It seems that when it comes to CPU cooling we've got literally thousands of choices, if not tens of thousands actually, but not all CPU coolers are created equal as most people know. There are a few names that stand out when one thinks of CPU coolers and most people will quickly recommend one of these names, like Thermalright, being the most popular right now. I've noticed it's common for people to follow the crowd when it comes to recommending a CPU cooler even if they've had no experience with that particular cooler, they've heard it's good so it must be is the mentality of it all. Sometimes yes there is a wisdom in the mob mentality, but other times is just that, 'mob mentality', meaning 'if everyone does it then it must be right', but that doesn't mean it's the right or best way…
Up on the review block today I've got another entry into the CPU cooling arena, this is from our friends at Noctua, it's the NH-U9B CPU cooler. It's essentially a revision of the NH-U9F CPU cooler that I reviewed almost two years ago here on DSM. Yes, I've still got it on hand as well and I've found that the U9B is actually a bit smaller than the U9F, but yet gets better results, so they've done something right…
The NH-U9B comes packaged with Noctua's own NT-H1 Thermal Compound and their new NF-B9 92mm fan as well. It includes mounts for popular CPU platforms, and even an extra set of fan clips to add another fan for increased cooling performance. As usual Noctua goes the distance when it comes to including nice quality extras with their products, but those extras don't mean much when the main product doesn't perform…
So read on to see how the new Noctua NH-U9B CPU cooler performs and to see comparison shots side-by-side with the original NH-U9F…
Noctua NH-U9B CPU Cooler Review
Author: Kristofer Brozio
Sponsor: Noctua
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
The NH-U9B continues the legacy of Noctua's classic NH-U coolers, which won over 150 awards and recommendations from leading international websites and magazines. Due to its compact size, the NH-U9B is perfect for HTPCs and small cases as well all as other applications that don't provide sufficient space for its bigger brother NH-U12P. Bundled with Noctua's award-winning NT-H1 thermal compound and fitted with the new NF-B9 fan, the NH-U9B offers outstanding quietness and excellent performance levels close to the NH-U12P.
Features:
4 dual heat pipes
4 dual heat pipes, excellently soldered joints and 36 widely-spaced cooling fins ensure optimal heat dissipation even at low fan speeds.
Award winning NH-U design
Noctua's NH-U coolers allow for perfect airflow direction and have received more than 150 awards and recommendations from leading international websites and magazines.
NF-B9 premium fan
Boasting exceptionally high airflow and pressure performance, the NF-B9 is ideally suited for CPU cooling. Bevelled blade tips, Vortex-Control Notches as well as Noctua's SCD drive system and premium-grade SSO-Bearing guarantee outstanding quietness and long-term stability.
High compatibility
Thanks to its compact size, the NH-U9B provides excellent compatibility with small cases, HTPC systems and other components.
SecuFirm™ multi-socket mounting system
Noctua's professional SecuFirm™ mounting system for LGA 775, AM2 and AM2+ ensures superior reliability and contact pressure. Xenon, Socket F and K8 (939, 940, 754) kits are available on request.
Incl. Noctua NT-H1 high-end thermal compound
Noctua's NT-H1 is an award-winning TIM solution that provides minimum thermal resistance, excellent ease-of-use and long-term stability.
Specs:
Socket compatibility:
Intel Socket LGA 775, AMD AM2 & AM2+, Intel Xenon on request, AMD K8 (754, 939, 940) & Socket F on request
(*see link to full compatibility chart below)
Height (without fan): 125 mm
Width (without fan): 95 mm
Depth (without fan): 70 mm
Height (with fan): 125 mm
Width (with fan): 95 mm
Depth (with fan): 95 mm
Weight (without fan): 460 g
Weight (with fan): 550 g
Material: Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminum (cooling fins), soldered joints & nickel plating
Application: Intel all frequencies, AMD all frequencies
Fan compatibility: 92x92x25 (2 fans can be installed)
Scope of Delivery:
NF-B9 premium fan
Mounting-clips for 2 fans
Ultra-Low-Noise-Adapter (U.L.N.A.)
Low-Noise-Adapter (L.N.A.)
NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound
SecuFirm™ mounting kits for LGA & AM2(+)
Warranty: 6 Years
Fan specifications:
Model: Noctua NF-B9
Bearing: SSO-Bearing
Rotational Speed (+/- 10%): 1600 RPM
Rotational Speed with L.N.A. (+/- 10%): 1300 RPM
Rotational Speed with U.L.N.A. (+/- 10%): 1000 RPM
Airflow: 64,3 m³/h
Airflow with L.N.A.: 52,6 m³/h
Airflow with U.L.N.A.: 41,1 m³/h
Acoustical Noise: 17,6 dB(A)
Acoustical Noise with L.N.A.: 13,1 dB(A)
Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A.: 7,9* dB(A)
Input Power: 1,32 W
Voltage Range: 12 V
MTBF: > 150.000 h
A Better Look at Things
:
The box for the Noctua NH-U9B is the now familiar Noctua colors and styling, nicely done with lots of information all over it, and even a little window where you can see the fan.
Opening it up we find two boxes, well sort of two boxes, one cardboard cube shaped enclosure houses the fan and the NH-U9B itself, while the smaller box has all the accessories in it.
Noctua crammed a whole lot of stuff in that little box, we've got specific mounting hardware for most platforms, general mounting hardware, two sets of fan clips, NT-H1 thermal compound, low noise adapters and of course the installation manual.
The included fan is the NF-B9 92mm fan, a newly designed fan that performs very well. (you can read my full review of it HERE)
and here's the NH-U9B CPU cooler itself, we find the Noctua 'cyber-owl' logo on the top of the cooler, it works well if you have a window in your case as you can then easily see the logo.
The NH-U9B is very well made with eight or four heatpipes in it, it depends on how you count them. It's solidly made but yet feels lighter weight than it looks. The fins themselves are actually rigid and fairly thick, you won't have to worry about bending them or cutting yourself on them as with other coolers out there today. Here's are several shots of the NH-U9B cooler to give you a nice of this product:
The NH-U9B does not come with any mounts attached to it, you install the parts as needed to the coolers base plate. There are two holes on each side to be used for the installation of the correct parts.
The actual base appears to be flat, but not finished, machining lines can be plainly seen and you can feel them if you run your finger across the base. There is room for improvement in that respect.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
Before we get testing etc, here's the side-by-side comparison pictures of the NH-U9B and the NH-U9F CPU Coolers:
One glaring difference you can see is the copper base and copper heatpipes of the U9F, of course the U9B does have copper heatpipes and base but it's just nickel plated. Personally I like the raw copper color but that's just my preference. You can also see the Noctua branding is missing from the U9F on the top of the cooler, the U9F is also a bit taller and the last set of fins sit higher near the base, apart from those small differences they look very similar in design.
There's another difference as well, but it's not the CPU cooler itself, but the mounting system, specifically the backplate and the motherboard mounts themselves. In the following picture I have both sets of mounts, the right is from the original U9F while the left is the new revision, they are very similar with the major difference being the backplate now has a large padded surface making it compatible with more motherboards that have chips located on the back.
There is another small difference as well, the threads are reversed on the mounting system, the U9F has screws with threads that extend down and screw into the mounting brackets while the U9B has threads that are inside of the screw with thread posts on the mounts. This is also the set of parts that will be needed to mount the NH-U9B on my socket LGA775 motherboard.
The first thing you'll need to do is gather up the parts you'll need for your particular installation, then you'll need to mount the motherboard brackets. Simple to do, but you'll need to remove the mobo from the case to do this, I didn't have to as I modified my case for this particular reason, but normally you'll need to remove it from the case to install the brackets. I didn't find any clearance issues on my motherboard, the back mount easily cleared the capacitors with a few millimeters to spare.
Next step, or you can do first, is to attach the silicone vibration dampeners to the NH-U9B on one side or both, depending on how you'll be using the cooler.
Then you'll need to attach the appropriate mounts to the cooler itself, apply the thermal compound and seat the cooler onto your CPU. Once seated you can finish the installation with the spring loaded screws and attach the fan using the clips. I've got two of the Noctua NF-B9 92mm fans so of course I was able to mount both for my testing, the second fan was a bit harder to mount than the first due to clearance issues near the power supply but I got it attached.
I installed the NH-U9B on my Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX motherboard with an Intel C2D6420 CPU.
Below you're going to see two graphs, the first is temperature results using the included NT-H1 thermal compound, I tested the NH-U9B with no fan, with one fan connected to CPU header, straight to a Molex (full speed) and with both included adapters as well. I also tested the U9B with two fans attached to see if it made any difference.
Ambient room temperature during all testing was approximately 19C with a +/- .3C variant. To achieve load on the CPU I ran Orthos Stress Prime for several hours each day and used CoreTemp to record the results, the numbers in the graphs are the average of those results.
The second graph is the Noctua NH-U9B with Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal compound being used and is a comparison to all of the CPU coolers that I have on hand right now to see where it ranks in comparison. MX-2 was used because all of the other coolers used that compound as well for their testing.
Compared to the Intel stock cooler we can see some nice temperatures, even with no fan the U9B performs well. Oddly I noticed a slightly higher temperature while using two fans, only two degrees but still a difference…
Here we have a large graph we quite a few coolers compared:
We can see the NH-U9B ties with its bigger brother, the NH-U12P and the Thermalright Ultima90 as well.
Ok, now we've got to test this on a Quad Core CPU as well to round out the testing. Same base system just using my Q6600 quad core CPU. I used Orthos Stress Prime to get load on the CPU, running two instances of it with affinity set to two cores each instance.
Ok, here on the Quad Core we see good reults as well, even beating the ever popular TRUE CPU Cooler.
Seeing how small the NH-U9B is I was pleasantly surprised by the good performance of it, we can see also that even though it looks similar to the NH-U9F, the U9B has much better results, so something significant has changed during the re-design process.
I already reviewed the NF-B9 92mm fan a couple weeks ago, so it was no surprise to me that it is virtually silent even when running full speed.
Summary:
The name Noctua isn't a widely known brand, and it's a shame really, they make very good quality and excellent performing products. Once people start to realize that Noctua is just as good if not better in some instances, Noctua will become one of the more highly recognized names in the industry. Until that time though I'm happy knowing something others don't, that Noctua is just as good if not better than those common names out there, I know I've got an excellent product in my hand that performs well, is extremely well made and does well what it is supposed to do.
The NH-U9B is a quality addition to the Noctua line of CPU coolers, don't let its small size fool you, it performs just as good as coolers that are much larger than it.
The overall package of the NH-U9B is very well done with some nice extras, including Noctuas own NT-H1 thermal compound, a quality 92mm fan and even extra clips to mount another fan. The price of the NH-U9B is about $50 and I think it's well worth it, it's right in line with other high quality coolers on the market today.
The base of the NH-U9B is a bit rough and could use a nice lapping though, I do believe that once lapped a couple more degrees could be shaved off the load temperature.
DragonSteelMods gives the Noctua NH-U9B CPU Cooler a 5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Small size
-Good performance
-Easy to install
-Quiet
-Well made
-Lots of extras included
Cons:
-None really
I would like to thank Noctua for the chance to review the NH-U9B CPU Cooler and for their continued support of DSM.
review# 414