Noctua NH-C12P CPU Cooler Review

What’s in the Box

The NH-C12P comes well protected. The box is covered with technical-style drawings of the cooler. This is not just for looks; the drawings provide valuable information such as the over size and motherboard clearance areas.

Inside, the cooler and accessories are packed in yet another heavy cardboard box.

Here we can see just how well the cooler is protected in the packing.

Inside the accessories box we have all the parts and instructions needed to mount the cooler to Intel 775 and AMD AM2 sockets. Noctua now has an adaptor kit that can be purchased separately for Intel Xeon, AMD K8 (754, 939, 940) & Socket F. This kit will also work with the NH-U12P cooler. You can read more about the kit on Noctuas website.

In the common parts bag we have the spring clips, the Low Noise Adaptor (L.N.A.) and the Ultra Low Noise Adaptor (U.L.N.A.), NT-H1 thermal paste, silicon sound reduction strips, springs, screws, and the ever-so-important instructions.

In the Intel hardware we have the stamped steel backing plate, plastic insulator washers, and the retention system parts.

With a closer look at the Intel backing plate we can see there is a pre-installed foam pad and plastic insulator.

In the AMD parts bag there is a replacement stamped steel backing plate, spacers, and the retention system hardware.

Looking closer at the replacement backing plate we can see there is a thin plastic insulator that covers the whole plate.