Review on Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4: Top-Tier CPU Cooler for AMD AM4 (Brown) by Joe Nieves

I bought this particular cooler for a new build with a Ryzen 2700X processor and an X370 motherboard. (Sorry for the bad photo quality). I already knew I wouldn't use the stock Wraith cooler that comes with the CPU, even though it's a decent cooler. I've bought 3 other Noctua coolers in the past (NH-D15S, NH-C14S) so I already knew that Noctua really works. While overclocking Ryzen before overclocking, I ran an AIDA64 stress test with all 8 cores at 4.1GHz on the 2700X and got around 70C with no stability issues. Not bad, not bad at all. Unlike many others, this cooler is also very easy to install. On this occasion I decided to try the new thermal compound Noctua NT-H2 and like NT-H1 it offers a great balance between performance and ease of use. (You can leave that really hard paste for the 1 degree Celsius you get. I've got better things to do than mess around with thermal paste.) For this application I bought a Chromax cover and settled on a Corsair ML120 PWM LED Fans instead of Noctua fans. Noctua fans are incredibly good, but I think they look awful. The ML120 also spins faster for added cooling, at the cost of added noise, of course. You can use 2 fans with this cooler, but I've never seen a test where the extra fan provided more than a degree or two of extra cooling, and a test where 2 fans actually reduced the cooling of the NH-12S quite a bit . (For the new NH-12A, yes, use 2 fans.) Aside from Noctua, I've used a number of other brands of air coolers in the past. I'm not sure what the secret of Noctua's coolers (probably heatpipes) is, but judging by their size, they seem to outperform all others. I saw an online test where the NH-U12S slightly outperformed some AIO water coolers. For this build I didn't want to pick the NH-D15S (it's huge) and I think this cooler is the best place to go and it looks great with the Chromax cover. In short, it's very hard to go wrong with this cooler. for excellent air cooling performance for AMD processors. Highly recommended.