Testing Noctua’s NH-P1 with Ryzen 7700x and Intel’s i9-13900K
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I've personally been using a NoFan CR-80EH in my workstations for over 10 years. I think it's subjectively the most beautiful heatsink I've ever seen.
You do need to plan your build to accomodate such a cooler though. - Open Air case to allow free movement of air in and out of your case - 65W TDP CPU
While a lot of people feel like 65 watt TDP is limiting, there are some impressive chips you can use under that threshold that don't feel like a compromise. Eg the Ryzen 9 7900 (not-X).
And if the rest of your office is quiet, eliminating ambient background noise is a delightful improvement.
I did have dedicated graphics card though, but a passively cooled one. None of my friends found it bothersome, so maybe I'm just sensitive.
The sad part is, coil whine is unpredictable, two machines with the same make/models can behave differently.
Coil whine is usually much more noticeable when you fully load a system too.
What I would do is buy components and then fully load them as much as I could, and RMA anything with noticeable whine.
It's not "normal", Dell XPSs for example were notorious for bad coil whine where as my macbook air doesn't have any at all.
Yes, I also remember the passive cooling community has existed for a long time, with it being a very big thing when PCs were loud monstrosities, but I feel it has peaked sometime in the mid to late '00s and has been slowly loosing momentum since active cooling solutions became much quieter and better at ramping up/down with load, with most CPUs, GPUs, PSUs coolers nowadays even turning fully off when idling or under low load, along with the shift from PCs to mobile devices, making the need for passive-only PC cooling solutions a small and expensive niche that not many venture into.
7900 comes with a (supposedly decent) fan, 7900X does not.
Some more tips from a recent install of a Noctua NH-P1:
* If AMD, make sure you have the
backplate or contact Noctua support for
assistance
* The backplate will slide under the
space between the case and motherboard,
with just a slight bit of anguished
bending
* Had to move the top-mounted power
supply (PSU) out of the way completely.
* 2mm is about the size of a crayon tip,
when applying the thermal paste
* Had to move a (Scythe) fan out too, but
the provided clips let me put it on top
A Thinkpad T30 idling nearby also helps mask further sounds.
I love Noctua, but a totally fanless system would be a more interesting test.
As a matter of fact, Noctua has a compatibility guide where they list the expected performance w/ and w/o a fan[1].
Of course they do. Noctua is an excellent company. Hard to imagine how they might improve. And some credit to PC builders is deserved as well; they've supported this company and its products and paid the requisite price for years, despite a literal horde of cheaper competition.
I appreciate how little regard they have for the RGB blinkenlights crowd.
It be perfect for my DIY home NAS build.
Might work for extremely energy efficient systems, though.
With the right case (Fractal Define) and 3 case fans dialed down it's possible to make the system basically silent. Then replace HDDs with SSDs and a passively cooled gpu.
Literally the only question I was out cold for was which cooler is good enough? With some coolers rivaling RAM costs and cases having fixings for radiators... it really leaves you thinking. Then again, I left it on stock and have hooked temps into prometheus and everything seems fine so far...
I think this affects far more than just coolers; it's simply that for categories that have few options (say, CPUs) it's easier to slog through all the youtube videos, and there still exist a few text-based reviewers.
But cases, ram, motherboard AIB versions, GPU AIB versions... even power supplies often - reviews are suprisingly sparse and hard to compare and rarely comprehensive.
GN doesn’t really update their website with written reviews.
I can think of a few others, including an offshoot of [H] called thefpsreviews.com but I've seen a lot of crappy, low effort "reviews" just in time for the "video cards are finally cheap" manufactured craze last year, which was last straw for me.
Now, these guys used to deliver some quality stuff, including the big frame pacing thing that finally convinced the masses that no, fps number is not everything. One of the owners joined AMD and yeah, it's been dead for several years.
Community was quite nice, too.
The only time I ever find a YouTube review of interest is when e.g you are actually showing some physical characteristic of the product, which is almost never the case for PC components, but maybe the case in some portable devices (tablet PCs come to mind). Notice that on these types of physical aspect reviews the reviewer himself doesn't appear at all on the video. In most PC components "video reviews" you are simply staring at the face of the reviewer. They could literally do without the video at all (save for a couple of still images where tables are presented) and would still be as informative, if not more. Some could even do without the audio...
I really disagree. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVowYykviM . Does he measure idle power consumption ? It's impossible to tell from the chapter names. (Spoiler: he doesn't). Also whether he compares the performance of the 7900 sans X with the 7900X at similar power levels (Spoiler: he does, albeit only for 7950X and a minority of the benchmarks.) This is a video which is supposed to be about power efficiency, so it catches my attention; but most of it is about runtime benchmarks with only a couple power/efficiency comparisons early on. And after watching the full video, I cannot think of anything about the visuals that helped made his point clearer. A simple plain page with a couple of tables would have been at least as much helpful, or even more helpful, since it would have been searchable. If you disagree, can you elaborate what did you feel the video/audio provided over a static HTML page ?
I had the same gripe learning firebase with pretty great official tutorials, which would have taken half the time if I could just read them.
The automatic transcripts work fairly well which is how I cope with it.
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3635-fractal-meshify-2...
Look at that set of tests for a case. What more could you want?
For example, idle power consumption.
I find this statement rather snarky and it is imho quite close to being against the HN Guidelines. Anyway I also think it is wrong. Sure not all videos from LTT are high-quality well researched and contain thorough testing but when they are really reviewing a product they put a lot of effort into it. They are even in the process of building a decked out lab to facilitate proper testing.
An example of this is their review of the recently released Ryzen 7000 non-X CPUs. They tested 11 different CPUs in 9 different games and 14 productivity benchmarks and further testing with regards to thermals and power consumption. The whole 18 minute video is basically Linus explaining result charts for these various tests. https://youtube.com/watch?v=CTiRNnSg0jA&t=9s&pp=2AEJkAIB
I encourage you to watch this or any of the other hardware review videos and think about reevaluating your opinion. I don’t want to come across as a fanboy but it think your under a quite outdated impression and I think it’s unfair with regards the investment and change LTT is undergoing as of late.
LTT: 129% GN: 160% Techpowerup: 105%
With results fluctuating up to 2 generational differences it is hard to make sense, despite all the authors effort. This leaves that kind of content more of entertainment rather than informational and from that perspective low effort doesn't bother me.
e.g. they used to be considered clickbaity, but for today's standards you might as well call them "mild".
I mean, stuff like https://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU-2020/2758 still exists, but I get the impression they no longer have the resources they once did to really fill it the way they used to; and similar things goes for other sites. I think the best option I know about that remains is https://www.techpowerup.com/review/, but they're much less in depth than what used to be available. It's still great to have such a broad set of reviews, mind you, and they're doing a great job. I get the impression there's much less funding for stuff like this, making the last few survivors all the more impressive.
They also have compatibility list for motherboards, cases and RAM to see if it will physically fit[1].
If I were building a system I’d just slap one of those in, buy some Noctuas for quieter fan operation and ignore it, and let the CPU turbo to its hearts content.
Edit: link https://www.icegiantcooling.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0OQxbMvo80
At min 26:30 it's shown test results, and the performance seems better with Noctua NH-D15. Less noise (less rpm) for the same temperature dissipation.
Noctua's performance with low noise is among the main reasons why I own one since several years ago ( And also why I choose air-cooling over water-cooling). It would be interesting to know if someone has beaten them (At same performance, less weight would be something for to take in account).
Any judgment on thermosiphon technology (where noise is largely not a factor) should not be conflated with a judgment on the quality of attached fans. Sold together as a product, though, I suppose it remains relevant.
Remember to compare any noise savings against the total noise. e.g. I have 8 other fans in the box. If memory serves when I built it, tech websites were reporting that the temperature under load with an IceGiant was lower.
Whilst they can have similar performance you aren’t saving on costs especially when you buy a 2nd fan for the main cooler which is another $25 or so if it’s Noctua.
SilentPCreview?
Google's cache, for anyone else having trouble with archive.org.
Interesting, the NH-P1 has been out for a while and other comments suggest it's not the 7700X, could it be the ASRock motherboard mentioned? Also no, because there are two links to reviews of it present in the article body.
I'm new to hosting my own platform, and it looks like one of the plugins I had installed started causing some problems. (At least, that's what I think it was)
Anyways, it should be fixed now.
> Your browser can't find the document corresponding to the URL you typed in.
My browser? And I thought the server would search through its files to serve me a page. This site seems to be included in my browser.
When it comes to review samples - I'll say this : It depends on the product you're reviewing (and how expensive it is), and the history you have of reviewing similar products. The cheaper an item is, the more likely the companies will send it to smaller reviewers.
You can design the entire system to be passively cooled but this will limit the potential power. This might be fine. Having a high-end GPU means this is almost impossible. For anyone wanting such a system, you'll want to go with an AIO HSF and intake and outtake fans on the case.
To my knowledge: Yes. The NH-P1 is the only somewhat recent passive cooler I saw released.
Which is not all that surprising, when Intel cpus regularly use 200W and more and you basically never want a completely passive build. One with only an optionally used fan, sure, but then why not use a cpu cooler where the fan can spin so quietly that is is not noticeable, like with the NH-D15 or many AIOs?
(That said the NH-P1 is definitely on the list for a future build of mine)
I saw a nice price drop on them too (30%)
Archived copy: https://archive.is/ZrbgR
> Nonetheless, I strapped on Noctua’s NF-A15 fan and tested the NH-P1 again. The added fan increased the total cooling capacity from 150W to 200W in long term cooling scenarios.
A photo of this setup would be quite useful
> AIOs are generally more perceptible than a silent build using fans.
I'm honestly not so sure about that, but I thought the same before. But then I saw the charts of how well the AIOs can cool, which means the fans and pumps can be ramped down a lot. I know some models are loud, but know also from experience that not all are. Okay, an air cooler that cools mostly passive can't be beaten, but will also need air flow as soon as the TDP is higher - and on low TDPs an AIO can again be ramped down a lot.