PSA: NH-U12S vs NH-U12A
Test des Noctua NH-D15 et NH-U12A : deux refroidisseurs d'air puissants pour tous les sockets CPU courants
[Build A Pc] Un Noctua NH-U12A n'est-il pas suffisant pour un Ryzen 5 7600X?
La réponse se trouve certainement dans les commentaires de la publication originale (en anglais) ! Le lien se trouve à la fin de cette publication
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More on reddit.comNoctua NH-D15 and NH-U12A Review: Two powerful air coolers for all common CPU sockets
I had access to both the U12S and U12A for testing. I could not find information on the actual heatsink difference between the two in terms of performance and wanted to test it.
CPU: 5950X (C.O -25)
MOBO: Asus Strix B550A (Fmax Enhancer OFF)
Ram: 32GB 3200mhz Cl16
GPU: RTX 3080 FE
Room Ambient Temp 21C
Test used Prime 95.
Test to See Heatsink Difference - Fans at max speed.
U12S Heatsink w/ 2x NF-A12x25s 76C
U12A Heatsink w/ 2x NF-A12x25s 74.6C
Noise Normalized Test 40dba
U12S Heatsink w/ 2x NF-A12x25s 85.2C (1498rpm)
U12A Heatsink w/ 2x NF-A12x25s 84.1C (1490rpm)
TL;DR
Depending on pricing, NH-U12S with 2 NF-A12x25 is the same price as NH-U12A and maybe a better value (at least it is in Canada) since you get a free NH-F12, NH-U12A heatsink marginally better than NH-U12S with at most 2C diff.
Edit: I also tested the heatsinks with NF-F12, no difference was found less than 0.5C diff and can be attributed to run to run variation.