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Today we are going to look at the latest addition to the Noctua range, the NH-L12, which is a low profile CPU cooler designed for use in an HTPC or small form factor PC. It features two PWM controlled fans, one of which can be removed so the cooler can be used in the most space restricted environments.
The NH-L12 from Noctua was a little surprise for me. I felt the little guy wouldn’t hold up to the heat. It did, and for users that have a smaller/narrower case and not interested in the least to overclock then the NH-L12 would be rather perfect. Top it off with Noctua’s 6 year warranty and awesome build quality, the NH-L12 has win all over it...
When you are building a home theater PC or small form factor PC it is really hard to find a CPU cooler that will not only fit, but provide adequate cooling as well. We know Noctua for making extremely large CPU coolers, some of the largest air coolers that we have seen actually. Today we are checking out one of their latest CPU coolers the NH-L12. What is interesting about it is that it is a low-profile cooler made for home theater PC’s and smaller systems. Will this cooler still provide the great cooling power we are used to seeing with Noctua CPU coolers? Read on to find out!
Noctua drops into the low profile and low power CPU cooling segment with the release of the 95W capable NH-L12 CPU cooler.
The Noctua NH-L12 is a lower profile heatsink that stands 93mm tall and is a little over 130mm square. The heatsink comes with two fans; a 120mm NF-F12 PWM fan on top and a 92mm NF-B9 PWM fan tucked away beneath the fins. In a nod to being flexible, the top fan can be knocked off the NH-L12 to lower its height to 66mm for really compact computer cases if necessary. That's a far cry more compact than the typical 160mm tall tower heatsink!
Strangely enough although the latest LGA2011 Sandy Bridge CPUs are the hottest thing currently, at least in terms of processing power there still aren't that many new cooling solutions in the market that support them and since i decided on starting over with a brand new LGA2011 based CPU Cooler database (the old LGA1366 one was way too long) this has proven to be quite the problem. Thankfully aside the huge NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler Noctua has also launched another LGA2011 compatible CPU Cooler the latest low-profile NH-L12 which although targeted towards HTPC users and not hardcore overclockers and enthusiasts still it carries quite a punch for its size as you will see later on.
Noctua did not venture to break any cooling records with the NH-L12 but rather to give HTPC and small form factor users a quality cooler and this goal was reached. With just a single NF-B9 92mm fan the NH-L12 stands at just 66mm and Low Noise Adapters make this an ideal package for replacing that stock fan in any configuration. Noctua’s SecuFirm2 mounting system makes installation a snap and holds the NH-L12 securely in place. A premium package gives you everything you need for installation including hardware to mount an unused fan in your case, that is going a step beyond in my book.
Noctua has recently launched two new low profile coolers that measures only 37 mm in
height. There's an Intel version called NH-L9i for Intel socket LGA1150, LGA1155 and
LGA1156 and an AMD version called NH-L for the AM2 (+), AM3 (+), FM1 and FM2 platform.
The Noctua cooler is with the small size ideal for media centers or similar and in
addition also be low-noise, but without compromising the performance. How it performs,
have a look in the renvew.
The Noctua NH-L9a low profile AMD CPU cooler may be small, but it definitely isn't weak. During testing it easily outperformed the stock cooler it replaced in terms of cooling power and noise production. There aren't too many coolers available for tiny HTPCs and small form factor computers, but this seems like a great choice.
Am 23.Oktober stellte Noctua seine neuen Low-Profil CPU Kühler NH-L9 für AMD und Intel Sockel vor. Dank der geringen Einbautiefe von nur 37 mm soll der Kühler ideal für ITX-Systeme sein. Wie sich der kompakte Kühler gegen die Boxed Version von AMD und Intel schlägt und wie laut der kleine 92mm Lüfter ist, wollen wir in diesem Test zeigen.
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