Noctua NH-L9i, Premium Low-Profile CPU Cooler for Intel LGA1200 & LGA115x (Brown)

I WISH this fit in my 1U case. Clearly superior to that I had but was too large by a few mm. Noctua is always the best choice.

My build was making a hissing/humming noise that I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. At first I thought it was the enterprise drives due to my failed elimination process but no, it was the stock Intel fan after all. They're known to be noisy but this is my first build ever and I wanted to wing it and see if I could save a few bucks, maybe they aren't as bad/noisy as they say online right? But no, even with the silent config it just made way too much noise. I added the Noctua in one in and configured it as a 'normal' fan instead of silent and I can't hear a thing. Installation freaked me out a little bit because for a moment it seemed like it would not fit in my Gigabyte Z590I mini ITX but it did fit to the milimiter, it's got almost no clearance so it was hard to know if I was placing it in the right place but it does fit perfectly, almost too perfectly like it was designed with that motherboard in mind. Wish I had ordered it along with my other components, would've saved me so much time and frustration. Don't skimp on the CPU cooler if you want a silent build!

I purchased this for a SFF build in a Fractal Design Terra case. Many sources stated (including Noctua) that this little low profile cooler could handle newer Intel CPUs, but sadly, it cannot without thermal throttling the CPU significantly. The packaged arrived quickly and packaged nicely for safe transport. The cooler was easily installed, 4 screws that screw in from the back of your mobo directly into the cooler itself. This is easy for anyone with a case that allows access to the back of the motherboard, or alternatively anyone who is freshly building their system. It comes with thermal paste pre-applied but I chose to utilize Artic Silver thermal paste. Install was straightforward and simple with no issues with clearance on a MATX motherboard, specifically the Gigabyte Z590I Ultra. While there are no clearance issues, the clearance is very tight. You do not have enough space to manage the fan wire on any sides of the cooler. This limited clearance also allows too much heat to dissipate onto all the nearby components, like memory and GPU (if you're not using a PCIE extension cable). I paired this with a Intel 11900F (65w), not even the full wattage version, and still have to restrict the CPU cores and top speeds in BIOS, and set CPU fan speed to "always 100%", in order to remain a toasty 50c at idle. Normally I'd see a 34-36c idle temp with any reasonable cooler, AIO or heatpiped air cooler. Load temps spiked to 90c+ before the system would crash or severely throttle itself. With adjusted cores and top CPU speeds, it now rises to 65-70c under load. Benchmarking the performance difference when paired with a 3080ti, is around a 20fps drop by the reduced CPU speed. I scoured Amazon for a comparable CPU cooler that would fit within the Terra case to no success. Additionally the Noctua fan that is paired with this cooler is not sufficient enough to draw heat away from the CPU. Maximum RPM of the fan is a paltry 2500rpm. At 3,500rpm this would possibly be sufficient enough to not encounter t-junction temps on newer Intel CPUs, but Noctua doesn't make fans above 2,500rpm and any fans you might find that are sufficient enough do not come with plug and play connectors. This is also utilizing an uncommon 92mm fan, and while you could purchase or 3d print a 120mm to 92mm adapter, most 120mm fans do not exceed 2,500rpm as well. For slightly older or less powerful CPUs this seems like it would be a sufficient cooler for very basic setups or possibly AMD cpus as certain models tend to run cooler than intel CPUs, but for my build and CPU this was not sufficient. I would not feel comfortable recommending this to others.

One of the PCs in our home office was starting to whine, and then the fan gave up the ghost. Wanting something quiet and not careing about paying a premium for good quality I though to give a Noctua a go. Fitting was easy and straight forward, the PC I put this on had access to both sides of the motherboard without removing anything. At first seeing metal hardware I was a little worried on clearances, however there are insulating washes, and it perfectly cleared everything anyway. I set the mobo-control to something medium quiet and ran a CPU torture test on a stock i5 something or other. Temps were reduced, noise was near inaudible when a meter away. My only quibble is the sheer amount of un-needed packaging. I get that preium products want to stand out, but I really dont need a foam lined box, an enamel logo badge thing and so on. Please offer a brown bag version.

Leise und zuverlässig - seit vielen Monaten im Einsatz, alles gut. Auch bei hoher Auslastung und voller Luftleistung keine unangenehmen Geräusche. Einbau war auch Ok.