Noctua NH-U12A Overview
The NH-U12A is a single tower-style cooler as a mentioned earlier. So you have a single heatsink stack, which is not all that large, especially since the heatsink is made for 120 mm fans. The official dimensions of the cooler with the two fans installed is 158 mm x 125 mm x 112 mm (HxWxD) and weighs in at 1220 g.
Starting at the front of the cooler you have Noctua’s own NF-A12x25 fan. This 120 mm fan runs at speeds up to 2000 RPM with an airflow of 102.1 m³/h, static pressure of 2.34 mm H₂O, and noise level of 22.6 dBA. The fan also features Noctua’s Advanced Acoustic Optimisation (AAO) frame, flow acceleration channels, and an SSO2 bearing. The fan blades actually have a very tight tip clearance of only 0.5mm, which is made possible by using the novel Sterrox® liquid-crystal polymer (LCP) compound. On the opposite side we have a second fan so we have a push-pull configuration.
Looking at the cooler from the side we can see just how thick the heatsink is, which is only 58 mm. Since it is not all that thick even with both fans installed the cooler has 100% fan compatibility with LGA115x and AM4 motherboards. Noctua says that the fin stack has 37% more fin surface area (as compared to the NH-U12S). The top fin of the cooler has the Noctua logo on it.
Flipping the cooler over we can see that Noctua has installed seven cooper heatpipes that go up into the heatsink in a “U” fashion. They come together at the base of the cooler, which is nickel-plated copper. Looking at the finish on the base of the cooler it is one of the best we’ve seen from Noctua. This will ensure good contact and heat-transfer between your CPU and the cooler.
