Hardware Bistro

Product: NT-H1
Manufacturer: Noctua
Supplied by: Noctua
Price: 8.99USD/RM33
Launch Date: NA

 

After reviewed NF-P12 from Noctua which is a 120mm case fan, today we received their NT-H1 which is a 1.4ml volume of thermal compound that can be used for processor, graphic card, chipset and other hardware that require a heatsink in order to work perfectly. Stay tune with us and we'll give you surprise on this Noctua NT-H1 with its outstanding performance.

 

Company Profile

Noctua arises from a cooperation between the Austrian Rascom Computerdistribution Ges.m.b.H and the Taiwanese Kolink International Corporation and entertains a development partnership with the Austrian Institute of Heat Transmission and Fan Technology (Österreichisches Institut für Wärmeübertragung und Ventilatorentechnik, ÖIWV). These connections form the key to the achievement of our goal: The partnership with the ÖIWV permits the application of scientific measurement instrumentation, methods of calculation and simulation technology in the R&D process.

Rascom's long, customer-oriented experience in developing and distributing sound-optimised high-end products ensures a clear focus on the users' needs. The use of Kolink's advanced manufacturing technology and ultra-modern production plants allows us to efficiently implement our technical edge and provide solutions of the highest standard in quality and performance.

 

Features

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

Noctua packs this thermal compound; NT-H1 with a simple packaging with Noctua ordinary color; chocolate. The packaging is not sealed and we would prefer Noctua seals it up for better security purpose although thermal compound is not expensive but having argument with customer is not good.

 

Features of Noctua NT-H1 are stated at the front while the details are stated at the back of the packaging with multilangauge's descriptions. Noctua doesn't include any thermal compound applicator for NT-H1 as this is one of the features of this product where users do not require spreading the thermal compound manually by themselves which is time consuming.

 

Noctua NT-H1

 

Noctua NT-H1 comes with a big tube around twice compare with the other thermal compounds where the volume of NT-H1 is around 1.4ml; it can be used for at least 15 applications. Most of the new thermal compound are having such big volume where it is one of their selling point for their thermal compound; super value.

Noctua NT-H1 consists of a hybrid compound of different micro-particles which is optimized in PC cooling purpose and it has extremely low thermal resistance which is important for excellent pliability, spread ability.

Besides that Noctua NT-H1 will be spread easily without any manual spreading and hence this is wht Noctua doesn't include any applicator for this product which may waste the thermal compound and time consuming too. Some of the thermal compounds in the market require at least some certain of hours as the burn in time in order to get the best performance however this is not required for Noctua NT-H1 at all where it can achieve best performance instantly.

 

The thermal compound of Noctua NT-H1 comes with silver color which is standard for high end thermal compound. However Noctua NT-H1 is not electricity conductive and non corroding as NT-H1 has very low dielectric constant and high dielectric strength. Hence users can use this thermal compound without any worry as short circuit may cause your PC no post or permanent damage on the specific hardware. The thermal compound of NT-H1 can be cleaned off easily which is good for maintenance compare with those lousy brands thermal compound.

Here are the comparison between Noctua NT-H1 with Gelid GC-1 where both of them are having around the same volume of thermal compound and Noctua NT-H1 is slight more expensive than GC-1 (~2USD). However because the thermal compound of Noctua NT-H1 is much in solid form (not so liquid) so users may need to apply NT-H1 more compare with Gelid GC-1.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Installation of thermal compound if not a problem at all where users just need to clean off the old thermal compound on the processor and heatsink before apply the new thermal compound. For Noctua NT-H1, users do not require to spread the thermal compound evenly because with its easy spreading design, the thermal compound will be spread easily once the system is powered on.

 

Test Bed
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
Heatsink: Noctua NH-U12P
Memory: Patriot Viper PC8500 5-5-5-15
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: OEM Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW HLDS
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

 

You may surprise with the results above as Noctua NT-H1 outperforms than its competitors which are some of the top thermal compounds in PC industry. We doubt out results when we saw it during the first time so we retested it few times and the results were still same so we're searching the comparison between these few thermal compounds in internet and found that our test result is correct as Noctua NT-H1 is really outstanding and perform better than those competitors that we have tested in this review.

** The test result may vary with different setup as it might be limited by the heatsink, fan or ambient temperature as well.

 

Conclusion

With 8.99USD for Noctua NT-H1, this is the best thermal compound that we have tested so far and we believe it will be one of the top thermal compounds that you could find in market as this Noctua NT-H1 is not only cheap but also perform better than them. With this we are going to give Best Value and Editors' Choice Awards for this great product from Noctua. It is very exciting for us to test out the next products from Noctua where we believe it will be very outstanding products as well because Noctua always produces great and good quality products.

 

Pros:
* Great performance
* Super value
* No burn in time
* Easy spreading

Cons:
* None

Thanks to Noctua for providing this sample for us to review.

 

Only registered users may post a comment.

Wandering (Guest)	4.0 / 5	Mon 5 Jan 09
I don't understand the lack of a negative comment on this product. I have been buying and selling computers, large and small since well before the "pc" era, and I have never run across a need to replace the thermal compound in the systems every three or any other number of years. Is this something system builders have come to expect?

Administrator	5.0 / 5	Thu 4 Dec 08
Hi Eric, we have updated the review to clarify further. Basically if you have tried those no brand thermal paste then maybe you have found that they are hard to be cleaned off which is a common problem. However a more liquid thermal compound like GC-1will be always easy to be cleaned off.

Eric (Guest)	3.0 / 5	Thu 4 Dec 08
And how does it stack up to a "real" thermal paste like Artic Silver 5? THAT is the comparison I was looking for. I will say however that your coment that it was easy to clean is intriguing. AS5 is a bear to clean off a surface.