Noctua NC-U6 Chipset Cooler

The overall majority of typical motherboard chipset heatsinks and 'fansinks' typically offer only just sufficient cooling, but no further. If that wasn't enough many of the lower cost enthusiast motherboards will often sacrifice silence for a high-speed fan in the process. Typically these fans only last one or two years at most before wearing out and needing to be replaced, as some computer users unfortunately discovered only after their board had overheated and failed.

Availability of Noctua's array of cooling products in the larger US and UK markets is a bit on the lean side, but they can still be found with a little footwork (or rather finger work). To make things easy Noctua's website offers a regional worldwide database keeping track of who carries their products and where. The specific sample in this review was shipped directly from Noctua.