Features:

  • Only 37mm total height, ideal for slim HTPC cases and Small Form Factor (SFF) builds
  • Compact footprint for 100% RAM and PCIe compatibility on ITX motherboards as well as easy access to near-socket connectors
  • Quiet, premium-grade NF-A9x14 fan with Low-Noise Adaptor and automatic speed control via PWM
  • Includes award-winning NT-H1 thermal compound and easy-to-install SecuFirm2 mounting system for the AM4 socket of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs and APUs
  • Trusted Noctua quality backed up with 6-year manufacturer's warranty
Keeps up with my 3400G + Deskmini A300W

After a week with the stock ASRock cooler on my Ryzen 3400G in an ASRock Deskmini A300W, I was a little tired of the rather audible fan noise so I ordered one of these. The install was easy enough but a little fiddly since you have to install pieces on both sides of the motherboard at once, with thermal compound possibly sliding around. But I got it on with minimal sliding. Under CPU stress test, the package temperature sites around 75C. I'd been lead to believe from other reviews that I should expect closer to 60C. But 75C sounds like it's cool enough to be fine. It runs 55-60C in typical gaming and 35-45C when browsing the web and watching video. Some day I will take the cooler off and check + redo my thermal compound layer to see if it can run cooler. I wouldn't call it "nearly silent" but it is definitely quieter than stock. With it sitting just to my right on my desk I can't hear it unless the room is nearly silent. Any music, video game, talking, or the house's A/C running and the cooler is below the environmental noise most of the time. When gaming it's barely audible with normal game audio, which is a big improvement over the stock cooler which could drown out faint game sounds. I'd personally prefer stealthy black rather than the distinctive Noctua color but shrug. I was hoping for slightly better cooling than I'm seeing but it's a good compromise cooler. Update: Been running it over a month now with no thermal issues at all. Never notice the fan noise at all. My MacBook Pro is a lot louder than this.

Virtually Silent and Perfect for a Mini-ITX HTPC Ryzen 3 Build

This fan is virtually silent. My HTPC with a Ryzen 3 2200G cannot be heard unless you stick your ear against the case. This HTPC is in my bedroom 4 feet from my bed and I sleep in complete silence and have never been able to hear it, even when trying to. Keeps temps in the high 20s C at idle and low to mid 30s C while watching movies on a 4K screen. I used the included low noise adapter which cuts the rpms somewhat and still have seen great performance. No case fans or anything on my build, just this guy keeping my Ryzen silently happy. Just In other words if you want a silent cooler for a HTPC this along with it's low noise adapter are perfect and should fit inside just about any HTPC case. It has plenty of clearance in my silverstone 6b mini-ITX case, installation was a breeze, nothing out of the ordinary.

Somewhat good enough for 3700x, still 5-stars

TLDR at the bottom. I got this to replace my Scythe Big Shuriken 3 with a NF-A12x15 in my Ghost S1 (no tophat) for my 3700x build (on a B450I Gaming Plus AC) because of turbulence noise. The cooling for that combo was great, most games not even hitting 70c with the default fan curve. Temperatures are what I initially expected, about 15-20c worse than the previous cooling solution I used before, so I wasn't disappointed when I saw temps of 75-80c in Destiny 2. I honestly could have left it like that since 80c isn't a horrible temperature for this cooler + a 3700x, or for CPUs in general. Since I had some extra fans, I decided to put the NF-A12x15 (any fan would have worked really) over the stock 92mm fan since that fan doesn't cover the entire heatsink, and temps dropped to an average of 66c. There wasn't really any mounting points that I could use for the extra fan, but it's kind of just being held in place by the PSU cables. The extra fan is also following the same fan curve as the CPU fan. -Old setup of Scythe Big Shuriken 3 + NF-A12x15 is 15-20c better than L9a -L9a + NF-A12x15 on top of the 92mm fan = about 5-8c worse

Used in a Silverstone MILO Series ML03B

I had a Silverstone MILO Series ML03B case that I purchased 6 years and replaced the CPU/motherboard with an ASUS B450M PLUS GAMING motherboard and an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 AE combo. I thought I was in great shape until I ran into a problem with the cross bar at the top of the case that connects the front to the back. It's used to allow components to stack on the case. The cross bar support would not clear the wraith cooler on the 1600, so I removed it and replaced it with this one. Before ordering, I checked the CPU compatibility with Noctua and found this: Noctua maintains both a motherboard and a CPU compatibility list on their site and the CPU compatibility list is broken down into the following 6 categories: 1) Best turbo/overclocking headroom 2) Medium turbo/overclocking headroom 3) Low turbo/overclocking headroom 4) Compatible without turbo/overclocking headroom 5) Compatible with certain restrictions (see comment) 6) Incompatible (see comment) As of this writing there were 26 AM4 CPU’s listed in two categories as follows: 1) Compatible without turbo/overclocking headroom (19 total): Athlon 200GE/220GE/240GE, Ryzen 3 1200/1300X/2200G/3200G, Ryzen 5 1400/1500X/1600/2400G/2600/3400G/3600/3600X, Ryzen 7 1700/2700/3700X/3800X 2) Compatible with certain restrictions (7 total): Ryzen 5 1600X/2600X, (recommended with good case ventilation only) Ryzen 7 1700X/1800X (recommended with good case ventilation only) Ryzen 7 2700X (Recommend with good case ventilation only. Please set the TDP limit in your UEFI/BIOS to the officially stated TDP value for your SKU/CPU model. Might drop below base clock speeds with continuous 100% CPU load) Ryzen 9 3900X/3950X (Possible but sustained clock speed will be below the base clock) Hope this helps you and others out. If you have a specific issue with motherboard compatibility I would check Noctua's site for this cooler and their motherboard compatibility list. Clearly my Ryzen 5 1600 should present no issues and indeed it does not. This is a system that I don't plan on overclocking and I have installed 2 8cm Noctua fans on one side and if needed can install 2 more but so far don't need to. I do have an Antec VERIS AV Cooler that sits on top of the MILO case that draws air in from the bottom and exhausts it out the back, so ventilation is not an issue.

Works really well

Now, all im cooling is a athlon 200ge which is a 35 watt TDP, but being that I overclocked it to 4.1HGZ stable, It deff got a lot hotter real quick. Before the stock cooler would be soo noisy, NOW its just stupid quiet, honestly its scary how quiet it can be. my temps hover around 44-50*C max when gaming or something more intensive is about low 60s*C. aka a deff plus and must buy for SFF build. Based on its performance I reckon I can deff put a 65watt ryzen 5 or even a ryzen 7 with a tiny OC and still be fine. AKA perfect. Like dont buy this and OC the shit out of a ryzen 5 or 7 and then complain it cant cooler enough, like its small so it not built to handle such OC. but if you do it just right, yes you can probably end up with a nice subtle powerful build using this bad boy. Im just waiting on Ryzen 3rd gen CPU to come out to upgrade.

Easy Installation and Quiet

This was nearly my only option for a small form factor build, but I haven't been disappointed. Installation was probably the easiest I've ever had with an aftermarket CPU cooler. I'm using this with an AMD Ryzen 1700 and haven't had any thermal issues and the fan stays super quiet. I'll likely use it in future builds with similar requirements.

Great little fan that fits in the most compact scenarios

If you’re looking to build in a super compact case, this fan won’t disappoint! In fact, it’s in a class of its own size wise and may be your only option if you have extremely low head room. It’s whisper quiet once setup and provides adequate, although not trend setting cooling. My daughter was excited to build her first PC with me and wanted to go for a Mac Mini look because they have those at school, and she thinks they look cool. This unit was easy to install, although, having to flip the motherboard over and go in with the screws from the opposite side from what I’m accustomed to threw me a little bit of a curve ball. Once setup, temps were in the 40s and lower 50s, which isn’t great, but it’s within the range of acceptable. Setting the performance to power saver mode brought temps down to upper 30s and 40s which is a good range to be in if you’re looking to extend the life of your CPU and keep electrostatic levels down. ***Pros*** • Extremely small and compact • Whisper quiet • Unbeatable life-span estimated arrival 150,000 hours ***Cons*** • A tad pricey for what it is, but there’s really nothing to compare it with at the moment • Only provides adequate cooling under normal operation. I wouldn’t dream of overclocking with this

Small cooler for small environment

I bought this cooler to put on an ASRock X300W who's max CPU cooler height is 46mm and I was not thrilled about the stock cooler included with the X300 series and the AMD Ryzen 5 3400G Wraith Spire does not fit in this case. The Noctua comes in at about 36mm with a 14mm x 92mm x 92mm fan. Installation was a cinch, or should have been, but managing the back plate (under the cpu) and installing the thermal paste and the cooler was a bit of a challenge, but that was because of the design of the X300W, not the fault of the Noctua. You have to remove the motherboard from the case tray (it has no access to the back of the CPU, underside of the motherboard otherwise). The plate does not hold on without screws, so you have to install the thermal paste, then the cooler (lining up the screw holes as best you can by sight, I did pretty good first try), then turn over the X300 motherboard and use the included screws to attach the heat sink through the back plate while holding the heat sink in place and the motherboard (to keep from shifting). I did it first try, but then I'm experienced, so just keep that in mind if you are using this on an X300 or X300W. Cooling performance isn't bad at all. Using Prime95, Small FFTs, and AVX2 Disabled, the temp normalized around 70.1* C, the cooling fan was turning about 2300RPMs and was whisper quiet. I also did a test with Furmark, 1280x720 for the on board Vega 11 graphics, and the Noctua kept the temps to around 50* C. So effective cooling solution for the size, quiet, and idle temps were about high 30s (37* C) with ambient temps around 81* F. This machine is going to be used for everyday tasks like web surfing, listening to music, watching movies/videos, and playing some games that don't require a beefy rig/processor, like Minecraft, old games from GOG, dosbox, Diablo 2, Starcraft and this cooler seems to be handling it just fine. Would buy this again for tight case designs.

Perfect for an APU build. But hear me out. I have some details that may help you.

Will it fit? This is obviously a very low profile cooler. But please do check out the dimensions. It fit even on my mini-ITX motherboard (that's TINY), but do have some oversight with how things are spaced on your motherboard. The heatsink is short, but fairly spread out. Temperature talk/overclocking: Firstly, let me address something at least I was concerned with while I was researching this. YES, you can lightly overclock your APU while using this, just test stuff out until you find something that works. And please do be careful, your computer is a sacred baby, go easy on it. Anyway, for example, I overclocked my Ryzen 3200g CPU to 4000mhz, and my GPU to 1500mhz. At least in games I play (GMOD at 1080p full settings, Payday 2 1080p medium), I get 60fps while also staying around 55 degrees Celcius. That's about 30 degrees BELOW what would be considered ALMOST dangerous for an APU. But what about idle/light workloads for non-gamers? Idle Noise and the noise adapter: The fan is much more quiet than any stock AMD cooler, and although it can be made even more quiet with the noise adapter, that's because the adapter slows the fan down. In essence, the adapter WILL affect cooling performance, but most often that's not even necessary. The fan is very quiet and cool on idle or with light workspace stuff. Installation: Installation is easily the only "flaw" this cooler had in my case (even then I still gave it five stars). To install it, I recommend taking the fan off the heatsink, place the heatsink upside down atop a well balanced, sturdy cylindrical object. Apply thermal paste to your CPU (or APU ; ) ), then with your motherboard upside down, line up the heatsink holes with the holes on your motherboard. Keep your motherboard pressed down and balanced on the heatsink. Then take that metal plate included and put the PLASTIC side on your motherboard's bottom. Keep it balanced, and lightly screw it in the with "cross" method. Once the heatsink is secure, flip your motherboard. Not which direction the fan blows the air. You can screw the fan back into the heatsink so that it will blow the majority of air where you want it to. Now, clearly, that's much more complicated, and arguably more risky than a standard installation. But with patience, top-of-the-line thermal paste, and some luck, it will be so worth it. Appearance: People say Noctua fans are ugly, but there's a charming, almost nostalgic look to the fan. It will hardly match any color scheme at all (for instance, mine is red and black, and this fan looks like the nerdy kid at a party), but there's an eccentric, signature feel to that. Extras: You get some extra fan screws and a cool little metal Noctua pin. This looks quite nice and adds character to a PC case. Mine is proudly located above my Ryzen 3 and Vega Graphics stickers.

Great little cpu cooler; quiet and performs as expected from Noctua

Works well for my Ryzen 2600 CPU in Node 202 case. I undervolted the Ryzen 2600 by -0.05 and use PBO to auto overclock the cores when necessary. Temps were hitting about 77C with Prime95 for about 20 minutes. Definitely a great buy if you need a low profile CPU cooler. Thermal tested while on the stand (so not in the flat position) to help with heat dissipation. This will be a media PC for the most part, but wanted to make sure all components are running without any issues, thus the Prime95 stress testing on the CPU. The fan is pretty quiet under load. I'm not sure the potential for this cooler if you plan on overclocking processors, so keep that in mind. Best bet is to find reviews online with this cooler and your CPU, and its OC potential with thermals. CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 (used the provided thermal paste from Noctua) Motherboard: Asus Strix B450i gaming Case: Node 202 GPU: GTX 950 Case fans: 2x Noctua NF-F12

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