Noctua NH-U14S & NH-D9 Air Cooling For The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X

Across more than 100 benchmarks, the geometric mean from the benchmarks conducted showed no loss of performance when using air cooling or better performance with the NZXT Kraken 360 for this Threadripper 3980X setup within a SilverStone 5U server chassis.

The NH-U14S TR5-SP6 on average was around three degrees cooler than the NH-D9 TR5-SP6 4U or about seven degrees cooler for the peak temperature. The difference is understandable given the NH-D9 being more compact to fit within 4U height requirements. The slightly better performance with the NH-U14S TR5-SP6 is even with this Noctua cooler for most TR5 socket orientations (including as tested) blowing the CPU hot air up towards the power supply rather than in a straight front-to-back orientation as with the NH-D9 and other common heatsinks. With both of these Noctua coolers costing similarly, it ultimately comes down to which heatsink will fit better within your chassis.

Looking at the CPU power consumption and CPU peak frequency power consumption data across the span of all the benchmarks conducted also showed no real difference either, which is good to see that the air cooling potential with the 350 Watt AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series can match that of the closed-loop NZXT Kraken 360. Those wanting to see all the individual benchmark and power/thermal/frequency data for the 100+ tests can do so via this result page. Long story short, the Noctua NH-U14S TR5-SP6 and NH-D9 TR5-SP6 are great heatsink fans for keeping the Threadripper 7000 series cool. The main downside for these quality-built heatsinks is the price at around $120 USD a piece is significant but is similar (or cheaper) to that of many closed-loop liquid cooling solutions. Noctua also has the NM-TR5-SP6 as a ~$20 adapter for those with existing Noctua DX/TR4-SP3 heatsinks that may want to re-use them for new TR5/SP6 socket applications. Thanks to Noctua for supplying these new heatsinks for review on Phoronix.