Conclusion

The Noctua is one of my favorite companies when it comes to cooling as they don't flood the market with a ton of coolers. Just a few coolers that do a really good job. For the Core i7 generation, the first cooler from Noctua to hit the shelves is the NH-U12P SE1366. The SE1366 is not a totally new cooler but a revision of an older cooler that performed pretty damn well. I have echoed this in every Noctua review I have ever done and that is the quality that you get from Noctua can't be touched by many in the industry. The SE1366 continues the excellence we see from Noctua.

The updates that we see with the SE1366 is what makes this cooler better than the previous version. The mounting system is simple and takes a little time consumption when installing, but works well and is worth the little extra time that it takes to assemble. And we can't forget the individual fan that you get with the SE1366. The added couple of degrees is also worth it. Especially when you are trying to get the highest stable overclock from your CPU and also want to remain in quiet trying to get there. Noctua planned everything out when developing the upgrades to the NH-U12P.

Noctua is more than just great fans but great coolers as well. And if you haven't tried one them it is about time because you would not be disappointed. It just will cost you about $65 to do so. Yes, this put the SE1366 at the upper range of cooler pricing but how many of these other coolers come with two fans for a push-pull configuration? We see many companies adding the mounting hardware for another fan but not the fan itself.

The only downside to the SE1366 is evident by the name itself. This cooler is meant for the Intel socket 1366 processors only. The 1366 socket is Intel's high end chipset and will be for sometime. So, I don't see anyone moving down to the newer 1156 socket, so no issue there. But if you decide to crossover to the AMD platform you will have to look to purchasing new brackets or opting for another cooler.