Performance
The N NH-U9S performed reasonably well here, it kept out cooler well within a safe margin, as does every other cooler on our chart. It’s certainly not the coolest, but there’s no cause for concern either.
Overclocking on this cooler? Boost clocks perhaps, but 4.5GHz @ 1.35v is a tough cookie to handle and the NH-U9S isn’t suitable for anything that high-end.
My jaw hit the floor when I saw this. I put my ear right to the side of the cooler, to the point where the fan blades were almost touching my ear; I couldn’t hear a damn thing! Whatever magic Noctua are using here, it’s virtually silent and nothing comes even close.
Even overclocked it remains respectably quiet, especially given the fan dimensions. There were a couple of spikes up to 44, but they were very short (less than 1 second) and infrequent (Less than once per minute).
