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.

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.

The original Intel fan that came with my 65w Intel i3 processor allowed the CPU temperature to shoot up when editing video. This fan keeps the CPU at a constant, reasonable temperature range during editing.

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 acSecond: Chopin Max, Intel 12100 cooled by its included Laminar RM1, Asrock Z690m-ITX axThird and Fourth: Chopin Max, Intel 12400 cooled by NHL9I with Na-ft1 duct kit, Asrock B660m-ITX acThe 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