Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler Review

 

Unboxing

 

The Noctua NH-U12S cooler comes in a familiar looking box, it’s the brown and white colors common to Noctua products. The box has specs and features listed on it as you might expect.

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The packaging for the NH-U12S is a bit different from other Noctua coolers I’ve reviewed before. When you open the box you’re greeted with three smaller boxes that are nicely labeled as to their contents.

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The long thin box is labeled accessories and in it you’ll find a screwdriver, NT-H1 thermal compound, extra fan brackets so you can add a second fan, a low-noise adapter and silicone corners for that second fan if it doesn’t already have them.

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Included in the box are also vibration dampening silicone strips and an attractive Noctua case badge.

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The second box is labeled SecuFirm2 Mounting System AMD.

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Inside of the box you’ll find mounting instructions, brackets and the rest of the hardware required for installation.

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The last box is labeled SecuFirm2 Mounting System Intel, and it’s for mounting the cooler to an Intel CPU based system.

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Inside of the box you’ll find brackets, back plate, bag of mounting hardware and instructions, all for the various Intel sockets. This is the set I’ll be using for my installation of the NH-U12S cooler, on my Intel 1155 Core i7 2600K CPU.

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The back plate is labeled for 115X sockets. The back plate is a rather thick heavy metal with four threaded posted coming from it.

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