Review on 🌬️ Noctua NH-U12A Premium CPU Cooler: High-Performance Silent Cooling Solution with NF-A12x25 PWM Fans (120mm, Brown) by Abdy Traini

When assembling the components for my recently built computer I thought of water cooling the I9 processor but decided to air cool first. Enter the Noctua NH-U12A and online reviews have shown that it was designed to offer better spacing compared to higher RAM DIMMs on the market. When I tested this cooler on an I9 installed on an ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme motherboard, I thought it would actually go well with some RAM DIMM slot overlap. Unfortunately, the front fan doesn't clear my DIMMs, but there is an interesting workaround. The way Noctua mounts these fans to the heatsink allows them to be mounted higher, and moving the fan up half an inch did the trick. Everything fits and runs quietly. The only downside was the brown fans and instead of replacing them I installed a Phanteks Lux RGB 120mm fan frame that plugs into the Aura port on the motherboard and computer case to provide an integrated look and feel hide brown fan. Cooling wise, I ran some overclocking stress tests on my system and the Noctua air cooler kept the CPU below 70 degrees Celsius while overclocking the CPU to 5GHz. Your results depend on the total airflow through your case. I use Phanteks Evolv X with closed glass doors and good airflow. One caveat: the NH-U12A is tall, and moving the front fan up can create space issues in a narrower computer case. This offset works great in Evolv X.