Another one from the eTeknix history books is the Noctua NH-L9i low-profile cooler. This one was reviewed by us 7 years ago too. Yet again, we’ve been using these in low-profile builds ever since. It’s remarkable that Noctua release so few products, but they’re so good, they can last many years with basically no changes beyond a few mountings kits for new sockets. Check out the original review here.
This one is very different to the other two we’re looking at. It’s got more limited socket support, as it screws directly to the motherboard, much like a stock cooler would. So you get the cooler, four screws, a low noise cable, and the thermal paste, that’s it.
It’s an absolutely gorgeous cooler too, and it is pretty damn impressive. It uses a compact radiator design with one of their custom slim fans on the top blowing downwards. It’s designed for those with limited PC space and as a direct replacement for the stock Intel cooler. It’s not going to blow you away with cooling performance, but it’ll be cooler and quieter than the stock cooler, so there’s that!
The contact plate is mounted directly onto the radiator too, there’s really no wasted space here. The mounting brackets are right next to the CPU too.
The fan is pre-installed, but you can actually get the screwdriver between the fan blades to mount the cooler with ease. Noctua even fitted these tiny anti-vibration pads on both sides of the fan too. You can see more of those pads in this review.
These are the screws that you put through the back of your motherboard. They’ve even got their own Nylon washer to keep things fitting perfectly.
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