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120mm Noctua Nh-U12A Processor Air Cooler
$80
$140
42% off
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+ Free Shipping w/ Primeat Woot!Deal Details
Woot! has 120mm Noctua Nh-U12A Processor Air Cooler (Black) for $79.99. Shipping is free for Amazon Prime Members (must login with your Amazon account and select a shipping address in order for Woot to apply free shipping) or is otherwise $6 per order.
Thanks to community member Iboon for sharing this deal.
About this item:
Thanks to community member Iboon for sharing this deal.
About this item:
- Product Dimensions: 4.92"L x 4.41"W x 6.22"H
Editor's Notes
Written by Neo45 | Staff- Don't have Amazon Prime? Students can get a free 6-Month Amazon Prime trial with free 2-day shipping, unlimited video streaming & more.
- If you're not a student, there's also a free 1-Month Amazon Prime trial available.
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Woot! has 120mm Noctua Nh-U12A Processor Air Cooler (Black) for $79.99. Shipping is free for Amazon Prime Members (must login with your Amazon account and select a shipping address in order for Woot to apply free shipping) or is otherwise $6 per order.
Thanks to community member Iboon for sharing this deal.
About this item:
Thanks to community member Iboon for sharing this deal.
About this item:
- Product Dimensions: 4.92"L x 4.41"W x 6.22"H
Editor's Notes
Written by Neo45 | Staff- Don't have Amazon Prime? Students can get a free 6-Month Amazon Prime trial with free 2-day shipping, unlimited video streaming & more.
- If you're not a student, there's also a free 1-Month Amazon Prime trial available.
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Top Comments
You buy this if you have more money than sense. That's it.
https://www.amazon.com/Thermalrig...B0
Community Reviews
Noctua's NH U12A is framed as a premium 120 millimeter air cooler that stands out for quiet operation, strong build quality, and unusually good support. The cooler and its fans are praised for long life, and Noctua has sent free mounting kits, socket adapters, and even a long screwdriver when needed. The main knock is value, since Thermalright options like the Peerless Assassin and Phantom Spirit are repeatedly cited as cheaper coolers with similar or better thermals and close noise levels. It reads as a high end, low hassle choice if support and longevity matter more than raw price.
Common Questions (4)
Yes. The Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 and Phantom Spirit 120 Evo are repeatedly described as matching or beating the U12A on thermals, with the Phantom Spirit also noted as quieter in one rebuild, while costing far less.
The NH-U12A is a premium 120mm air cooler with strong noise and build quality, but several Thermalright options are cited at roughly half the price or less with similar or better thermals. The main value difference is Noctua's quieter fans, metal mounting hardware, and long-term support, not raw cooling performance per dollar.
Yes. Noctua has reportedly sent free Intel mounting kits, AM4 upgrade kits, and newer socket adapters years after purchase when contacted with proof of need. That can let you reuse an older cooler on a new build instead of buying a replacement.
The NH-U12A is smaller than the NH-D15, so it has less heatsink mass and smaller fans. The NH-D15 and D15 G2 are described as running cooler and quieter in some setups, while the U12A is still considered a strong performer for its size.
AI-generated summary based on comments from the community. Updated ago
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43 Comments
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You buy this if you have more money than sense. That's it.
https://www.amazon.com/Thermalrig...B0
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After a few days of using it I pulled it, returned it.. and put my NH-D15 back.
It ran cooler and, more importantly, quieter.
Back when I built the GTX 1070 builds, AIO's had come into play some, but I was stull super-burned by the nightmare that was that liquid-cooled PC of my friends, so we went air cooled. After all my research, the Noctua NH-D15 was the top tier air cooler of its time (BeQuiet had a similar one that was not far behind, but it was close to the same price), so we both bought the then $80 Noctuas. Those coolers, and the fans that came with them, have performed amazingly well for the 8-9 years we've had them. The fans have never run loud, and (from what I can tell) have never had overheating issues. I have been extremely impressed, and very happy with the quality/longevity, even if they were twice the price of their nearest competitor at the time.
I'm now in the market for a new build at literally the worst possible time. If I want a GPU of similar tier to the GTX 1070, I'm now having the look at the 4080/5080 as the 2nd-to-top tier GPU. So instead of a $400 GPU, I'm now looking at $1000. And with RAM/chip shortages, RAM prices are through the roof, and SSD's are starting to creep up as well. Needless to say, I am needing to be much more cost-conscious this time around.
If the Noctua was still around $80-$90, I'd probably just buy another to ensure consistent performance for another 8-9 years. At $140 for the same cooler, or $180 for the NH-D15 G2... I'm kind of considering other options. I could try to find my purchase history on my NH-D15 and reach out to Noctua for mounting brackets to match whatever cpu/mobo I go with this time round. Also, this NH-U12A looks interesting, but seems to be smaller (so less metal/heatsink, smaller fans). Anyone know how well it performs against the NH-D15?
Reading some of the comments, yeah, it does seem like there are options out there that get similar performance but also at much cheaper prices. And perhaps liquid-cooling has matured enough to have long life, no maintenance, and very low risk of leak (I'm just skiddish), so there's that.
I actually just rebuilt my PC which had a NH-D15 with years of service on it and wanted a different look so I got the PA120 mentioned above.
After a few days of using it I pulled it, returned it.. and put my NH-D15 back.
It ran cooler and, more importantly, quieter.
Bottom line: The PA120 should perform better than U12A, at less than half the price.
(source: https://hardforum.com/threads/cur...s.2025230/ - which also indicates it's actually more comparable to the D15 in noise-normalized tests)
Reading some of the comments, yeah, it does seem like there are options out there that get similar performance but also at much cheaper prices. And perhaps liquid-cooling has matured enough to have long life, no maintenance, and very low risk of leak (I'm just skiddish), so there's that.
AIOs are not and will never be as long-lived as a heatpiped air cooler. There's really just not anything to go wrong with them, unlike AIOs where you can have pump failure, evaporation, galvanic corrosion, congealing of fluid, etc. - often within less than 5 years of purchasing. Big air coolers are just much more 'buy it for life' type purchases. Never had one go bad on me, and the only thing that usually ever does happen with them is fan failure, which is a quick and easy fix - just pop a new fan on.
Translation for the normies: We used AMD's biggest, hottest normal CPU. We lowered the fan speed to "normalize" the noise (which most people would never do) to limit the fans. When we did that, of course, the quietest fan won. In other words, that was a gimmie to Noctua.
But when you run fans like the rest of the planet runs fans, the difference between the and a Peerless Assassin 120 is around 2% or so difference. Article here: https://gamersnexus.net/coolers/b...ermals-air --- and THAT is why Thermalright is walking all over Noctua in sales for the past year or so. Noctua is becoming obsolete.
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FYI, I emailed them last year for a free AM4 upgrade kit for my 7800X3D, and they came through. Again, this was for a product I purchased in 2017!
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