A Closer Look

The heatsink unit of the NH-U12P is a typical tower design with aluminum fins. These fins are coated in a material to reduce fingerprints and marks on them. At first it may not be noticeable, but if examined closely there may be some small bubbles along the edges. This coating should not have any adverse effects on the cooling, so it is nice to see Noctua going an extra step to make sure the heatsink stays nice-looking.


Helping to move the heat away from the CPU are four U-shaped copper heatpipes which are nickel plated. The heatpipes are staggered to spread out the heat as it reaches the fins, and the Noctua logo is prominantly stamped into the fin material.


The base is also made out of nickel-plated copper and has two parts which sandwich the heatpipes in-between. Both the upper and lower sections have grooves in them for the heatpipes, which means even more contact and heat transfer. The base plate has a nice finish on it, but it is not flat. The picture above clearly shows the base is convex in nature and thicker near the center. However, with many CPUs having integrated heatspreaders on them, they are often not flat either. Later we will see if this has any impact when installed in the system.