Noctua NH-L12 Review

Conclusion

We always expected a compromise for a low profile cooling solution when comparing it to a “performance” solution like the NH-D14. We didn’t expect the compromise to be so minor in relative terms. At stock voltages, the difference between the two products with all fans in their ‘default modes’ was about 13 degrees. When overclocking, the difference stretched out to about 20 degrees.

Size / Clearance

The NH-L12 requires 93mm of height clearance with the NF-F12 fan attached, 66mm without it. The trade off with height is the clearance around the socket and we found it snug in terms of that first RAM slot but the heatsink is so easy to attach and detach, if you need to get access to your RAM and have to remove the cooler, it’s no big deal. Noctua give you more NT-H1 thermal compound that you will need for several reinstalls as well. The orientation of the fan blows air down onto the motherboard chipset, which is not a bad thing either. We can’t really see a negative impact of the design on clearance – in fact it should fit in more cases than typical tower heatsinks.

Acoustics

The NH-L12 is quiet, there is no doubt about it. It’s audible at full speed but still not offensively loud. For general running, the NH-L12 is almost silent – in a closed Fractal R3 case under normal load, (not benchmarking), we couldn’t hear it at all. The NH-L12 makes less noise than the already quiet NH-D14.

Thermal Performance

As expected, the smaller heatsink doesn’t perform as well as our tower heatsink – and it shouldn’t. There is far less surface area on the NH-L12 than the NH-D14. That said, the low profile option doesn’t perform badly by any means. We expected the NH-L12 to fail our overclock tests but with both fans attached, we consider the results to be a win for the R&D team at Noctua.

If you are looking to overclock a CPU like the 2500K and wanting to use the NH-L12, then you need to keep in mind that you would be using the cooler against the recommendation of the manufacturer. Although we had some success in this area, not all CPUs have equal thermal properties so do so at your own risk. There are other products like the NH-D14 and Corsair Hydro series coolers that are better suited to overclocking and performance cooling.

Under typical load (95W TDP or less), the NH-L12 is an excellent cooler and would be our first choice for a HTPC.

Price

At $75, it’s more expensive than most other low profile coolers. We consider it to be a premium product, that is sturdy, easy to work with and performs as advertised. The fans that are included with the heatsink are PWM and at the top of Noctua’s range. An NF-F12 fan retails for $29, the NF-B9 $24 so when you take that into consideration the price tag for the package doesn’t look that hefty.

I’d consider this cooler if I was building a HTPC or a small form factor gaming rig where silence was important. The NH-L12 could be expected to perform even better when paired with an i3 CPU, which is more likely to be used in a HTPC than the 2500K that we had available here for testing.

This is a brilliant product and if you are building a HTPC, we would strongly recommend that you try to fit it in your budget. 

Highly Recommended

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