**The Battle of Coolers: Noctua NH-U12A vs Dark Rock 4**

As I sat down to test these two coolers, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. The Noctua NH-U12A and Dark Rock 4 are two popular options in the CPU cooler market, both vying for the top spot as the best cooler for your system. But which one comes out on top? In this article, we'll take a closer look at both coolers and compare their performance, features, and value.

**Logarithmic Scale: A Different Perspective**

When it comes to decibels, it's easy to think that a small difference is insignificant. However, when you're dealing with the logarithmic scale used in sound measurement, even small differences can add up quickly. In this case, we're comparing two coolers that differ by less than 3 decibels under load. That may not seem like a lot, but trust me, it makes a difference. I based my testing on this scale, and I was surprised by how much the Dark Rock 4 performed better in terms of quietness.

**Testing and Comparison**

To test both coolers, I started with an idle run to see which one would be the most difficult to hear. However, it was challenging to zone out the background noise due to the presence of my neighbors celebrating Bike Week. Once things got really loud, however, it became easier to distinguish between the two coolers. The Dark Rock 4 performed noticeably quieter under load, while the NH-U12A was still quite effective but not as quiet.

**Price Comparison**

When it comes to price, both coolers have their advantages and disadvantages. The Noctua NH-U12A is currently selling on Amazon for $75, while the Dark Rock 4 is also available on Amazon for the same price. However, if I were to choose between these two options, I would still opt for the Dark Rock 4 due to its superior performance.

**Design and Features**

One of the biggest advantages of the Dark Rock 4 is its design. Instead of the dual fan configuration found in the stock version of the NH-U12A, the Dark Rock 4 features a single fan that's more energy-efficient and quieter. However, this also means that the unit would be slightly cheaper if they were to remove one of the fans. I think this is an area where Notua could improve their design to make it more competitive.

**Performance and Conclusion**

In terms of sheer performance, both coolers are excellent options. The Noctua NH-U12A performs better than the Dark Rock 4 in some areas, but when it comes to cooling efficiency, the Dark Rock 4 takes the lead. However, if I had to choose between these two coolers, I would still opt for the NH-U12A due to its superior performance and value. The Dark Rock 4 may be quieter, but it's not quite worth the extra cost.

**Intel vs AMD: A Tough Choice**

As someone who has been testing CPU coolers for years, I have to say that both the Noctua NH-U12A and Dark Rock 4 are excellent options. However, if you're using an AMD processor, the Dark Rock 4 is definitely worth considering due to its superior performance.

**The Verdict**

After putting both coolers through their paces, I have to say that my preference is for the Dark Rock 4. While it's not quite as good as the Noctua NH-U12A in terms of sheer performance, its quietness and value make it an excellent choice for those who want a top-notch cooler without breaking the bank.

**Final Thoughts**

In conclusion, when it comes to CPU coolers, there are many options available on the market. Both the Noctua NH-U12A and Dark Rock 4 are excellent choices, but they cater to different needs and preferences. If you're looking for sheer performance, the NH-U12A may be the better choice. However, if you prioritize quietness and value, then the Dark Rock 4 is definitely worth considering.

**Recommendation**

If you want the best of both worlds, I recommend choosing the Noctua NH-U12A. It's a top-notch cooler that offers superior performance and value. However, if you're on a budget or prefer a quieter cooler, then the Dark Rock 4 is an excellent option.

**Disclaimer**

Please note that this article is based on my personal experience and testing of both coolers. Results may vary depending on your specific system configuration and needs.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, the battle between the Noctua NH-U12A and Dark Rock 4 has been a tough one to call. Both coolers have their advantages and disadvantages, but when it comes down to it, the Dark Rock 4 is the winner in my book. While it's not quite as good as the NH-U12A in terms of sheer performance, its quietness and value make it an excellent choice for those who want a top-notch cooler without breaking the bank.

**Recommendations**

If you're in the market for a new CPU cooler, I highly recommend considering both the Noctua NH-U12A and Dark Rock 4. Both coolers are excellent options that cater to different needs and preferences.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up peeps I'm currently testing the dark rock for from be quiet not because we haven't done that in the past I actually used this cool it's exact test bench and pretty much all of our case reviews ever since the beginning of 2019 or so so I am just trying to get a baseline because we are running this as an open air test bench you can see I've got really expensive test bench here behind me a motherboard box basically and so once we get the baseline I've been burning this in for about thirty minutes I'm just gonna track temps there and then I'm gonna throw in the in actua Nhu 12a which is a cooler I'm sure you've seen on a few other channels and by this point I think that there's a fair comparison behind though between the dark four and the u 12 a the u 12 a has one extra heat pipe seven versus six but they're about the same size so we'll see how they do it's easy to look past certain things but an activate Windows watermark yeah not one of those things snag a verified Oh am Windows 10 key from SCD key for a little over ten bucks and enjoy a fully activated OS without the annoying compromises use offer code a studio for an 18 percent discount on your order one of the things I wanted to do very quickly will show you how we stress test the CPU and GPU for these kinds of videos I use out of 64 because I just think it's a very consistent I like the UI I'm familiar with it many ways I could do this I could stress the GPU individually using like superposition or 3dmark I could stress the CPU with blender or Cinebench like that's all fine but I like that this is all integrated and I can stress both at the same time within the same program so it doesn't really matter very much how you stress test as long as you're stressing to the degree that you want right so 100 percent utilization 75 percent utilization whatever but you want to keep it consistent across runs so in this case when we switch the CPU cooler I'm not going to touch anything in the BIOS in this program I'm just gonna run it again and we'll be able to compare just side by side without any other variables for the most part at play so I just stopped the test we let it burn in for about 37 minutes I'll be sure to run the the Noctua test for the same amount of time now we're gonna come up here to the statistics tab and it's gonna show you the mins and maxes for the entire run so you can see our CPU cores peaked at 89 degrees Celsius and our GPU at the diode reached 60 degrees Celsius yeah that's not the best temperature this CPU honestly kind of missed the mark when it came to the silicon lottery actually it totally missed the mark so this is not a very good one not a very good overclockable chip especially considering we have a 200 plus TDP cooler on top of this thing we are using do bower carbon op pads though and that is something I'll show you when I remove the be quiet cooler this will keep things very consistent when it comes to quote unquote thermal paste application because we don't have to use that anymore we can use a thermal pad it keeps the barrier between the IHS and the CPU cooler very consistent alright now we've got the PC powered off I'm gonna go ahead and switch that off and we will cycle power one thing I will discuss after we run through the temperature test is the difficulty with installation so this cooler is actually easy to install it's much easier than the dark rock Pro 4 which is a much bigger cooler just because the clearances here for like the screws like the two Phillips screws on either side of this little strut bar that goes across the cooler just much easier to access we'll see how that differs with the Nhu 12a and if it is any easier overall very briefly wanted to show you the hardware setup here the installation parts involved and be quiet looks to be a bit more complicated and that's really just due to the fact that they have less pre-installed already out of the box as you can see we've got the Phillips screws here pre-installed over the cold plate for the Noctua cooler and we've also got pre installed a little standoffs here backplate I have them actually inserted here but they don't come pre-installed with the be quiet cooler not that it matters I mean like this is like tiny self I'm just trying to show you the small differences also between the two coolers so make it low here the Knox of a cooler is slightly thinner from a front to back aspect than the be quiet cooler can seem to be quite coolers thicker from top to bottom in this orientation what I think will make up for it though is the extra heat pipe so we have an extra heat pipe here with an actual cooler the coal plate is also slightly larger I've noticed and the be quiet cooler really just has it what looks like slightly denser thinner a and then yeah I mean that's really about it I'd say these coolers are gonna be very close to each other and the differences are gonna be very very small so let's get to installing an aqua cool and I'll let you know if the installation process was in fact any easier all right and yes the binocular was definitely the easier cooler to install also thanks to its slightly narrower form factor we have a bit more clearance here for our ramp so even with the front fan installed we could put modules in all four slots with the be quiet cooler we'd have to use a smaller 120mm fan up front and then hopefully you know fix some of that high clearance but you still probably wouldn't be able to put some beefy modules in there like Corsair Dom Platts or something of the like another difference worth mentioning the natural cooler comes with two 120mm fans these are great fans by the way they're slightly maybe is an understatement ugly in my opinion but they do the job very well next a very quiet we'll talk about sound test here in a second so I'm not gonna the notch of a core I am gonna run test though with just a single fan installed and then two fans to see the difference there we'll compare both to the dark rock four so here are these summarize a graph starting first with CPU core temperatures you can see that our two fan in h-12 UI config is actually running a bit hotter and this might have to do the fact that we're running an open-air test bench if we seal this off in a case it might benefit the computer to have two fans instead of one especially if the case is rather restrictive when it comes to airflow the single fan config was seventy six point nine degrees on average and then eighty one point eight for the dark rock four maximums are pretty much the same story eighty five degrees Celsius for both Noctua runs and then eighty nine degrees Celsius for so a four degree Celsius jump on the NOC shua to the dark rock for next up we have sound how loud each cooler was under load obviously the two fan knocked to a config was the loudest forty two point two decibels and then a single fan config dropped that down to forty point two and just another reason to opt for a single fan convey Gaia I hope Noctua does offer that in the future dark rock for 38.1 this is a pretty big difference to decibels doesn't sound like a lot but it is I just based on the logarithmic scale that we're talking about here so the darker four was noticeably quieter under load by the way I was going to test it idle as well but it was difficult to zone out the background noise here it's just I can't help my neighbors and it's Bike Week this week so yeah but once things got really loud right when the coolers were under load it was easier to distinguish those from the background but both of these coolers at idle were pretty much in autumn I would say you'd be hard-pressed to hear it especially if that build is in a case last up we have price in USD so I just looked up Amazon and Newegg prices here the dark rock for selling on Amazon right now for 75 bucks and the Nhu 12a is selling on Newegg for about a hundred bucks so you're saving 25% twenty-five dollars by choosing the dark art for over the NH 12 a and what I really think could be not to his competitive advantage here is if they offer just a single fan instead of the dual fan config that you get stock in the box that could potentially lower the price of the unit down to around 80 bucks I mean these fans sell for 20 30 bucks a pop they're good fans I would still probably choose silent wings three just because they tend to be a little lower tone and that's a little harder for most humans to hear in my opinion so I think that that design is optimal so I'm not too thrilled about the fact that we have two fans and we're actually paying extra for that as well now at this point I kind of feel like I'm in the middle of the intel verse AMD debate with respect to these coolers because while the Noctua cooler is definitely the better cooler it's probably the best cooler I've ever tested in this form factor like for its size I actually think it is the best cooler I've ever tested that's saying something it's a lot smaller than the HD 15 but it performs like an HD 15 so that's an incredible feat for not you a good job while it is the better one it is also the more expensive one by 25 percent 25 USD that's nothing to I mean that might sound small to some of you but 25 bucks that goes into a better graphics card better motherboard better case and you could spend that money in a lot of different ways so if you want the head room maybe you want to just save money there's nothing wrong with saving money the dark rock 4 in my opinion is the winner if you're going for your performance you want to squeak out the most you can out of your CPU then the u12 a is the better cooler so you see it's kind of yeah pick a side all right if you're gonna make me pick eight times out of 10 it be the dark rock 4 I'm pointing that way because it's sitting over there disassembled and I say that for three reasons first off it's cheaper second off it's quieter and third it looks better that's my preference I prefer coolers that don't look like dirt and not show fans kind of do look like they're look you could smack some max fans on there and it look great but that's more money you got to spend out-of-pocket right so I don't really advise that it'd be nice if not to a shift chrome expands with these coolers or better yet just took out the second fan which I find to be redundant at least in my testing brought that price down to 80 bucks then I would have a dilemma 5 out of 5 I mean literally at five times out of 10 I choose an octave cool or five times out of 10 I choose it to be quite dark rock 4 but I think in this case the dark rap 4 wins because it's a better value it's AMD it's kind of hard to deny good value but if you're going for sheer performance you 12 a is where it's at so I've linked both down below you can pick if you're into buying either of these coolers I bid you farewell it's going to be a tough choice but I can tell you you're really not gonna go wrong with either of these and if you have like a closed-off case or whatever then in my opinion the not to a cooler despite its slightly louder profile is definitely better in terms of RAM clearance and sheer performance you guys like this video thumbs up I appreciate it thumbs down for the opposite or if you hate everything but like click that red subscribe button if you haven't already and I'll catch you in the next one this is science video thanks for watching and thanks for learning with uswhat's up peeps I'm currently testing the dark rock for from be quiet not because we haven't done that in the past I actually used this cool it's exact test bench and pretty much all of our case reviews ever since the beginning of 2019 or so so I am just trying to get a baseline because we are running this as an open air test bench you can see I've got really expensive test bench here behind me a motherboard box basically and so once we get the baseline I've been burning this in for about thirty minutes I'm just gonna track temps there and then I'm gonna throw in the in actua Nhu 12a which is a cooler I'm sure you've seen on a few other channels and by this point I think that there's a fair comparison behind though between the dark four and the u 12 a the u 12 a has one extra heat pipe seven versus six but they're about the same size so we'll see how they do it's easy to look past certain things but an activate Windows watermark yeah not one of those things snag a verified Oh am Windows 10 key from SCD key for a little over ten bucks and enjoy a fully activated OS without the annoying compromises use offer code a studio for an 18 percent discount on your order one of the things I wanted to do very quickly will show you how we stress test the CPU and GPU for these kinds of videos I use out of 64 because I just think it's a very consistent I like the UI I'm familiar with it many ways I could do this I could stress the GPU individually using like superposition or 3dmark I could stress the CPU with blender or Cinebench like that's all fine but I like that this is all integrated and I can stress both at the same time within the same program so it doesn't really matter very much how you stress test as long as you're stressing to the degree that you want right so 100 percent utilization 75 percent utilization whatever but you want to keep it consistent across runs so in this case when we switch the CPU cooler I'm not going to touch anything in the BIOS in this program I'm just gonna run it again and we'll be able to compare just side by side without any other variables for the most part at play so I just stopped the test we let it burn in for about 37 minutes I'll be sure to run the the Noctua test for the same amount of time now we're gonna come up here to the statistics tab and it's gonna show you the mins and maxes for the entire run so you can see our CPU cores peaked at 89 degrees Celsius and our GPU at the diode reached 60 degrees Celsius yeah that's not the best temperature this CPU honestly kind of missed the mark when it came to the silicon lottery actually it totally missed the mark so this is not a very good one not a very good overclockable chip especially considering we have a 200 plus TDP cooler on top of this thing we are using do bower carbon op pads though and that is something I'll show you when I remove the be quiet cooler this will keep things very consistent when it comes to quote unquote thermal paste application because we don't have to use that anymore we can use a thermal pad it keeps the barrier between the IHS and the CPU cooler very consistent alright now we've got the PC powered off I'm gonna go ahead and switch that off and we will cycle power one thing I will discuss after we run through the temperature test is the difficulty with installation so this cooler is actually easy to install it's much easier than the dark rock Pro 4 which is a much bigger cooler just because the clearances here for like the screws like the two Phillips screws on either side of this little strut bar that goes across the cooler just much easier to access we'll see how that differs with the Nhu 12a and if it is any easier overall very briefly wanted to show you the hardware setup here the installation parts involved and be quiet looks to be a bit more complicated and that's really just due to the fact that they have less pre-installed already out of the box as you can see we've got the Phillips screws here pre-installed over the cold plate for the Noctua cooler and we've also got pre installed a little standoffs here backplate I have them actually inserted here but they don't come pre-installed with the be quiet cooler not that it matters I mean like this is like tiny self I'm just trying to show you the small differences also between the two coolers so make it low here the Knox of a cooler is slightly thinner from a front to back aspect than the be quiet cooler can seem to be quite coolers thicker from top to bottom in this orientation what I think will make up for it though is the extra heat pipe so we have an extra heat pipe here with an actual cooler the coal plate is also slightly larger I've noticed and the be quiet cooler really just has it what looks like slightly denser thinner a and then yeah I mean that's really about it I'd say these coolers are gonna be very close to each other and the differences are gonna be very very small so let's get to installing an aqua cool and I'll let you know if the installation process was in fact any easier all right and yes the binocular was definitely the easier cooler to install also thanks to its slightly narrower form factor we have a bit more clearance here for our ramp so even with the front fan installed we could put modules in all four slots with the be quiet cooler we'd have to use a smaller 120mm fan up front and then hopefully you know fix some of that high clearance but you still probably wouldn't be able to put some beefy modules in there like Corsair Dom Platts or something of the like another difference worth mentioning the natural cooler comes with two 120mm fans these are great fans by the way they're slightly maybe is an understatement ugly in my opinion but they do the job very well next a very quiet we'll talk about sound test here in a second so I'm not gonna the notch of a core I am gonna run test though with just a single fan installed and then two fans to see the difference there we'll compare both to the dark rock four so here are these summarize a graph starting first with CPU core temperatures you can see that our two fan in h-12 UI config is actually running a bit hotter and this might have to do the fact that we're running an open-air test bench if we seal this off in a case it might benefit the computer to have two fans instead of one especially if the case is rather restrictive when it comes to airflow the single fan config was seventy six point nine degrees on average and then eighty one point eight for the dark rock four maximums are pretty much the same story eighty five degrees Celsius for both Noctua runs and then eighty nine degrees Celsius for so a four degree Celsius jump on the NOC shua to the dark rock for next up we have sound how loud each cooler was under load obviously the two fan knocked to a config was the loudest forty two point two decibels and then a single fan config dropped that down to forty point two and just another reason to opt for a single fan convey Gaia I hope Noctua does offer that in the future dark rock for 38.1 this is a pretty big difference to decibels doesn't sound like a lot but it is I just based on the logarithmic scale that we're talking about here so the darker four was noticeably quieter under load by the way I was going to test it idle as well but it was difficult to zone out the background noise here it's just I can't help my neighbors and it's Bike Week this week so yeah but once things got really loud right when the coolers were under load it was easier to distinguish those from the background but both of these coolers at idle were pretty much in autumn I would say you'd be hard-pressed to hear it especially if that build is in a case last up we have price in USD so I just looked up Amazon and Newegg prices here the dark rock for selling on Amazon right now for 75 bucks and the Nhu 12a is selling on Newegg for about a hundred bucks so you're saving 25% twenty-five dollars by choosing the dark art for over the NH 12 a and what I really think could be not to his competitive advantage here is if they offer just a single fan instead of the dual fan config that you get stock in the box that could potentially lower the price of the unit down to around 80 bucks I mean these fans sell for 20 30 bucks a pop they're good fans I would still probably choose silent wings three just because they tend to be a little lower tone and that's a little harder for most humans to hear in my opinion so I think that that design is optimal so I'm not too thrilled about the fact that we have two fans and we're actually paying extra for that as well now at this point I kind of feel like I'm in the middle of the intel verse AMD debate with respect to these coolers because while the Noctua cooler is definitely the better cooler it's probably the best cooler I've ever tested in this form factor like for its size I actually think it is the best cooler I've ever tested that's saying something it's a lot smaller than the HD 15 but it performs like an HD 15 so that's an incredible feat for not you a good job while it is the better one it is also the more expensive one by 25 percent 25 USD that's nothing to I mean that might sound small to some of you but 25 bucks that goes into a better graphics card better motherboard better case and you could spend that money in a lot of different ways so if you want the head room maybe you want to just save money there's nothing wrong with saving money the dark rock 4 in my opinion is the winner if you're going for your performance you want to squeak out the most you can out of your CPU then the u12 a is the better cooler so you see it's kind of yeah pick a side all right if you're gonna make me pick eight times out of 10 it be the dark rock 4 I'm pointing that way because it's sitting over there disassembled and I say that for three reasons first off it's cheaper second off it's quieter and third it looks better that's my preference I prefer coolers that don't look like dirt and not show fans kind of do look like they're look you could smack some max fans on there and it look great but that's more money you got to spend out-of-pocket right so I don't really advise that it'd be nice if not to a shift chrome expands with these coolers or better yet just took out the second fan which I find to be redundant at least in my testing brought that price down to 80 bucks then I would have a dilemma 5 out of 5 I mean literally at five times out of 10 I choose an octave cool or five times out of 10 I choose it to be quite dark rock 4 but I think in this case the dark rap 4 wins because it's a better value it's AMD it's kind of hard to deny good value but if you're going for sheer performance you 12 a is where it's at so I've linked both down below you can pick if you're into buying either of these coolers I bid you farewell it's going to be a tough choice but I can tell you you're really not gonna go wrong with either of these and if you have like a closed-off case or whatever then in my opinion the not to a cooler despite its slightly louder profile is definitely better in terms of RAM clearance and sheer performance you guys like this video thumbs up I appreciate it thumbs down for the opposite or if you hate everything but like click that red subscribe button if you haven't already and I'll catch you in the next one this is science video thanks for watching and thanks for learning with us\n"