Be Quiet Vs Noctua Cpu Cooler

I know it's not a completely fair comparison as Noctua's model is more than expensive, while on the other mitt, BeQuiet'due south model is a dual tower blueprint, but still, it will be interesting to see how they stack upward against each other in this Noctua NH-U12A vs Be Tranquility Night Rock Pro iv face-off.

The new NH-U12A is basically a successor of its pop NH-U12S brother, and although at first glance they seem to be completely the same, they're not, since the NH-U12A has a thicker heatsink profile of the heat-sink and comes in with their new NF-A12x25 PWM 120 mm fans which were and so long in development, close 5 years, that they well-nigh became a myth in a manner. They are a real piece of engineering science art, the altitude between the inner function of the frame and the fan blade is only 0,5 mm, which is iii to half-dozen-time smaller than usual. Because of that they had to utilise, or create to be precise, a special material which they've called Sterrox, which is a novel liquid crystal polymer type of fabric. It brings in less wear of material and before all their stretching, as centrifugal forces, which are practical onto fan blades due to the spinning, end upward in stretching them over time, where they could rub of the frame if it were a classic ABS thermoplastic in question. Of course, besides getting them by buying this cooler, you can too buy them separately if you lot wish to for your chassis, they have your usual flavors, all of them being 120 mm in size equally of now.

Other than that, the NH-U12A has a pretty standard looking single tower-fashion estrus-sink design, counting fifty very nicely threaded aluminum fins and a total of vii nickel-plated 6 mm copper rut-pipes running through them in this densely looking pattern, seen from the top, too equally Noctua's engraved logo and this slight cut-out for easier access of the screwdriver. Of form, on the bottom, we're greeted by this very nicely polished, as well nickel-plated copper CPU base contact plate.

Noctua NH-U12A vs Be Placidity Night Rock Pro iv – the ultimate boxing

Taking a closer look at BeQuiet's Night Rock Pro 4 cooler, we have a completely blacked out dual belfry fin stack design, with a total of besides vii 6 mm copper heat-pipes running down through coolers heat-sink and taking you to the CPU libation base, which was not as polished out as Noctua's one. With information technology, you'll as well get two low RPM fans from their Silent Wings iii series, which I personally really like and they proved to be a smashing combination of performance and dissonance level, only what's interesting nigh them, in this case, is that you'll get two different sized ones, a 120 mm i squeezed between the towers and 135 mm one for the outer side.

The installation procedure for both coolers is basically every bit like shooting fish in a barrel as it can be, yous can practice it in less than five minutes. In this case, when it comes to Intel's 115x platform, that being a Core i5 8600K and ASRock's Z390 Phantom Gaming seven motherboard, you'll get a backplate with screw already on it, onto which you lot put the stand-off $.25, or y'all spiral them into the back-plate in example of the Dark Stone Pro 4 cooler, and on top of them, nosotros accept these ii plates which class a single frame line on each side. So you simply put the cooler on elevation of the CPU and secure it using the batten which screws onto those plates on each side.

Noctua NH-U12A vs Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4

When it comes to installing the coolers onto an AMD based motherboard, in my case that was the AM4 platform, Ryzen 7 3700X CPU and ASRock's X570 Creator model, exist certain to stick effectually and subscribe for that the review of that motherboard, basically, you merely need to pull the plastic parts off and rescue the stock back-plate, while everything is pretty straightforward installation wise as it was with Intel'south platform, with a utilise of different stand up-offs and frame plates from the coolers bundle box.

Overall I feel similar Noctua's libation is a bit easier to install, since information technology doesn't have that fixed metallic top-plate which complicates fans and especially the cooler installation, but you'll get a long screwdriver, with both models actually, so yous can reach the screws through the punched out height plate of the Dark Rock Pro 4, which besides has this cool caps that only screw on after you're done with the installation. This is mostly on a count of it being a dual tower design, so it's hard to compare them solely based on that, but another matter that Noctua has over it is that since it's a single tower cooler, the Noctua NH-U12A has better RAM clearance, for case, y'all can put the RAM kits after you install the heat-sink, which is something y'all tin't do with BeQuiet's cooler for the first two RAM slots if the RAM kit is simply a bit taller than a regular RAM kit model with no or minimal heat-spreader. Once yous put them in, their height is not that big of a problem, peculiarly in Noctua's instance, since you can accommodate information technology easily with moving the fan clips upward a bit. Speaking of those, it's much easier to put them back on Noctua'south model, while yous really demand to put some effort into putting the fans on, and particularly off with BeQuiet's fan clips, plus information technology'southward actually easy to scratch that black pigment-chore with them. Both of them clear infinite effectually the get-go PCI-express slots, but nowadays this kind of placement for the beginning PCI-express slot at the very top is condign a rare sight more and more, especially loftier-end motherboard, and then it'southward not that big of a concern.

Ryzen seven 3700X heating upwardly the Noctua NH-U12A & Exist Tranquillity Dark Stone Pro 4

Before I continue with the results, simply a few additional side-notes, with both coolers and CPU's I've used the Thermal Grizzly'south Kryonaut thermal paste so I can accept a more consistent comparison, rather than using their ain bundled paste. Also, you lot'll hear me referring to a temperature span, instead of a one specific number when talking about the CPU temperature results which I got here, and that's considering the CPU temperatures always move up and down few degrees, especially if yous take a temperature insight to every single-core, fifty-fifty when they taper off, as information technology just tin't be a fixed value over a certain time period, or at all, it's always moving about, even in idle, but I think you're all pretty much familiar with this notion.

Since the fan speed tin vary depending on the fan contour within the motherboards BIOS, I've decided to use the same motherboard manufacturer, both for Intel's and AMD's platform, that being ASRock as you've already seen by now, so those fan profiles tin can have a consistent configuration. I've used two of those, i was their so-called "Standard" fan profile, and the other ane was the full speed fan contour, and that second one I only used inside the overclocking environment, because you're not going to employ it at stock settings, there's no point, and I did that simply to see by how much it tin can lower downwards the temperature, which is the reason why I'1000 talking about the fan speed and noise first, before talking virtually the actual CPU temperatures, as it has a direct connection to it. Of course, the all-time matter you can practice is to set up a manual fan curve, see what suits your case the all-time, because there are a bunch of different factors which vary from setup to setup and which can affect the cooling capabilities, starting from the CPU itself to the chassis airflow. I've used the Y fan splitter to connect the fans onto one CPU fan header on the motherboard, just so I have the fans reacting at the same fourth dimension according to the signal change and with that a more consistent testing ground so to speak, and of course you wish also you can separate them for more fine control, only fifty-fifty if I would split them, they would react the same as I've used the same fan profiles unless I've used unlike fan profiles or a manual fan curve between them.

Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4 vs Noctua NH-U12A

In the case of BeQuiet'southward Silent Wings 3 fans, under that ASRock'due south standard fan contour and CPU idling, I was seeing them running at 600 RPM, while Noctua's fans were running at around 800 RPM's. Under stock load that was around 1100 RPM for Be Quiet Night Rock Pro 4 and around 1200 RPM for NH-U12A. They also or to be precise ASRock'southward motherboards fan profile, kept that aforementioned fan speed fifty-fifty when I through some overclocking settings at them. Of class, there'south is a divergence between them in speed since they have different maximal RPM. For example, the Noctua's ones run at effectually 2100 RPM at full speed, while the BeQuiet's ones top out at merely a chip below1900 RPM. And while the RPM readout in the HWMonitor for Noctua's fans was as decelerated by their specifications when you lot count in the tolerances, the BeQuiet'due south was off, but I presume that's due to them being connected to a unmarried fan header using the Y splitter while having different maximal fan speed specifications at 12V, which is 1200 RPM for the larger 135 mm fan and 1500 RPM for the smaller 120 mm fan. With that said, you could probably extrapolate their exact fan speed based on the maximal fan speed readout from the how monitors and knowing their specifications, just in the end the noise which they produce talks for itself.

Of course, in the end, Noctua's i was much louder than BeQuiet's at full speed, because of the difference in maximal fan speed. But, in a manner, this doesn't matter since you lot won't use them like that, at their total speed that is, while they were both whisper-quiet under stock load. Here's an audio example for each of those cases, while also showing y'all a sound meter for measurement comparison.

Again, all of this is not set in stone, you can and you lot should adapt your fan speed manually in motherboards BIOS or some-kind of utility software, and set-up a fan curve that suits scenario the best, depending on what you would similar to achieve noise and performance-wise, and of class your CPU and chassis setup.

Be Quiet Night Rock Pro 4 vs Noctua NH-U12A – Brown tower wins with power (but plenty)

Finally, coming down to the functioning side of things, checking out the temperatures of Intel CPU under load, in that location's actually nothing too exacting happening here. The i5 8600K isn't a TDP monster, information technology's a 6-core not-hyperthread CPU subsequently all, even with all its cores winded to 1,3V core voltage and v,ane GHz of clock speed in my overclocking scenario, it was staying squeamish and absurd, below lxx°C in both cases. Here the difference in performance betwixt them is virtually negligible, but it does get in favor of the Noctua on average by a degree or two. The same goes for the stock load performance, Noctua was basically below the 50°C marker for the whole time, while BeQuiet's cooler was roaming around that marking, few digress above, few degrees beneath. Every bit for the idle temperature in botch cases information technology was below 30°C, and basically there'south nothing to compare since Intel's power-saving engineering science tapers off everything to a pretty much same level.

Crossing over to AMD'southward pretty beefy eight-core, sixteen-thread Ryzen seven 3700X CPU, things get a bit more interesting as now we can really check out the full potential of both coolers every bit they try to drain as much heat possible from this CPU. Here nosotros can run into the difference in cooling capabilities of each model a flake clearer, specially since AMD rounds up the CPU temperature in one package. At stock load, the NH-U12A was again handling information technology few degrees better, mostly effectually 82 to 84°C, with a elevation of 93°C, which was probably an anomaly because it was manner below that bulk of the fourth dimension. The Dark Rock Pro 4 peaked at 88°C, while it was steadily roaming around 84 to 86°C.

In the case of overclocking this CPU, I've managed to get stable 4250 MHz beyond all cores, at just a fleck below one,4V for the core voltage, which was roughly 0,05V more what you come across with the stock settings. This, of course, introduced some other stress level for the coolers, which again Noctua'due south model handled better as y'all can see information technology here. It managed to keep it at effectually 90°C, with the height being at 92°C, while BeQuiet'due south model peaked at 96°C, and was roaming around 92 to 94°C. Again, the idle temperature at stock settings was pretty much spot on in both cases, as AMD besides has information technology's own power-saving features which brings that downwardly to a similar level.

With both of them blasting at full fan speed and with CPU'south being overclocked, in the case of Core i5 8600K, the temperature went down by about 3-v°C with both coolers, while in instance of Ryzen seven 3700X, with the Dark Rock Pro 4 I saw roughly the same temperature drop, while with the NH-U12A it was piffling bit less pronounced, ii or three degrees on boilerplate.

Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4 price — **Check Toll**

When you sum all of this up, both of these coolers are excellent and basically one of the tiptop choices when it comes to air CPU coolers. Of course, each of them has its own quirks, but they will provide y'all with the all-time of both worlds, being it cooling or noise-wise, lesser line yous can't become wrong with either of them. Dark Rock Pro four is maybe a scrap more than bonny since it will cost you less, plus I presume that nigh of you will like its dark mat look over NH-U12A. On the other hand, for such a relatively small package, compared to the BeQuiet'south Dark Rock Pro four model, Noctua really made a capable cooling solution, as they pretty much always do, merely then again, information technology will costs you a pretty penny more, so you'll have to counterbalance in on that too once information technology comes to determination fourth dimension.

That'south it for this fourth dimension, I hope this Noctua NH-U12A vs Be Repose Dark Stone Pro 4 comparison assist you lot in making your final conclusion, if you accept any question feel free to hit me in the comments section of my YouTube video listed above, you tin can contact me via my social media channels!