Noctua NH-L9i-17xx, Premium Low-Profile CPU Cooler for Intel LGA1700 and LGA1851 (Brown)

Ignore the few oddball reviews claiming this cooler is inferior or no better than the OEM stock Intel 12th cooler. They did something wrong. Under identical conditions The Noctua NH-L9i results in temps around 10 degrees cooler than the Intel cooler AND with much less noise. With a six core i5-12400F running various CPU stress tests I couldn't get the CPU over 66C vs 75C with the Intel cooler. With a 8+4 core i7-12700F the Noctua kept it under 85C vs 95C with the stock cooler. I tested with the motherboard in open air under identical conditions. Your temps might vary with your case cooling but the fact is the Noctua outperforms the stock Intel cooler and is quieter while doing it. And that should always hold true. The Intel cooler has a round contact area that only makes contact with perhaps 60%-70% of the rectangular CPU heat spreader. That's just brain dead on the part of Intel. The Noctua cooler makes contact with the entire heat spreader which helps it remove significantly more heat. Further Intel puts stupid cosmetic plastic trim on their cooler which likely only further inhibits airflow. It's classic marketing department form over function. The difference in noise is huge. At any RPM the Noctua is much quieter. Even at full speed (a still low 2400 rpm) the Noctua is impressively quiet and it's subjectively a much more pleasant noise than the jet spooling up for take off noise of the Intel cooler at 100%. The NH-L9i also fit my very cramped mini-ITX Gigabyte Z690 motherboard beautifully. You can also get the Noctua fan shroud kit for some applications so it can pull cool outside air giving it another huge advantage over the Intel and other coolers. The Noctua also provides downward airflow that gets directed over the motherboard chipset, SSD, VRM, RAM, and other parts that really benefit from and are designed around a downflow OEM style heatsink airflow. Those complaining about the mounting tabs not being flush with the motherboard don't understand the need to tension the heatsink to the CPU. The whole idea is to use the mounting tabs as springs to create the perfect tension for the best CPU contact without over-stressing anything. It's a very smart design that creates the right amount of contact force when the arms "bottom out" against the motherboard. Overall this is a great cooler for a great many applications. If you want to run an over clocked K series CPU you likely need a bigger cooler. But for compact small form factor builds, this is the best cooler I know of and genuinely shames Intel's provided cooler.

If your case has a side panel that lets air through right lined up with the fan on this, I highly recommend also getting the $13 official Noctua fan duct kit, NA-FT1. If you have too much clearance for that kit, look at the Noctua 65mm height cooler instead of this one. I've built 4 computers to date in the InWin Chopin. The first one was using the 200watt version of the original Chopin, and the last 3 were all in the newer Chopin Max. All were using AsRock motherboards, with Intel Core series LGA1700 CPUs. First: Chopin 200w, Intel 12400 cooled by its included Laminar RM1, Asrock B660m-ITX ac Second: Chopin Max, Intel 12100 cooled by its included Laminar RM1, Asrock Z690m-ITX ax Third and Fourth: Chopin Max, Intel 12400 cooled by NHL9I with Na-ft1 duct kit, Asrock B660m-ITX ac The first unit just barely fits the Laminar RM1, a gentle pressing on the side panel will grind the fan. The second one, the Chopin Max increases the CPU clearance a little, so that grinding issue is gone, reduces the noise a bit as well, less turbulence of the blades against the mesh. We can't really compare temps as the CPU in the second one is lower powered than the first, but that's not what this review is about anyway. The third and fourth were built simultaneously with the exact same configuration to each other. The temps of the third and fourth units, using ducted Nhl9i-17xx is about 10 degrees cooler than the Laminar RM1 achieved, with significantly less noise at max load and almost no noise at all at idle. Note that I did CPUZ stress tests for my numbers. I watched CPU temps and fan speeds. Initially, I ran one of the new Chopin Max machines without the NA-FT1 duct kit and the other one with that kit installed. The unducted one under the stress test held the same 154.8f temp, but by running the Noctua fan at max 2550 rpm speed whereas the ducted one was running it at about 2270 rpm. When I forced the Noctuas to run at 80% speed, the ducted one held the temp at 158f after about half an hour, with the unducted one settling in at 170f. Once I installed the duct kit on the second machine, both had identical temps, down to less than a degree, so the duct kit is proven. Note that so far as I can tell, in the Chopin case, NHL9i is not all that much cooler than the stock Laminar RM1 included with the non-k Intel LGA1700 CPUs. Ducted, however, it's way better, and it's far quieter. It's quieter even without the duct kit, but with it, it's a whole new ball game

I am building my first ITX PC and started with an barebones system which came with an i9-12900HK mobile CPU. The board has a heat sink that makes the CPU fit in standard LGA1700 form factor and what looked to be a pretty decent cooler. The CPU was constantly hitting 100 C and heat throttling. I swapped for this fan, and after running various stress tests and benchmarks, am happy to report that it hasn't hit 100 C once yet, and it's way quieter than the old one. I ordered the combo that comes with the fan duct kit, which hasn't come yet, so anticipating even more cooling once that arrives.

Effective little cooler as long as you keep your expectations reasonable. Noctua makes good stuff but it's not magic. It's not gonna keep a14900K from thermal throttling during Blender renders. But it's a great little cooler if you're building in an ITX case with something like an i5 or other low TDP LGA 1700 CPU. I use it on a 13500 in an ITX media server and temps and fan noise are never an issue, it runs in the mid 30s at idle, and I think the hottest I've seen the CPU get is 64C while transcoding video. This is my favorite of the very small coolers, if you need a cooler that is this small I would say get this one but if you can fit a larger cooler I would suggest doing so.

So, I've fallen hard on the personal PC world. Built a serious PC at first then I wanted a bad@ss smallest possible PC SFF build that had a handle and portable af. Right, so I went with the beloved S300 case and that case is great (really). Went with a Asus Rog 760-i, Teamwork 6400 ddr5, 12600k (oops) the thermals will never allow 4.9ghz. More like 4.2ghz. So, I bought the best low profile CPU cooler money can buy, this one. I even upgraded to the bigger fan that this kit kindfully supplies the screws for. (Very kind and helpful) sooooo I married it with a super slim 4070ti...... keep in mind the 12600k will never reach actually potential. So this radiator does the best it can... You will never reach liquid cooling temperatures, or even a dual fan radiator. Not even close. I'm talking 69 Celsius gaming. It's messed up cause Google tells you anything under 80c is A-ok. So..... I guess this radiator is aces, but you have to be realistic what to expect. My SFF is going to run hot af and there's nothing I can do about it. So far no shut downs, but you can walk next to it and significantly feel heat. Is this unit better than the thermright version, I suppose. I'm happy with purchase just be realistic what to expect. FYI if you tune down the mhz for the ddr5 RAM it will greatly reduce the CPU heat. Don't aim for over 6400mhz. Yet, it still performs surprisingly well when gaming. Best advice, a good buy. If it fits buy thicker fan. Good luck 🤞FYI: my S300 is hella wicked for portable PC gaming.

noctua fans are the best

I purchased the Noctua NH-L9i-17xx cooler for use with an ASRock Rack EC266D2I motherboard and Intel Xeon 6325P CPU, and the experience has been extremely disappointing. Mounting screws don’t fit at all. The included thumb screws physically cannot reach the mounting plate in any orientation. There is a fixed gap of about 1/8" between the cooler’s base plate and the screw holes on all four sides, making installation impossible out of the box. No support from the manufacturer. I contacted Noctua about the issue, but they were unable to provide a resolution. For a company with a reputation for excellent support and compatibility, this was very surprising and frustrating. Forced to improvise. The only way I was able to install this cooler was by sourcing longer screws from elsewhere. While this workaround allowed me to mount it, it’s unacceptable that a premium cooler requires such modifications just to function as intended. Bottom line: The NH-L9i-17xx might be fine on other boards, but on the EC266D2I with Xeon 6325P, it simply does not work as advertised. Noctua couldn’t resolve the problem, and I had to resort to non-standard hardware to make it usable. Definitely not the seamless, reliable experience I expect from a Noctua product.

Works great once it's on, but the mounting bracket screws are so short that actually mounting it can be pretty painful and a little messy as far as the thermal paste goes. Quiet, cool (as always with noctua).

Noctua is still the best despite competition coming from other makes or brands.

Tyst & effektiv. Mycket prisvärd. Hög byggkvalite.

mr cool ... nice and compact ... very pleased

E il top dei dissipatori basso profilo e banale da montare. Silenziosissimo

Review del Producto: Noctua NH-L9i-17xx, Disipador de CPU de Bajo Perfil Después de instalar y probar el Noctua NH-L9i-17xx, puedo confirmar que este pequeño disipador está a la altura de la reputación de Noctua en cuanto a calidad y rendimiento. Aquí tienes mi experiencia: Diseño y Construcción El NH-L9i-17xx está diseñado específicamente para sistemas compactos que utilizan procesadores Intel de la serie 1700. Su diseño de bajo perfil (apenas 37 mm de altura) es perfecto para gabinetes mini-ITX o de formato reducido. El acabado es impecable, con las clásicas aspas de ventilador color marrón y beige de Noctua, que siempre transmiten durabilidad y calidad. Rendimiento Térmico Para un disipador tan compacto, su capacidad de enfriamiento es impresionante. He utilizado este disipador con un Intel Core i5 en un sistema ITX, y las temperaturas se mantuvieron estables incluso bajo cargas moderadas. No es para overclocking ni CPUs de alto TDP, pero cumple perfectamente con procesadores de gama media o configuraciones eficientes en energía. Nivel de Ruido El ventilador NF-A9x14 PWM es extremadamente silencioso, incluso a velocidades altas. Apenas se escucha durante el uso diario, lo que lo hace ideal para entornos de trabajo o gaming donde el ruido debe ser mínimo. Instalación La instalación es sencilla gracias al sistema de montaje SecuFirm2, característico de Noctua. Es compatible exclusivamente con la plataforma LGA 1700, lo que lo convierte en una opción específica pero perfectamente ajustada para este socket. Además, incluye pasta térmica NT-H1, lo que facilita aún más el proceso. Compatibilidad Este disipador está diseñado para sistemas donde el espacio es crítico. Sin embargo, debido a su tamaño compacto, hay que tener en cuenta que está limitado a CPUs con un TDP máximo de 65W, por lo que no es adecuado para procesadores más exigentes. Relación Calidad-Precio Aunque puede parecer caro para su tamaño, el NH-L9i-17xx ofrece un excelente equilibrio entre rendimiento, calidad y silencio. Si estás construyendo un sistema compacto y no necesitas enfriamiento de alta gama, esta es una inversión que vale la pena. Veredicto Final El Noctua NH-L9i-17xx es el disipador ideal para sistemas compactos basados en Intel LGA 1700. Ofrece un rendimiento sólido, una construcción de alta calidad y una operación prácticamente silenciosa, todo en un paquete compacto y fácil de instalar. Calificación: 4.7/5 Ideal para: Sistemas ITX, PCs de formato reducido y usuarios que priorizan el silencio y el diseño compacto.