Noctua nh-u9 tr4

Noctua is a leader in the production of high-end fans and heatsinks on the market. The Austrian company has sent us the Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 heatsink designed exclusively for AMD's new enthusiastic TR4 platform.

Without a doubt, it is one of its best super-compact heatsinks. With it we will not have compatibility problems with any chassis on the market. This little one has a double 92mm fan and a large cooling capacity. Ready for our analysis in Spanish? Here we go!

First of all, we thank Noctua for the trust placed in ceding the product to us for analysis.

Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

The Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 comes with a luxury presentation that could not be otherwise, because we are talking about one of the most prestigious brands when it comes to air cooling. The heatsink is presented in a cardboard box that combines the brand's corporate colors, that is, white and brown. If you look at the sides, we have all the characteristics, the most important technical specifications and its 6-year warranty seal.

Once we open the box we find the heatsink and all the accessories perfectly classified into several individual boxes, an unbeatable presentation in every way.

We find the following bundle:

• Heatsink Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3. Two fans Noctua NF-A9 PWM. Low-Noise (LNA) adapter. Noctua NT-H1 high-quality thermal paste syringe. SecuFirm2 mounting kit for AMD and Intel. Fan clips. Multi-language instruction guide.

The Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 is a very compact heatsink but with a cutting-edge design that allows it to offer exceptional performance and in which every mm of its surface is used to dissipate as much heat as possible. It is built with a single tower design with dimensions of 12.5 cm (height) x 9.5 cm (width) x 7.1 cm (Depth) and a weight of 660 grams without fan or 895 grams with fan. With the fan mounted, the dimensions are maintained except for the depth, which becomes 9.5 cm.

Its radiator is made up of 44 aluminum fins and it is crossed by a total of five nickel-plated copper heatpipes that have the function of absorbing the maximum possible heat from the processor and transferring it to the aluminum radiator for its dissipation. The heatpipes are joined in a nickel-plated copper base with a very flat surface so that the contact with the IHS of the processor is the best possible. The size of this nickel plated copper base is very large as Ryzen Threadripper processors are huge and it has to cover the entire IHS.

Noctua always takes care of all the details and this Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 is no exception. The heatsink is compatible with high-profile RAM, so we will not have the problem that it collides with the heatsinks of the memory modules, a problem that is more common than it should but that the Austrian firm has solved very well. In the case of wanting to mount the heatsink on an ITX format board, you will not have a compatibility problem with high-end graphics cards.

Regarding its compatibility, the Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 is reduced to the TR4 / SP3 platform that is based on Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC processors, as the large size of its base makes it not compatible with the rest of the processors on the market..

Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 includes no less than two Noctua NF-A9 PWM fans featuring dimensions of 92mm x92mm x 25mm. These are very compact fans but with maximum performance thanks to their ability to rotate at a speed between 400 RPM and 2000 RPM, with it being able to generate a maximum air flow of 78.9 m³ / h with a loudness of just 22 dBa. If we use the rheostat cable (LNA) it reduces its speed to 1550 RPM. As in the entire Noctua series, the removal and installation of the fan is simple, we simply use the metal clips that are already attached. The fixation is excellent and without vibrations.

Mounting and installation on TR4 (AMD Ryzen Threadripper)

The installation is super simple and it hardly needs that we detail how to do it. But if it is your first time, we will explain briefly how it is done. First we must visualize the heatsink anchors, and we will see that there are threads in the socket that allow us to install it.

We apply thermal paste on the processor, remove the fans and fix the heatsink.

The installation as is as well:

As you can see there is no limitation with the main components: RAM memory, power phases or even the first PCI Express slot on our motherboard. Everything super simple!

Test bench and performance tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X
Base plate:	Asus Prime X399-A
Memory:	32 GB G.Skill FlareX
Heatsink	Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3
SSD	Kingston UV400 480 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti
Power supply	Corsair RM1000X

To test the real performance of the heatsink we are going to stress with an interesting AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X at stock speed. Our tests consist of 72 uninterrupted hours of work in stock values ​​and with overclocking in a room at 21ºC.

In this way, we can observe the highest temperature peaks and the average that the heatsink reaches. We must bear in mind that when playing or using other types of software, the temperature will drop dramatically between 7 to 12ºC.

How are we going to measure the processor temperature?

For this test we will use the internal sensors of the processor under the supervision of the HWiNFO64 application in its latest version. We believe that it has positioned itself as the best on the market and even more so as a free version. Let's see the results obtained:

Final words and conclusion about Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3

The Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 is a great cooler for cooling the new AMD Threadripper 1950X and 1920X 16- and 12-core processors respectively at stock speeds. It consists of a single tower, along with two brutal quality 92mm fans and a surface that completely covers the processor's IHS.

We recommend reading the best heatsinks on the market

In our tests we have been able to verify that we have an identical result in stock compared to its older brother Noctua NH-U14 TR4-SP3 . The thing changes when we overclock: 4050 MHz and 1.35v, that temperatures rise a lot: 83 ºC at maximum power and 46 ºC at rest.

We believe that the Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3 is a good option if we want to keep the processor in stock values ​​or our box does not allow to install one of its older brothers: Nh-U12 or NH-U14. It is currently available in Spanish stores for a price of 69.95 euros.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ PREMIUM MATERIALS.	- VERY FAIR TO PERFORM OVERCLOCK
+ CONSTRUCTION QUALITY.	- NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ANOTHER RANGE OF AMD AND INTEL PROCESSORS.
+ COMPLETE COMPATIBILITY WITH TR4.
+ QUALITY FANS.
+ SIMPLE INSTALLATION.

The Professional Review team awarded him the gold medal:

Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3

DESIGN - 90%

COMPONENTS - 90%

REFRIGERATION - 90%

COMPATIBILITY - 90%

PRICE - 80%

88%