Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsFantastic Cooler, but Expensive. Extremely Quiet
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2019
Can't say enough good things about this cooler, with the one draw back being that it is very pricey. However, it does come with 2 of Noctua's new NF-12Ax25 fans which by themselves are $30 each. So the actual heatsink is only 1/3 the total price and is a consideration when looking at the cost/value proposition.
Heatsink: The heatsink itself is very good. Has 7 heatpipes which is the most I've seen in a 120mm tower cooler. It also doesn't cover/block any of my ram slots (even on my mini-ITX board) with the fans mounted. My Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO with the fan mounted would still cover the first ram slot, so I'm not sure how Noctua managed to pull this off as according to the specs the Noctua bare heatsink is 7-8mm wider than the Coolermaster. Mounting system is typical Noctua SecureFirm and fantastic.
Fans: The 2 included fans are Noctua's new fans that took them 3 years to develop. There's never been so much hype on a fan than these, and you should read up on why it took so long to develop, it's an interesting article. What I can say after using them is that they are much quieter at a given RPM than my other high performance fans. I have to put my ear with in an inch or two to hear them under normal operation (about 50%-60% speed is where they normally running at) and they are barely audible at 100% when they spin up to full speed when I first turn on my PC. Note that the fans have pretty short power cables, and the heatsink does not include extension cables like you get if you purchase the fans separately.
Performance: I am using one fan on the heatsink in a push configuration and the other fan as a case exhaust fan about one inch away from the heatsink. So it's similar to the intended push/pull configuration, but with a small gap between. Under 100% synthetic load my delidded i7 7700k runs in the high 50s low 60s degrees Celsius at ~1.3v vCore and ambient temp of 24C (75F). Under real word gaming load, the CPU was running at an average 48C with occasional short spikes into the 50s. All this in a very small, but well ventilated ~13L mini-itx case. This is fantastic performance and rivals bigger coolers like the Noctua D15 but is so much easier to fit in a small mini-itx case.
Overall: I think the performance of this cooler is the best you can get at this size point. Compared to my Hyper 212 EVO, it performs better, is quieter under load, doesn't cover my RAM, and has a MUCH better mounting system. All this comes at a price, it's considerably more expensive than a Hyper 212 EVO. But in my opinion it's worth it if you aren't on an extremely tight budget. Noctua products are premium products, the best of the best, and the quality shows both in performance and ease of installation.
