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Trey Dikici photo
Norway, Oslo
1 Level
714 Review
54 Karma

Review on πŸ–₯️ Noctua NH-U12S Chromax.Black CPU Cooler - 120mm Single-Tower Cooler in Black by Trey Dikici

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Amazing replacement for the stock 3700X cooler

I had a Ryzen 7 3700X with the stock Wraith Prism cooler. It did the normal job. Most of the time my maximum runs were above 60 or below 70, with occasional spikes to 70 or even 80 during play. So the stock cooler worked well enough that I didn't overclock my CPU. But the smaller radiator fan made more noise than I would like, so I decided to try this air cooler. For a while I always admired Noctua products but never bought them because of the light brown colourway. When I saw this all black edition I decided it was worth a try. Being out of date didn't feel the need to go for a twin tower design and this NH-U12S has received some great reviews. It arrived today (FTW next day shipping!), literally the quickest and easiest cooler installation I've ever experienced (I've previously installed a total of 2 air coolers and 2 AIO coolers on previous systems). The AM4 boards required minimal hardware - two brackets, 4 standoffs and 4 screws. This was the case since it uses your existing backplate. I love that it comes with extra fan clips and rubber mounts to add a second fan if I want. But given the current temperatures I don't think it will be necessary. Now my system runs about 7-10 degrees cooler. The Cinebench R20 multi-core test clocked my temperatures at 68C (at around 25C ambient), which I think is pretty darn good, and even those infamous Ryzen CPU temp spikes only hit the very low 70s. I'm very pleased as I wasn't expecting a significant increase in performance - I just wish it was quieter. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to replace their stock cooler with a Ryzen 3000 chip.

Pros
  • Nice packaging
Cons
  • Sad hardware