Two fans, four heatpipes, and a whole lotta quality.
Noctua are an Austrian company, well-favoured amongst the quiet crowd who demand good cooling at low noise, but they're also great for enthusiasts.
They've brought out incredibly solid mounting systems, included 3-pin resistor cables to reduce fan speeds in every box, and managed to do so at a price that isn't astronomical and the NH-U12P SE2 heatsink does all of these things with flair.
Socket compatability covers AM2/AM2+/AM3, and LGA775/1156/1366 - in other words, everything you could want.
Packing four U-shaped heatpipes for eight heat paths, two NF-P12 fans with silicon antivibration strips and plenty of NT-H1 thermal goop (Atomic's paste of choice, no less), the NH-U12P SE2 looks to be another winner.
Of course we can't say this as definite until testing is done, but until we get the review out in an upcoming Issue make sure you jump into the gallery of pics and see how this $85 heatsink compares to the competition.
Issue: 107 | December, 2009