Noctua Coolers for Threadripper

[@Hardwareunboxed]

I came for the shirt, stayed for the infinite knowledge :) Great video Wendell!

[@promethbastard]

OMG STEVE YOU'RE ON EVERY VIDEO I WATCH AAAAHHHHH :P Ahh.. yes.. I remember that moron quite fondly..

[@peterjansen4826]

"Great video." Second that. If you don't like technology these guys might get you interested in it. A lot of 'techtubers' can learn from this, not only because of the knowledge, analysis and testing but also because of the quality of the production. Good music, mostly good sound, it looks good and you can easily follow it (preparation and editing?). With regard to the content of this video, most people forget an AIO also cools off much more slowly like it warms up much more slowly. Tower coolers are better solutions if you have the space for it inside your case. It costs less, it is more reliable, it won't quit working within 5 years, you won't get leakage, the noise level is low and it just does the job. The only downside of a tower coller: no air over the compoments of the motherboard. In some cases you might want to use an extra fan for that, only if the motherboard allows overclocking but the components heat up too much when you do so.

[@Hardwareunboxed]

@Raklödder - Because I so desperately need to. y u make rubbish comments?

[@JarrodsTech]

I had the same experience! My U14S keeps my 1950X cool even when overclocked, really impressive :)

[@m.balauszko]

Same here. And it's not that loud even at 100% cpu load. Great stuff.

[@zbc_152]

Love Noctua. I've had them in all my builds.

[@sbsasser]

Looking Good there Wendell! You all have been pumping out some awesome content lately. L1 is quickly becoming my most trusted source for analysis and updates in tech!

[@ColtaineCrows]

AdoredTV for the history lessons and guesstimates, Level1Techs for the in depth stuff.

[@thesillyhatday]

There's so much solid information on this channel. All from a guy who knows what he's doing

[@michaelmoses8745]

This channel and Gamers Nexus are among the best, and very much my first sources for information without the hype.

[@johncnorris]

I'm a big fan. Thanks and have a great evening. I'll be here all week.

[@d.r.1402]

*crickets*

[@landwolf00]

The AIO coolers seem less reliable than air coolers recently. I'm glad Noctua is so strong.

[@progste]

Not "recently", they have always been worse and less reliable than good air coolers like noctua ones

[@Bannockburn111]

Well, if you plan on using a cooler for longer than about 5 years, yeah, go with an air cooler. The only thing that can fail are fans and those can be replaced. But I've good luck with AiO's, even an early version I had lasted over 5 years, and they do test better in max cooling at extreme overclocks. Granted not much better than the top Noctua, but if you're pushing as hard as you possibly can, 240mm or better AiO is the best choice. Just buy a brand with at least a 5 year warranty. :)

[@Bound4Earth]

It's not really something new, air cooling has been just as efficient, much cheaper and quieter then AIO solutions for the last decade. The only real factor is space, air coolers take up a lot more space, and form over function, do you care about looks over money. Even high end, the NH D15 allows for the same overclock on my 8350 CPU at 5 GHz and is much quieter then something like corsairs 115i with stock fans for $20 less on newegg. Sure extreme overclocks on air end up being a few degrees hotter (we are talking less then 5 degrees), but the amount is so negligible in all but the most extreme cases where custom water loop is the only real solution so the point is moot to begin with. TL;DR: Air has always been better then AIO, unless you don't have the room or care more about looks.

[@VEN0M415]

Bound4Earth I'm going to build a ryzen system in the phanteks shift case and not many air cooled solutions fit with decent temps so aio for me it is RIP

[@landwolf00]

Venom415 I use custom water cooling. I've had a d5 pump for about 5 years.

[@Kurukx]

I like an actual computer science / engineer review :) Glad we have Wendel.

[@juniorthomas6404]

Bought 2 Noctua NH U12S for my gaming and htpc. No issues

[@calinbirtasaimonx5987]

Thank you Wendel for a good one! I made a Threadripper build for a friend of mine and after a year the enermax 360 failed like a champ so i decided to search for Noctua and Bequite reviews. I went with Bequite for the awesome price and the fact that my friend didn`t liked Noctua`s colors:)) Personally i use the u12s from Noctua with 2 fans and i`m very happy with it! Keep up the good job!

[@Enigma8750]

I bought the 92mm push pull Thread Ripper. Thanks for your video. It's hard to believe that this smaller noctua cooler is good for such a beast of a chip. Again. thanks.

[@rdsii64]

I know this is an old video but my 1950x is in a 4U server chassis with the dual 92mm cooler and it runs just fine. It reaches its all core turbo with no issues or throttling.

[@VEN0M415]

Asus released their ITZ Ryzen board and I would be hyped if you guys took a look at that, Threadripper will always be a dream for me but I can only afford a Ryzen 5 or 7 :P props to Noctua for coming out with a great product as always!

[@Vi-XiphiqiX]

Noctura is great product, always happy save the fan colors, have to spend extra to get rid of mission brown....

[@SerpentDrago]

Noctua for life ! used them over 10 years in all builds i've ever made !!!

[@LukeLesufi]

Nice work Wendell, could we get some benchmarks too?

[@delta9k]

For AIO's on Threadripper one might investigate the Enermax AIO's (240 and 360 rads), they have a cold plate designed for TR4. Though they are about $80 more than the U-14

[@jme_a]

Great video, present the facts, present your view, close it off. Nice work as always.

[@stupidburp]

One nice thing about a quality tower air cooler is that you can set your system up to run very quietly just by adjusting your fan profile to run slower most of the time. An AIO water cooler is going to still make some pump noise even if you slow down the fans. If your system is running hot because of high load then a tower cooler will spin up to manage it and spin down again right after the load drops. An AIO water cooler on the other hand will take a bit longer to spin up but will also take longer to spin down and may be louder for a significantly longer period of time after the load drops. This can be a bit irritating in some cases where you would prefer it to quiet down faster such as if you stopped playing a game in order to make a video call. If you have a good custom water loop with plenty of rad and fans then you may be able to avoid ever holding enough heat to require spinning up loud but this might not be possible with a modest sized AIO. You can also find ways to mitigate some pump noise with a custom loop. But then you are looking at a lot of expense and effort to get your cooling set up when you could just screw on a large tower cooler and be done with it.

[@highflowhighflow9896]

wish to see a real practice test of the nh-u9 tr4-sp3 fitted into a 3U or 4U servercase and see the temps , it might help to add even a 3th fan 120mm next to the cooler or even a fan in the topcover behind the cooler for extra outtake... wonder whats possible workaround, very less server builds with threadrippers i found yet...

[@Krauser1226]

I'm a gigantic stickler for aesthetic in builds and I was OCD about my own build aesthetically (all either black or brushed aluminum finish with no other colors) but when it came to do case fans and coolers I went with noctua all around. Sure, the color clashes a bit (a lot) but they're dead silent and their coolers are top notch. I've got a small single fan Noctua 92mm CPU cooler on my 4790k at 4.5Ghz and it does wonderfully. I can't recommend their products enough, though I will admit, they're a little steep in price. Still cheaper than an AIO though.

[@shanejimmink]

The NH-U14S with push pull fans works more reliable than my previous H110i. I can get stable 4.0GHz @ 1.36v on my 1950x. Clearance on the top PCIE was a bit of a problem so I moved the 1080Ti to the third PCIE slot. The H110i couldn't get more than 3.8GHz stable

[@DaerJohannes]

My Enermax LiqTech 240 TR4 died after only 2 years. I noticed it while running Folding at Home when the CPU clock frequency dropped almost instantly to below 1 GHz because of the built-in heat protection of my Threadripper 1950X. So I am switching now to a Noctua NH-U14S with a second fan (NF-A15 PWM) to make a push-pull configuration. Still waiting for delivery. I really prefer seeing what is happening with the cooler, i.e. see the fans moving, instead of an AiO "black box" that might be dead without noticing.

[@julianruggiero9701]

Currently using the 140mm version in push-pull, and oh man is it impressive. I'm OC'ed to 4.1 GHz on all my 1950X's cores, and with the fans at about 36 db (60 ish %), the CPU peaks at 77C under an Aida64 CPU/FPU stress test. I think that's incredible.

[@LUNATIC75]

I have one of the d-15's on my 1800X. That thing's a monster, and I do wonder what one of those would do with Threadripper. The colour scheme has never been an issue for me, especially as I can't be bothered with all that side window business in the first place!

[@peterjansen4826]

I love that percussion at the beginning. :)

[@efernandez2]

Get your hands on the enermax AIO that covers the whole block. What about cooling VRM?

[@siriusestrela]

Thanks for this review :-)

[@pauliewalnuts1024]

no d-15? disappointed. i would love to see that on threadripper

[@MADBONE0]

D-15 she's a big girl .. open test bench Hell yes but she won't fit in any mid tower case .. shes too tall ..

[@james2042]

Joan Alvarez the d-15 is a dual 140mm cooler

[@MikaelKKarlsson]

A large contact surface and great bonding between the CPU and the heat spreader changes things up quite a bit.

[@granthemstreet3209]

You should compare these to the TR4-specific Entermax liquid coolers with the custom plate. They are really impressive

[@Haradeas]

You made me laugh so hard on the ending haha, gj m8 ^^ Great info, you have a very personal style that works great!

[@00Klingon]

I've got a D-15 which has been great. Worked well with my 4790k until my motherboard died. I since upgraded to 7700k on an ASUS Maximus IX Hero motherboard and clearance with the IO shroud and memory were so bad I had to rotate the cooler in a vertical position and I can only fit 2 sticks of RAM at the moment. I'm not sure what to do but it's keeping my system very cool...

[@stupidburp]

Some RAM is shorter, the ones where the heat spreader does not rise from the top in some decorative shape. It is also often safe to trim some of those off if you are careful - but do so at your own risk of messing it up of course. In either case it will have a negligible difference on heat dissipation from the RAM.

[@Aethid]

They market these as for SP3, and you mention using the smaller in a 3U case.. but on most (all SP3?) server motherboards the fans will be rotated 90 degrees and will be blowing from left to right in the case instead of front to back. That is.. really quite bad.

[@daviddupoise6443]

Nice work and thank you. If you can eventually get your hands on an AMD EPYC processor and build a Linux server - OMG Becky there will be drool

[@phprofYT]

It makes sense about the heating and cooling. A liquid cooled engine takes longer to heat up and cool down but an air cooled engine warms up faster and cools down quicker. It's all in the thermodynamics. Physics at work.

[@Bagjo123]

Noctua NH-D14 CPU Got this one. Its a beast.

[@Na0uta]

Personally I use AiO coolers for most of the midrange builds I've helped with. Haven't had any issues with them other than an LED not working or the early days of funky software. But for last few years it's been pretty on point to go liquid AiO. But at the end of the day it just comes down to what you like to see/prefer. If you like Air, do it. If you like water, do it. It's all fine at the end of the day.

[@rdsii64]

I know this is an really old video, but I would love to see a 12 core threadripper benchmarked with the 3u cooler because my thread ripper is going in a rosewill 4u case

[@julian23561]

Do these new fans use the new stuff (Sterrox) that Noctua has spent 4 years researching on? I kinda want to see a video comparison where two fans, with the old plastic material and sterrox, compare them years later for impeller creep, and measure their performance. That'd be a cool video one day.

[@bigcheesepuff1]

I would love to see Threadripper in a mini-pc format, like the Intel Scull Canyon Nuc. Would it be possible from a cooling perspective I wonder?

[@MrMilanina]

Great video!!! What would be a matching Fan from Noctua to set up 14s in a push-pull, please?

[@WeekendGameGuy]

I'd love to see a rackmount pc build using something like this. Heck I'd like to see what kind of gaming rig could be built in a 1u rack case

[@Etheoma]

I would like to see a NHD15 S for Threadripper, The NHD15 S is the one that is lightly offset to 1 side for better PCIe compatibility right? For me with Summit Ridge the is no real reason not to go for the standard NH-D15 because most boards come with the top slot being a 4x slot PCIe gen 1 slot which you don't really generally super need. Though the clearance still isn't great for the GPU it's like 5mm clearance from my GPU which is enough to get a flat head screw driver down to push the tab to remove the GPU but it is mildly vexing. But for thread ripper the top slot is always a 16x slot so a regular NHD15 would not be optimal although on thread ripper you also have plenty of wired X16 slots but if you need all of them again the regular NH-D15 would not be optimal they should simply use the NH-D15 S cooler for both the NH-D15 SP3 and NH-D15S SP3 the only difference between the two being 1 fan and 2 fans.

[@TheMrFishnDucks]

Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@Seba_World]

Hi Guys, We are almost always talking about eventual Pciex16_1 slot coverage by Noctua, but what about DIMM/RAM slot coverage?? Look at 7:00's frame of that video. There is no place to install DIMM /RAM memory module from the first left and right side from Tr4 CPU socket:( I'm playing with virtualization a lot, already bought Designare EX tr4 motherboard with Ryzen 1920x Threadripper proc and i will really need to use all of 128GB of RAM memory suported by this x399 platform. Does it mean I can only coll that CPU with water cooling solution?

[@50mph]

Enjoy watching you man

[@TheRangeControl]

Which which height rack solution is allowable for those tall cooling solutions??? Come on, Wendell... you only discussed rack mount options for the little one, not the two big ones.

[@Jdmorris143]

Good video, excellent ending.

[@james2042]

Two things. One, the asetek coolers do NOT work well with threadripper, and I have no idea why they promoted it. The baseplate is really what matters, as the 240mm enermax TR4 cooler does cover it, and perfroms better than these air coolers. Two, people get so worked up over core count and performance per core, but power draw is also a huge factor. The X models stock (1600x, 1700x, 1800x, any TR chips, which are all around 3.4-3.6ghz) all draw about 8 watts per core when under full load. This is compared to Intel's 14w~ per core. So when we hear 16 core we think "this thing is a monster, its gonna gobble power and heat your home" but really isn't much worse than intels 10 core.

[@StalewindFarto]

Always watch past the credits, if you jones for every minute of LVL1.

[@rdsii64]

I know this is an 3 year old video. With that said, is the either the 140mm or the 120mm cooler short enough for a 4u rack mount chassis? My threadripper build is going in a Rosewill RSV-L4500.

[@delatroy]

Love noctua. Got the NH14 on x58 and move it to my new 8700k rig. Great performance and support

[@Lost69Minds]

that heatsink is really fucking cool and well made. but after you buy the second fan for the push/pull configuration it's the same cost compared to the AIO setup. also it won't fit in most cases / motherboard setups and usually interferes with most RAM modules that have a heat spreader. the radiators taking longer to heat up and cool off is true but it's healthier for the sake of silicon longevity. (arguably most people will upgrade their hardware before it becomes an issue). however the maintenance debate is very true and running an AIO is always a risk. it's nice to see a fan heatsink option for those who admire it.

[@maxcypond]

There is a tipping point with a tower cooler and the point is always when it interferes with the "rest of the system" getting air/cooling. The key is you don't want ANYTHING to thermal throttle. So don't just worry about CPU temps to the exclusion of other factors! An AIO might not cool as well as a tower in some circumstances, but if your case does not work with that tower for airflow you might be overheating your RAM, NVMe, VRM, or Video card(s). The ideal circumstance is to set up the system so that everything is as cool as ist can be without putting other things near their redline. That might mean NOT using a tower air cooler in some cases, or with some fan configs, or with certain RAM. And, YEAH, you can screw up system's OC speed by not taking care of your RAM, NVMe, VRM, or Video card temps.

[@stupidburp]

Why not just add more case fans or move things around to avoid other obstructions?

[@pcelis19]

Great video

[@razbattino9395]

what about 3rd gen of threadrippers? mine is 3960x. Also, do they provide a software controller or temperature checker?

[@startedtech]

Now if only I had a Threadripper...

[@cmusic52]

Now a tower cooler that could handle the 7980xe w/OCing would be one hell of an impressive feat

[@noenken]

Yup, Noctua to cool all the things! I had one fan fail .... after dropping a 4U case onto it. Otherwise I am using ... a LOT of their products and they perform. Fuck yeah, they do perform!

[@n.o.b.s.8458]

Wendell: so you've got a thread ripper... Me: nope.

[@Eli9A]

the channel is picking up slowly but surely

[@TheRangeControl]

Which Rackmount chassis would you recommend for depths no more than 20"?

[@progste]

Throw away your fake liquid coolers, the king is here.

[@50PullUps]

So going forward, are we suckers for buying AIO coolers when we could be spending half as much for better performance?

[@485Runner]

Do the custom water cooling build live.

[@ThePsychoticWombat]

I'm looking for something like this for AM4, that can be oriented so the airflow goes upwards, any suggestions?

[@imperiajor]

he is so awesome !!!

[@tomjones2860]

We are building 3970X machines for my work with these coolers... even over clocked to 4.1 they idle at 38C and under normal work loads motor along at 58-60C.... Very well engineered. (other then the ugly color on the Fans.

[@1019wc1019]

My noctua cpu cooler has been the best air cooler i have ever bought. The extra price is worth it

[@burblingbarbacoa4944]

Would love to see a d15

[@jimtoxford]

I feel like thermodynamics is a struggle for a lot of gear people.

[@eug3nius]

I expect the dual tower to be worth it for ThreadRipper overclocking. The single tower is really all you need for Ryzen 7 or 8700k.

[@NaumRusomarov]

Impressive.

[@sistemas1]

nice =) dream with noctua rgb

[@janedagger]

All I"ve used since finding Noctua is... Noctua. Elegant, efficient, and just plain perfection. Water is blase for me... blech. ROFLMAO!

[@RentableSocks]

I'd wager that the tower coolers are winning vs AIO coolers because the AIO coolers out right now have poor heat transfer from the plate to the water, even if the plate is very big (at least for TR). Even on the "built for TR" AIO coolers with large cold plates, the microfins(?) are the same-ish footprint as standard AIO coolers. The microfin sections need to be much longer and wider, due to the way the heat is spread out for TR.

[@tadi7847]

Numbers? Charts? Anything?

[@delta9k]

Gamers Nexus just did a review of the Noctua coolers and Enermax AIO's with charts and numbers. You might find that interesting.

[@tadi7847]

Thanks.

[@DICIEMBRE1977]

uh...were are the benchmarks?

[@prosperow]

"flaming electric death" was the title of the article when water cooling first came out then I read about Noctua never had a water colling system never will :)

[@Aviftw]

In Wendell we trust! I too love the 0-maintenance of air coolers, but my question is how is the ram clearance on these things?

[@pieterrossouw8596]

Wanna see this on an ITX motherboard...

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Oh yeah.

[@anthony1129]

I got a noctua thingy!

[@RighteousBruce]

I am just watching this because wendel

[@martenmeijboom554]

all other youtubers: 10.08, level1: 9.52

[@Sentrygun84]

Air cooling has never been significantly less efficient or powerful than water cooling. Liquid AIOs are just fashionable.

[@notmyname5449]

I need moar numbers D:

[@rhoharane]

Stay for the post-credits.

[@GifCoDigital]

I thought it was common knowledge that a high end air cooler will always beat pretty much any AIO?????

[@0xid267]

I'm si6th but you don't see me bragging about it... ... ... ... .. :P Going to be an interesting video, maybe my coffee made me too hyper, excite new video woot!

[@Gunni1972]

he said Mind Blowing, hehe.

[@ChielScape]

"this doesn't mean the 280mm (aio) radiator is bad" - 5:50 Yes. Yes it means exactly that. This doesn't show how good tower coolers can be, it just goes to show how terrible aio watercoolers are, once again. Build custom loop or just go home. Aio's are not worth your time and money. They offer nothing over tower coolers but cost, bulk and liability. Only a custom loop will offer you efficient waterblocks, good flow rates, effective, thick radiators and reliable operation for years. Likewise, don't bother with premixed coolant.

[@notmyname5449]

There are several AIOs that are superior over Noctua's lineup. They also don't take as much space around the socket. I am actually planning to replace my NH-D14 with an AIO because of those two reasons.

[@The_Noticer.]

NH-U14S is their best creation. It's so far ahead of the competition, it's not even funny. My fans have been running in a server for years and not a single bearing is showing any signs of wear.

[@taipeitaiwan10]

Is this paid content?

[@grimtagnbag]

What the hell not one temperature Benchmark on overclocking compared to not overclocking with these things do come on

[@ellypsis603]

Air cooling FTW

[@odin2free]

Thermalright and noctua that's all

[@EvanLaulom]

The only thing i really don’t like about Noctua is the design

[@lowfrequency400xp]

Engagement

[@JamalPhoenix]

Please noctua make some all black fans!!