Thoughts on Noctua NH-U9S?

[8BitZ80]

I'm doing an overhaul of my cooling solutions on my main rig (AM4 Asus B550-F in an Antec Three Hundred U3 case).

Previously I was running a Hyper 212X with the fan exhausting upwards on my Z97 board with great success. Thermals were excellent and I liked that configuration, even though it overlapped the first memory slot.

My goal is to do the same upward-exhausting tower cooler configuration on my AM4 system and was looking at the narrower Noctua NH-U9S. Seems like it has a nice solid mounting system, it's under 100mm in width, and even though it sacrifices overall fan diameter (from 120mm to 92mm) I don't really care about losing out on some cooling capacity in that regard.

Maybe other users know some other good options as well. Water coolers NOT an option. I'm estimating I'd need 120mm or less in overall width to clear the A2 ram slot (necessary), and 100mm or less to clear the A1 ram slot (preferable).

 

[basco]

first i must say i like noctua very much so that's that.
and with both nh-u9s or the nh-d9l you get füll ram compatibility + orientation + good paste and some low noise adapters and yes it costs little more

 

[tabascosauz]

These 92mm Noctua towers are highly revered in the SFF space, where space for an air cooler is highly restrictive and they perform very admirably for their size. But outside of a case with only 125mm of CPU clearance, there's not a lot of reason to go that small when you have the CPU cooler height clearance to spare, especially because coolers like the U12S exist with similarly excellent RAM clearance.

Ripjaws doesn't have a very tall heatspreader.

As far as I can tell, the Three Hundred U3 supports anything up to a Dark Rock Pro 4, so any air cooler ever, really. Plenty of slim 120mm options available like the U12S, U12A, Dark Rock Slim, etc. The U12S and U12A, like the U9S, also have an offset design on the RAM side for maximum RAM compatibility. The D9L cannot have a dual fan configuration with push fans that doesn't interfere with RAM; it can only have 2 x pull fans. Not that it matters, since the U9S outperforms the D9L regardless of how many fans they both have.

And why do you need to have the U9S in a vertical configuration? I used a dual fan D9L on my 4790K like that for some time and it provided literally no advantage because it's still taking air directly from the back of the GPU. I have both the U9S and D9L, and there hasn't been any reason to orient either cooler vertically. You can run the cooler normally and still have a top exhaust fan in addition to the rear exhaust fan to aid in exhausting air from the case, and abundant case air intake will also help your thermals immensely.

Neither the D9L nor U9S present RAM compatibility issues regardless of which orientation you prefer, because they can only be so big as a 92mm tower.

As for performance, expect to approach / match 212 EVO performance with dual fans. These are excellent 92mm towers, but at the end of the day, still 92mm towers. A 12-core 3900X won't be thermal throttling and its lifespan won't be in jeopardy, but don't expect temperatures to be "comfortable". Anything 3700X and below either the U9S or D9L will handle easily. As for Intel, stock 10600K and 10700 will work.

 

[Vya Domus]

Indeed whether it's vertical of horizontal, it's not going to make any discernible difference.

 

[londiste]

But outside of a case with only 125mm of CPU clearance, there's not a lot of reason to go that small when you have the CPU cooler height clearance to spare, especially because coolers like the U12S exist with similarly excellent RAM clearance.

While not generally that important, NH-U9S also fits inside the socket area, so complete motherboard clearance is pretty much guaranteed.

 

[8BitZ80]

These 92mm Noctua towers are highly revered in the SFF space, where space for an air cooler is highly restrictive and they perform very admirably for their size. But outside of a case with only 125mm of CPU clearance, there's not a lot of reason to go that small when you have the CPU cooler height clearance to spare, especially because coolers like the U12S exist with similarly excellent RAM clearance.

Ripjaws doesn't have a very tall heatspreader.

As far as I can tell, the Three Hundred U3 supports anything up to a Dark Rock Pro 4, so any air cooler ever, really. Plenty of slim 120mm options available like the U12S, U12A, Dark Rock Slim, etc. The U12S and U12A, like the U9S, also have an offset design on the RAM side for maximum RAM compatibility. The D9L cannot have a dual fan configuration with push fans that doesn't interfere with RAM; it can only have 2 x pull fans. Not that it matters, since the U9S outperforms the D9L regardless of how many fans they both have.

And why do you need to have the U9S in a vertical configuration? I used a dual fan D9L on my 4790K like that for some time and it provided literally no advantage because it's still taking air directly from the back of the GPU. I have both the U9S and D9L, and there hasn't been any reason to orient either cooler vertically. You can run the cooler normally and still have a top exhaust fan in addition to the rear exhaust fan to aid in exhausting air from the case, and abundant case air intake will also help your thermals immensely.

Neither the D9L nor U9S present RAM compatibility issues regardless of which orientation you prefer, because they can only be so big as a 92mm tower.

As for performance, expect to approach / match 212 EVO performance with dual fans. These are excellent 92mm towers, but at the end of the day, still 92mm towers. A 12-core 3900X won't be thermal throttling and its lifespan won't be in jeopardy, but don't expect temperatures to be "comfortable". Anything 3700X and below either the U9S or D9L will handle easily. As for Intel, stock 10600K and 10700 will work.

Indeed whether it's vertical of horizontal, it's not going to make any discernible difference.

It's not strictly necessary to have a top-exhaust setup.

I used to have a rear-exhaust setup with my Hyper 212X and it worked just fine, but when I rotated it and went to top-exhaust my idle temperatures dropped by around 5C. Whether it violates unspoken rules or not, it's just a more efficient cooling setup.

I'm still not against the idea of a 120mm cooler in the normal rear-exhaust orientation for better packaging, but it's just a bit less efficient in the exhaust airflow.

 

[Vya Domus]

Whether it violates unspoken rules or not, it's just a more efficient cooling setup.

It sounds as if it would be more efficient but the air gets dispersed more or less in the same way.

 

[tabascosauz]

It's not strictly necessary to have a top-exhaust setup.

I used to have a rear-exhaust setup with my Hyper 212X and it worked just fine, but when I rotated it and went to top-exhaust my idle temperatures dropped by around 5C. Whether it violates unspoken rules or not, it's just a more efficient cooling setup.

I'm still not against the idea of a 120mm cooler in the normal rear-exhaust orientation for better packaging, but it's just a bit less efficient in the exhaust airflow.

There could be a lot of reasons behind that 5C drop, but I don't doubt you did experience something of that sort. I just think that you don't necessarily have to have the cooler in a vertical orientation to reap the benefits (potentially lower VRM / board / RAM / case temps) of top exhaust.

It's the exhaust fan at the top of the case that's doing all the work there. If you haven't had more airy cases like the M1, NR200 or Cerberus, you might be surprised to find just how much difference just a vented vs. solid top panel can make for VRM, RAM and case temperatures. That's even without exhaust fans at the top of the case, just relying on the air going where it wants. When you game, the hot air coming out of your 1060 naturally collects in the top of your case; it doesn't need the CPU cooler to help move it there, and it doesn't do the CPU any favours either to be sucking all the heat directly off the back of the GPU.

In [somewhat] the same way, it's useless to have a large air cooler oriented conventionally (front to back) without a strong enough exhaust fan as rear exhaust (or, as some people have it, no fan at all *shudder*). When I was running a dual-fan U9S on my 3700X in the M1, I had a choice between having a single fan U9S and one NF-A9 mounted to the case as exhaust, or running a push-pull U9S with no case exhaust. In the end, the single-fan U9S performed just 1 degree worse on CPU temps, but the NF-A9 as rear case exhaust greatly benefited VRM, RAM and general case temps.

 

[8BitZ80]

It sounds as if it would be more efficient but the air gets dispersed more or less in the same way.

I guess I notice more of a difference because I'm normally running my fans at very low rpms (< 500). That, plus I only have my CPU and single exhaust fan are running at idle, everything else is on auto stop at lower temperatures.

There's a bit more to the story too. The Three Hundred U3 case only has a 120mm fan mount on the rear but has a 140mm mount for the top. The rear exhaust fan location is also located two inches down from the top, so it leaves a big pocket of hot air in the top of the case. So not only does the top-mount configuration move more air volume, but it's also removing the stagnant hot air from around the CPU area. I'd imagine that's why I saw a big temperature drop when I went to top-exhaust.

There could be a lot of reasons behind that 5C drop, but I don't doubt you did experience something of that sort. I just think that you don't necessarily have to have the cooler in a vertical orientation to reap the benefits (potentially lower VRM / board / RAM / case temps) of top exhaust.

It's the exhaust fan at the top of the case that's doing all the work there. If you haven't had more airy cases like the M1, NR200 or Cerberus, you might be surprised to find just how much difference just a vented vs. solid top panel can make for VRM, RAM and case temperatures. That's even without exhaust fans at the top of the case, just relying on the air going where it wants. When you game, the hot air coming out of your 1060 naturally collects in the top of your case; it doesn't need the CPU cooler to help move it there, and it doesn't do the CPU any favours either to be sucking all the heat directly off the back of the GPU.

In [somewhat] the same way, it's useless to have a large air cooler oriented conventionally (front to back) without a strong enough exhaust fan as rear exhaust (or, as some people have it, no fan at all *shudder*). When I was running a dual-fan U9S on my 3700X in the M1, I had a choice between having a single fan U9S and one NF-A9 mounted to the case as exhaust, or running a push-pull U9S with no case exhaust. In the end, the single-fan U9S performed just 1 degree worse on CPU temps, but the NF-A9 as rear case exhaust greatly benefited VRM, RAM and general case temps.

That's one of the interesting things I noticed about the NH-U9S reviews, adding a pull fan barely dropped temperatures. Works for me because I like a single CPU and single exhaust fan setup. People would normally go "oh BUT you need intake fans running to get positive pressure to keep dust out". But I'm running very low rpm and plenty of dust filters, so I never have an issue. Intake is great but often it's the exhaust that makes the bigger difference and is easier to get wrong.

Edit: My Hyper 212X had a pull-only fan config. I can't remember why I went with that instead of a push-only, but it seemed to do a good job in getting the hot air from the CPU straight out via the exhaust fan.