Page 3 - Test Results
Out test configuration is as follows;
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk
RAM: Thermaltake TOUGHRAM XG RGB DDR4-4000 2x8GB
Graphics: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 TI
Chassis: Corsair 5000D
Power: SilverStone Decathlon DA850 Gold 850W
Storage: Samsung EVO 970 1TB, Lexar NQ100 480GB
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Compared hardware:
- Noctua NH-P1 (Fanless)
- Noctua NH-P1 (w/ NF-A12x25 LS-PWM)
- SilverStone Hydrogon D120 ARGB
- Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240 Illusion
All tests were run in our custom-built computer to best reflect real-life performance. The computer remained in the same place and room for all tests. The ambient temperature of the room was roughly 21 degrees Celsius. The thermal paste applied to each cooler was stock respective to their manufacturers to rate its performance. Sufficient time between testing was applied for the paste to settle. The fans on all heatsinks, if applicable, were connected to the same motherboard's 4-pin connector. The test computer was turned on and idling for at least one hour for the idling tests. High CPU load results were obtained using the Prime95 in place large FFTs test with sixteen worker threads for a minimum of 15 minutes and recorded when the temperature was deemed stable.
For the first test, I let my computer sit idle for a while. After about an hour, I shook my mouse to wake my computer up. We can see the Noctua NH-P1 sat around 56 degrees Celsius by itself, which is a significantly higher temperature than the other compared coolers. While it is not unexpected for a passive cooler to perform below other coolers due to the lack of a cooling fan, this was quite an increase in temperature. Fitting on the NF-A12x25 LS-PWM fan improves this score significantly to where it is the best performing cooler out of the bunch at 37 degrees Celsius. With that said, idle tests do not give a full representation of their cooling capabilities, thus leading us into our load tests.
Starting Prime95 and giving the processor time to load all the cores and threads, we can see how the cooler performs when the processor is under heavy stress. On its own, the Noctua NH-P1 gave a promising performance at a peak of 72 degrees Celsius. While this is still the highest temperature of the tested coolers, it is not significantly larger, which is a good sign given this is the heavy load test with a passive cooler. We observed the boost frequency throughout the test, which was 3.7 GHz across all cores. With the NF-A12x25 LS-PWM fan attached, the temperature drops down to 64 degrees Celsius, which is on par with the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240 Illusion.
Sound is often perceived differently by people, but we try to make our subjective audio tests as objective as possible. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is silence and 10 is spring break at a Florida beach, I would comfortably rate the NH-P1 at 0.0/10 when idle and under full load. This is not surprising of course since the NH-P1 is designed for passive cooling, meaning the device is not dependent on having a cooling fan. With the NF-A12x25 LS-PWM fan attached, the noise scale raises slightly to 1.0/10 when idle and 2.5/10 under full load. No matter what configuration you choose for your Noctua NH-P1 cooler, the performance will be quiet at the very least.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware, Installation
3. Test Results
4. Conclusion
