[section_title title=”Closer Look”]
Closer Look
Smaller coolers are not that difficult to come across but finding one that actually performs well is a different story. The Noctua NH-U9B SE2 aims to change that and it aims to do so with a 95mm tall tower with four heatpipes and a dual fan system that operates in a push/pull configuration. Heat is always a major concern in any computer chassis, and even more so in a smaller one.
The cooler does come with two fans, but it is obviously your choice if you want to use them both or if you only want to use the one, or maybe you don’t even plan to use one at all. As you will also notice from the image below, the fins are not just straight cut like many coolers in the past used to be. They often have a jagged fin design or in the case of the U9B, there appears to be some form of wave shape going on. The idea behind this is to create more turbulence in between the fins to increase the heat to air transfer rate, thus increasing its cooling power whilst remaining as compact as possible.
Heatpipes are commonplace on any cooler nowadays and it is very rare to find one that doesn’t feature them, unless of course it is the Intel stock cooler – even the AMD stock coolers have heatpipes! On the U9B SE2 there are four heatpipes that are 6mm thick. It should be more than ample for every single CPU on the market at its manufactured stock speeds but it’s always nice to see whether the cooler can cope with some form of an overclock on top of it all too.
