looking and better performing options. But for those with smaller cases who can't fit anything else high performing, it is a saviour.
I look at it this way, the 2-fan NH-D15 is the brute force approach, make it big enough, with enough metal and large fans and it should cool it down. The NH-U12A takes a more complex approach, keeping it standard sized, but squeezing in so many heatpipes and what was back then the most expensive fans on the market to get a similar result. For some people, they prefer the NH-D15, for others like me who couldn't fit one into the case because of the case, motherboard layout and a GPU with a thicc backplate, the NH-U12A was the only high performing option.
At $161 for an air cooler, the higher price is also partially due to our poor exchange rate. When I bought it, the USD price was identical but the exchange rate was favourable, so I paid AU$145.
An extra few bucks for an air cooler and everyone is complaining when Nvidia just re-released a GPU (2060) for $900. Now that is terrible value/price/etc
Haha yeah. Every other PC components are bargain now in comparison with GPU prices.
That being said, Noctua probably make the best fans on the market, at a price. Aesthetically they're terrible, but can't argue with performance.
I'd say they made the best fans on the market. Today, other companies have copied them or taken a similar design approach, so you can find fans which perform almost as good for 1/2 the price. Look at Thermaltake's blatant copy of the NF-A12! And they released it in black before the Chromax version was released by Noctua.
On the other hand, Noctua's support is good. They sent me for free an AM4 mounting kit so that I could use my 2008 NH-U12P SE1366 (for the old socket 1366 1st gen i7) on my new AMD 5900X.
Agreed on this. I was after a 140mm fan - just 1, so I got a noctua. If more than one, I'd get the arctic ones, they're good.
Another interesting fact, the NH-D15S weighs 1.15 kg, whereas the NH-U12A weighs 1.22 kg. There is more dense material in this smaller cooler to make it heavier than the larger one, so it is due to more copper and the heatpipes which are denser than teh other components.
Hi OP. How will warranty claims be dealt with considering there's a 6 year warranty for Noctua products?
Not OP but i'd hazard a guess and say you will deal with Noctua directly which isnt a bad thing to be honest if my dealings with them are anything to go by.
Thanks stigsphilocousin. Noctua does sound like they're cool to deal with.
I am still wondering what warranty support newegg would have given a whirlpool search has given mixed reviews about it.
Noctua does not provide direct RMA/warranty:
https://noctua.at/en/warranty-terms-condition
That being said, in the during the many years of using the products, I have never once had a fan fail on me.
On the one occasion I needed a mount for a new socket, they shipped it to me for free from the EU.
Ah! Thank you for the information. Sounds like it's dependent on Newegg to deal with warranty claims then.
Seeing the current pricing of Noctua fans, I should consider selling off the 30 or so 120mm, and 140mm PWM fans I’ve hoarded over the years.
Great fans, yes, but ridiculous pricing at over $50 each now.
Umart has this for $189. I've got noctuas from Newegg before, can confirm they're always cheaper than local and the one I got shipped from Taiwan via DHL