Which Noctua CPU cooler to buy?

[deathjester]

@DavePC @Samdb @TheProfosist  @Blade of Grass @Hazy125 @Analog

I could use some input here. I'm having trouble explaining the Tcase spec to @deathjester or I might be having some misunderstandings myself.

 

Well if you find someone to agree that even close to 72.5 C is good on a Haswell on light load? I will be amazed. Most people like to downclock their chip in the summer to get it under 70 renders. People even refer to it as the "summer overclock". I think that is a little conservative, and have no problem being near 72.5, but damn man. Just let this go. You saw the screenshots people posted in other threads with 30 C light load temps. That is just how Haswell works my friend. They use like .016-.5 volts outside of heavy loads at times.

 

People push their chip too far and people get convinced that other people pushing their chip to far makes it "safe". It isn't. Oh the chip might last a couple years at 80-90 rendering and game/streaming, but they aren't lasting a LONG time. For people that upgrade every couple years? Go for it. For people who see that an OC sandy = as good as anything out? Keeping the temps in line has saved them two upgrades. I see nothing coming in the next two series that would make me want to upgrade from a 4.5ghz 4770k at good temps. I would rather spend my money on video card upgrades the next two series, where I can actually see a difference in performance.

 

When an Intel person says, blah blah 80-90's is fine for "normal use", they mean it MIGHT last until the warranty is up, and they don't really care since most people don't OC and just buy a new series chip and a new series Intel chipset motherboard (CHA CHING x2) in a couple years, and most people don't bother with the warranty anyways. It isn't because Haswell can be run super hot compared to previous chips. They want your chip to break. They didn't put solder on the chips, cus they could care less. They make no money from people who OC'd their sandy's who are still rocking Haswell plus FPS in games. They don't want previous gen beating new gen in performance tests, and they don't want a first gen chip beating a 3rd,4th,5th gen die shrinks in benchmarks.

 

The only chips they still solder under the lid is the 2011 chips. If you are paying the premium for that chipset and chip? They let it pass. These companies aren't your buddies, they are out to make a profit. Someone staying on Sandy for 10 years doesn't make them a dime and makes their "advancements" look absurd.to the average enthusiast who could care less about his electric bill being a few cents less every month.

[WoodenMarker]

@deathjester

I never said it was good. I simply explained what the spec meant.

[atrash]

Geez, both of you should just bring the discussion in the PM. OP only wanted suggestions for which Noctua heatsink to choose, not this arguing. <_<

 

I personally am using NH-D14. It is definitely a big heatsink and the best performing among them all. But the NH-U14 is not bad of a heatsink itself. Techpowerup review

 

NH-U14 is a bit taller and wider than NH-D14 but it has much less depth so RAM compatibility shouldn't be a problem. NH-U12 is even smaller if you have limited space

[deathjester]

Geez, both of you should just bring the discussion in the PM. OP only wanted suggestions for which Noctua heatsink to choose, not this arguing. <_<

 

I personally am using NH-D14. It is definitely a big heatsink and the best performing among them all. But the NH-U14 is not bad of a heatsink itself. Techpowerup review

 

NH-U14 is a bit taller and wider than NH-D14 but it has much less depth so RAM compatibility shouldn't be a problem. NH-U12 is even smaller if you have limited space

 

Fantastic benchmark. They showed a 20 C swing on a evo 212 120mm single fan cooler and a 120mm noctua cooler that has a fan pushing slightly less air.

 

I suggest techpower up stops breaking heat pipes on the evo before tests, and or stops using toothpaste as thermal grease and making sure the evo's fan is spinning next time.

 

My temps on a 4770k at 4.5 are lower then that Sandy on prime on the evo...

 

That has got to be the most laughable benchmark I have ever seen. Who the hell is "crazyeyereaper". Is this just some random dude on the internet who conducted this test?

 

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/18/noctua_nhu12s_amd_intel_cpu_air_cooler/4#.UrerpfRDu30

 

Oh look! Someone conducted a test that wasn't a random internet person. It performs *shocker* about the same as any 120mm single tower fan. It is just overpriced at a 3 to 1 ratio. Good thing the evo 212 wasn't on this test. Would have looked REALLY bad if a 30 dollar air cooler beat out Noctua.

 

For the record? The NH-d14 is still fantastic. I recommended it earlier in the thread. Their other coolers are overpriced and average at best.

 

Internet benchmarks. Got to love em. I can show you one where the evo beats out a NH D-14 as well. It is about as believable as the "benchmark" you posted.

 

If the op wants to spend 60-70 bucks for a single fan one tower cooler. Have fun with that. Enjoy it being louder then a evo with 2 cheap fans.

[TheProfosist]

@DavePC @Samdb @TheProfosist @Blade of Grass @Hazy125 @Analog

I could use some input here. I'm having trouble explaining the Tcase spec to @deathjester or I might be having some misunderstandings myself.

ok just realized i was tagged in this cause someone told me was I was. I normally go off emails I get so was I supposed to get a email?

Anything specific you want me to answer right away otherwise ill quick read over the thread and get a proper reply.

[TheProfosist]

Well I found the issue, I was set to be sent email notifications about everything except that...

[Bramm17]

I had the NH-C14 before and all I can say it was a very good cooler. Good temps and good sound and it provided nice airflow over all the VRM and memory as well

[TheProfosist]

So im having trouble finding when the Tcase temp popped up in this convo or really what specifically its referencing. Just going off the name it would mean the temp of the case. Ill just assume its the CPU at this point since pc cases dont usually have temp sensors.

If thats the temp your getting say in coretemp from you CPU under load its something I would personally would be ok with. Much higher though and your going to run into longevity issues possibly if your running your system hard often. I used to do this until I had my recent run with PC issues I would have my PC running sometimes a whole day at full load filter and encoding whatever I happened to be working on. Now say if your system is hitting 80C under say prime but all youll be doing is gaming you should be good since most games dont tax the CPU enough to generate heat like that.

I have in another thread recommended someone buy a NH-U12S or NH-U14S instead of buying a 212 then adding Nocuta fans. This is because it would be cheaper, likely preform better, and the noctua heasink is just built and designed better. Think of it as buying a cheap cordless drill tool only then some aftermarket better batteries or just buying the better drill that comes with the better batteries. I know this analogy isnt 100% exact but it should still get my idea across. Of all the heatsinks I have put in over the years Noctua has to have some of the best designed and quality built ones. I put one in a ivy bridge based server I was building for someone and it was quiet and kept everything cool with no issue. I have actually recently purchased the NH-U14S for my HTPC/Server with a second NF-A15 PWM fan. It is a X79 system and the board has all 8 ram slots and with both fan on it doesnt interfere with any of them. I have yet to stress the system yet but I expect it to handle the load of a i7-3820 perfectly fine. I do have two gripes with it though the NF-A15 PWM fan that comes with the heatsink is actually 1500rpm not 1200rpm like the one you buy separately so to control them via PWM properly I had to put them on two different headers. This was noted in the manual but it should also at least be on the website. The other gripe I have is I could not get the taller set of anti vibration pads to work because once on the wires would not reach the heatsink even after applying considerable force. Since they were only to reduce noise and the standard pads that came on the fan worked fine with the wires I just didnt use them. I ended up using the NH-U14S because the NH-D14 SE2011 would not fit even with only the fan in the middle. This is because the NH-D14 is not centered. Even if it was it would have went a touch into the closest ram slots by I think 2mm but this would have work for me since I only had one set of ram and the outer pair of slots are the first ones to use on my board and on many ASUS boards. I think Noctua should really do that slight re-engineer the NHD14 so that it fit perfect on a x79 board with just the center fan in (center it and cut off a couple mm) and while theyre at it update the fan is comes with to the NF-A15 PWM.

On a side note I recently built a haswell build with(for) a friend with a 4670K. Its not OCed yet but the idle and light use temps with a H110 and 2x Noctua NF-A14 PWM's are in the low 20's© and the fans are somewhere between 300-400rpm (had to lower the fan fail warning a bit ). Well see what this translates to idle after OC but I havnt see idle temps that low I think ever?

[TheProfosist]

I had the NH-C14 before and all I can say it was a very good cooler. Good temps and good sound and it provided nice airflow over all the VRM and memory as well

Why did you decide to go with a downflow CPU cooler if I may ask?

[Analog]

That's the point. You're not supposed to go over 72.5c at a light load. It's not an optimal temp but one that you should stay away from. It looks like you assumed incorrectly about what the 72.5c on the spec sheet meant and are just sticking to your guns anyway. 

 

 

Why do you want to dig yourself deeper lol. If you were light load at 70C? You would be screwed on haswell. At 65C. At 60C. You would be just as screwed. If you are on air with those temps (air idles lower then water) you are super screwed. You obviously don't have a Haswell and have no idea how they handle light loads. Go back to selling Noctua fans. You were better at that. You can even point them to Linus videos showing how awesome they are. Hell, half the people on this forum probably have a noctua fan and will support you in that.

 

Anyone who has a Haswell and sees your post is like...uh what? Just tell people you got Fahrenheit and Celsius screwed up. That is about the only place you h ave left to go with this insane idea about 72.5C and low workload on a Haswell. Latop I7's run in the 80's and 90's. Guess what. They don't last if people game on them. They break. They render in the high 90's. If you render on a i7 laptop? Welp, it ain't lasting long.

 

You want to advise people that even close to 70C is fine on low load temps on Haswell? Sorry, I am going to be there to tell them you are simply insane.  Haswell light load and load temps are like 45 C apart on air which would put you at throttling even at 60C which is 12 degrees lower then what you think 72.5C means. On water idle and load temps are closer, because water idle temps aren't great. Might surprise you but I would be most of the people here? Are on air.

 

Sorry guys, but I red these posts over and over and I just can't understand why are you arguing. T-Case temp is like an artificial threshold, which one is not supposed to pass when for example the computer is idling or is under light use. If you have extremely light use and your processor temperature is still above 70C that means that there is something wrong.

 

Just a heads up, Air does not idle... processor cooled with an air heat sink idles. However it is exactly the same if you have your CPU cooled by an air heat sink or an AIO cooler. For example if you keep the room temperature constant, the surface area of both heat sinks, use the same fans, etc, the idle temps will be the same. So basically you are stating things, which are just not true mate.

 

Gaming laptops have higher TDP so they are designed to withstand higher temps. I still have an old Asus G51JX gaming laptop which is already 4 years old and still works flawlessly. The GTX 360M in it goes up to 93C when gaming.  The reason why laptops die is because the manufacturers use cheap thermal compound, which dries up with the time. If you change your thermal compound with something like the MX-4 and clean the laptop from the inside you should be fine.

 

Just some final thoughts here. Haswell processors are hot, especially when overclocked, that's the truth. The idle temps vary on the heat sink, which is being used. Those 72C are probably rated when the processor is used with the stock Intel heat sink, which is not eve close in terms of performance to any decent aftermarket one. If one is using a decent heat sink, no matter if it is an AIO or an air cooler the idle temps will be pretty much the same.

[TheProfosist]

@Analog So this was about 70C+ degree idle temps? But I agree with you if I saw that even with a stock cooler I would probably start looking for the issue thats causing that.

[WoodenMarker]

@TheProfosist 

Thanks for the input. What I was looking for was some confirmation on what the Tcase spec meant. @Analog did that with better wording than I had. I had referenced a quote from an Intel employee from the Intel forums explaining Tcase and it seemed @deathjester thought I meant that 72.5c is an alright or average temp when I meant that it was a temp that you shouldn't be going over at idle or low loads.

[TheProfosist]

@TheProfosist

Thanks for the input. What I was looking for was some confirmation on what the Tcase spec meant. @Analog did that with better wording than I had. I had referenced a quote from an Intel employee from the Intel forums explaining Tcase and it seemed @deathjester thought I meant that 72.5c is an alright or average temp when I meant that it was a temp that you shouldn't be going over at idle or low loads.

They actually specify this stuff now?

Sorry im just remembering when I was starting out and I was gauging it I did the thermal paste right and then if it had "set". I had far less back then than now and after a couple pcs you just get to know where temps should be with what your using.

Haswell did throw me for a loop though with those super low idle temps. Also even not ocd it has somewhat significantly higher load temps than ivy and sandy. First time with haswell was also first build using ic diamond 24 so that probably didnt help. Man did that stuff set though.

[Bramm17]

Why did you decide to go with a downflow CPU cooler if I may ask?

 

Yes indeed downflow.. 

[TheProfosist]

Yes indeed downflow..

? no i was asking why you went with one for your build.

[Bramm17]

? no i was asking why you went with one for your build.

 

Oh sorry I misunderstood your question! (English not native language).. But for my current build I went with a CM Seidon 240m (see build log in signature)... Its now in the box waiting for my second media PC I am planning to build !

[Tadas]

Would Noctua NH-D14 fit in a Cooler Master K350?