Workstations are  the workhorses of all major studio's and the SoHo user.  These beast are big powerful and sometimes can make huge amounts of noise.  In most areas the primary culprit is that of the CPU coolers.  There are many choices we can make to try and cut back on the acoustics like lowering the intake and exhaust fans to slower swiping blades or, switch out the actual cooler that has come supplied with the system.   But the hiccup is that not many makers build socket 771 HSF so choices are very limited in this arena and it is a very specialised market.   There are a few which have been around for some time, like Akasa who make a superb range of 771 HSF's, Thermalright and last but not least Supermicro.  Another company who have for years produced their own variants which are exceptional in build quality and performance.

When a new company enters into the affray of this market it does make many professionals sit up and take notice to see just how good they really are.   Today's outing sees the recently announced NOCTUA NH-U12DX socket 771 HSF solution and this solution really does come with a whole load of choice.

Noctua have now certainly taken a stance within the industry as being a supplier of high end cooling solutions and specialised intake and exhaust coolers.   With the help of their PR lets see a little bit about them.

Noctua arises from a cooperation between the Austrian Rascom Computerdistribution Ges.m.b.H and the Taiwanese Kolink International Corporation and entertains a development partnership with the Austrian Institute of Heat Transmission and Fan Technology (Österreichisches Institut für Wärmeübertragung und Ventilatorentechnik, ÖIWV). These connections form the key to the achievement of our goal: The partnership with the ÖIWV permits the application of scientific measurement instrumentation, methods of calculation and simulation technology in the R&D process. Rascom's long, customer-oriented experience in developing and distributing sound-optimised high-end products ensures a clear focus on the users' needs. The use of Kolink's advanced manufacturing technology and ultra-modern production plants allows us to efficiently implement our technical edge and provide solutions of the highest standard in quality and performance.

Based on Noctua's signature NH-U12 series and fitted with the award-winning NF-P12 fan and NT-H1 thermal compound, the NH-U12DX forms a complete premium quality package that provides outstanding quiet cooling performance for Intel Xeon workstations and servers. The new SecuFirm2™ mounting system for socket 771 is highly convenient and makes the NH-U12DX a tailor-made drop-in replacement for standard Intel coolers. To make your Xeon systems quieter has never been so easy!

There has been a bit of fuss online recently on just how good their coolers really are so we decided in our true investigative nature to see what it was all about.  After a few prompt and friendly e-mails the products arrived.    Surprised we were at the fine quality of packaging supporting these very expensive parts.  One of today's biggest let downs when ordering is to find your rather expensive purchase arrive and the packaging has not survived the transit to you.  Not so in this case as these items are extremely well secured and in a solid constructed box.  Plain and simple - but effective as we see below.

On opening the neat plain box we find an array of parts which finally find the actual product.   Though a full list of what's in the box is as follows;

·         1x NH-U12DX Heatsink
·         1x NF-P12 fan
·         Mounting-clips for 2 fans
·         Ultra-Low-Noise-Adaptor (U.L.N.A.)
·         NT-H1 thermal compound
·         SecuFirm2™ mounting kits for 771/604

With the basic introduction completed lets move onwards to some more pictures of this awesome piece of equipment

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - Pictures
Page 3 - Putting it all together
Page 4 - Tests and Conclusions