Noctua NH-L12S evaluation | PC Gamer

The Noctua NH-L12S is a powerful factor. 4 heatpipes, a heatsink and a slender fan are all that’s required to maintain a contemporary processor working cool. Certain, it is a bit of sticky with high-end 14th Gen processors—few air coolers are succesful sufficient for these—however it’s ample cooling for a contemporary small kind issue PC. And that is precisely what I’ve constructed.

The NH-L12S is a recognized amount—it has been out there for years now. But it stays a strong decide for a mini gaming PC in 2025. If it ain’t broke…

I’ve rolled out two check programs for this cooler: one, fitted with an Intel Core i7 14700K; and the opposite, an AMD Ryzen 7 9700X. The previous is our traditional check mattress for cooler evaluations—there aren’t any case followers to assist the cooler out and the chip requires ample cooling for its excessive energy draw as much as 253 W. That is too large of an ask for a plucky low-profile cooler—although put together to be mildly impressed later on this evaluation—therefore why I grabbed the 9700X off the shelf for my mini PC construct. This AMD chip runs at a mere 65 W TDP, which is incredible for small kind issue.

The cooler itself is made up of nickel-plated copper warmth pipes and plate related to an aluminium heatsink. As I discussed, there are 4 heatpipes, which all run the complete size of the plate and thru the heatsink.

This cooler comes with a single fan, one Noctua NF-A12x15 PWM. That is the width and peak as common case followers and may stand up to 1850 RPM, besides it is barely thinner than most. This enables it to be set-up in one in all two methods: on high of the heatsink or sandwiched between the plate and heatsink. The previous is the higher choice, because it leaves 48 mm of clearance for system RAM, whereas the latter provides solely 35 mm.

First off, set up. This was comparatively easy on the open Intel bench. Noctua features a steel backplate within the field that matches a variety of Intel sockets, together with its newest, LGA1851, and the one I am utilizing, LGA1700. As soon as connected, the legs protrude via the motherboard the place I can connect some giant spacers, brackets, and screws. It is a contact fiddly to get all on directly after which firmly connected, however nothing ol’ Jacob could not deal with. For these acquainted, that is largely the identical mounting technique used throughout lots of Noctua’s air coolers.

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With a dab of thermal paste (extra like a dollop), the cooler then sits atop of the bracket and has a pair of sprung screws to assist hold pressure evenly utilized throughout the CPU’s heatspreader (IHS).

All that is left is to plug the fan into the CPU Fan header with the 21.5 cm lengthy PWM cable. There’s additionally a low-noise adapter included within the field, measuring a further 10.5 cm, which knocks the fan right down to 1,400 RPM. You should not want to make use of the adapter because the fan is not notably loud more often than not, however there is a diploma of non-public desire right here.

Let’s discuss efficiency. Contemplating its small statute, the cooler put up combat in opposition to the 14700K. The chip reached a most temperature of 92°C whereas working a stress check of 3DMark’s Metal Nomad benchmark, and simply 86°C in Metro Exodus Enhanced Version. That is admittedly not nice by the requirements of most liquid or bigger air coolers, however the reality it wasn’t thermal throttling had me impressed.

Whenever you push the 14700K to its limits in X264 or Cinebench R23, nonetheless, the NH-L12S begins to break down. The chip hit 100°C in each benchmarks, partaking thermal throttling, which implies the dearth of satisfactory cooling restricted to the efficiency of the PC. That is not nice.

Although, as I discussed earlier than, this is not a CPU/cooler mixture I might advocate. I would not have paired them up if our cooling exams hadn’t demanded it. For a extra life like check, then, I paired the NH-L12S with the Ryzen 7 9700X and plonked it inside a Fractal Terra chassis. That is extra its pure habitat.

I wanted to flip the fan mounting for this case. That is simply carried out, although it leaves me with much less room for RAM and did imply my cooler got here involved with the sting of the motherboard IO. The motherboard being the Asus ROG Strix X870-I Gaming WiFi. That is a little bit of a priority. The cooler packs down to simply 70 mm in peak, together with the fan connected between the plate and heatsink, which is spectacular, and provides a RAM clearance of round 35 mm. That is nearly sufficient house for low-profile RAM sticks—nothing fancy.

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A phrase of warning: I made a decision on PNY XLR8 Gaming 32 GB DDR5-6200 sticks inside my check machine. These are, by my measurements with a set of iFixit calipers, 34.87 mm in peak. That is below the 35 mm required, although even so there was some contact between the cooler and closest DIMM, even within the second slot away from the CPU. Each ended up sitting fairly in the long run, although with a bit of strain utilized to the facet of 1 DIMM.

The NH-L12S handled the 9700X fantastically. It reached a most temperature of simply 76°C whereas gaming, and 79°C below extra intense masses, reminiscent of Handbrake and Cinebench R24. That is each a praise for Noctua’s compact cooler, which was working with solely a reasonable quantity extra airflow from the extra 1x 120 mm fan put in within the Terra, and AMD’s power-savvy 9000-series processors.

Even with the extra fan in place contained in the Fractal Design Terra, and the case sat atop of my desk inside earshot, the NH-L12S is not overly loud.

Small kind issue elements are likely to illicit giant costs—make of that what you’ll—and the NH-L12S does include a tall price ticket contemplating its stature. It’s going to set you again $65/£64. If you would like an inexpensive air cooler, we’ve different finances air cooler suggestions for that. Likewise, Noctua makes a taller variant known as the NH-L12Sx77, which options two further heatpipes for better cooling potential, although it will run into better compatibility points with a lot of Mini-ITX instances on account of its 77 mm peak (NH-L12S is barely 70 mm).

But there’s one thing to be mentioned for this compact cooler even in gentle of different items. It straddles a wonderful line between cooling potential and dimension. It is an awesome match for one in all AMD’s newest processors—at the very least the decrease wattage ones—and, as confirmed in testing, you do not really want far more than it provides.