Noctua Announces New NH-L9a-AM4 and NH-L12S Low Profile CPU Coolers To Support Ryzen AM4 Socket

Noctua recently announced the new NH-L9a-AM4 and NH-L12S silent CPU coolers, successors to the award-winning NH-L9a and NH-L12 that is tailored for the AMD Ryzen CPUs. 

The new NH-L9a-AM4 is an AM4-specific revision of Noctua’s award-winning NH-L9a low-profile CPU cooler. At a height of only 37mm, the NH-L9a is ideal for extremely slim cases and, due to its small footprint, it provides 100% RAM and PCIe compatibility as well as easy access to near-socket connectors, even on tightly packed mini-ITX motherboards. The custom-designed SecuFirm2™ mounting system for the AM4 socket makes installation child’s play and, thanks to the highly optimised NF-A9x14 92mm fan that supports fully automatic speed control via PWM, the NH-L9a-AM4 runs remarkably quietly.

The new S-version of the renowned NH-L12 not only adds AM4 support but also gives more flexibility and improved performance in low-profile mode. Thanks to the new NF-A12x15 PWM slim 120mm fan, the NH-L12S provides even better cooling than the previous model with its 92mm fan. At the same time, the NH-L12S is highly versatile: with the fan installed on top of the fins, the cooler is compatible with RAM modules of up to 45mm in height. With the fan installed underneath the fins, the total height of the cooler is only 70mm, making it suitable for use in many compact cases. Topped off with a SecuFirm2™ multi-socket mounting system for Intel LGA115x (LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156), LGA20xx (LGA2066, LGA2011-0, LGA2011-3) and AMD (AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, AM4, FM1, FM2, FM2+), the NH-L12S is ideal for both Intel and AMD-based HTPC or SFF builds.

“AMD has made a big impact on the market with its Ryzen architecture and the platform will become even more interesting for compact HTPC builds when the first Ryzen-based APUs are introduced next year,” says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). “We’re thus updating two of our award-winning low-profile models to support Ryzen’s AM4 socket.”

Prices and availability

The suggested retail prices are EUR 39.90 / USD 39.90 for the NH-L9a-AM4 and EUR 49.90 / USD 49.00 for the NH-L12S.

Noctua Unveils The Next Generation 120mm A-Series Fan - The New King Has Arrived?

Noctua is one of the few brands that have solid fans and CPU coolers across the board. It's NH-D15 CPU cooler for example, can easily put a generic AIO liquid cooler to shame. After years of waiting - 4.5 years to be exact, Noctua's next generation A series fans which has been showcased back in Computex 2016 will soon be available by 2017 Q4.

Unlike any of its previous fans i.e NF-P12, NF-F12 and NF-S12A that uses PBT material for its impellers, the upcoming A series 120mm fan are made of Novel Sterrox liquid crystal polymer (LCP) compound as well as far-reaching structural modifications that help to reduce tensions in the plastic after injection moulding. 

Unlike any traditional fans made with conventional materials, the Sterrox LCP has an ordered, rod-like molecular alignment when it is in its melt state, and solidifies into a highly oriented and extremly rigid chain structure. As result, the impellers are extremely rigid and doesn't deform easily under heat and the centrifugal force over long hours of operation. 

This allows Noctua to achieve its goal of having a mere 0.5mm clearance between the fan's frame and its impeller, which greatly minimize the air leak and improves the overall static pressure that the fan can deliver.

Of course, extreme rigidity isn't the only traits these Sterrox LCP impellers has. Thanks to its elasticity modulus and dampening properties that is ideal for reducing resonance and vibration phenomena, smoother acoustic profile can be achieved. Good news for the silent freaks!

Unlike any of the existing Noctua fans that are specially designed for a certain, specific applications, the new A-series fan are more like a all-rounder fan that falls in between the high static pressure NF-F12 and high airflow NF-S12A.

Based on the performance curve as shown above, the new A-series fans are shown capable of delivering better performance with a balanced static pressure and airflow than both the NF-F12 and NF-S12A in real world performance. 

If the numbers alone aren't convincing enough, Noctua has a thermal simulation setup to demonstrate its performance in real life. The new A-series fan are put to test With both station having the same amount of heat to dissipate and the same CPU cooler. 

Other than having a much better acoustic profile, the setup with a single new A-series fans also performs slightly better than the one with a dual fan setup. From the current performance observed, we believe that the new A-series fan will do even better than the existing static pressure optimized NF-P12 fans and could potentially be the next king of radiator fan after the long reign of the current king, Scythe's Gentle Typhoon AP-15?

Unboxing & Review: Noctua NH-D9L

Whenever someone mentioned the name 'Noctua', the first thing that came to our mind is always its signature dual tower heatsink CPU cooler the NH-D14. Both the NH-D14 and the new revision NH-D15 has been topping the the list of the best CPU cooler since it's launched, as we can remember. 

Another of Noctua's dual tower heatsink CPU cooler, but in a smaller footprint - the Noctua NH-D9L. Dual tower heatsink with 92mm fan isn't something common and it appears that Noctua is trying to bring some phenomenal performance to the 92mm fan CPU cooler category and we're here to find that out.

(The Noctua NH-D9L retails at RM 265.00) 

Specifications

Packaging

The NH-D9L comes packed in Noctua's traditional white & brown cardboard box which displays the model, type and features on the front.

Features of the NH-D9L can be found at the side of the box.

Specifications of the NH-D9L can be found at the other side of the box.

Accessories

Upon boxing, the accessories box greeted us first with some pretty descriptive diagrams of what's inside the box.

The content of the accessories box, it's been pretty much the same as other Noctua products that has gone through numbers of unboxing and review here at Tech Critter.

Million thanks to Noctua for providing us with another of their premium 92mm fan, the NF-A9 for the best performance we can expect from the NH-D9L.

Here's a quick unboxing of the extra fan, quite a package considering the various splitters and connectors accompanying the fan.

The NH-D9L

On a quick glance, NH-D9L looks just like a miniature NH-D15. 

Viewing it from the top, the heatsink fins looks identical to the NH-D15 but just smaller.

The fan clip that makes installation and removal easy as breeze, good to see it being implemented on the NH-D9L as well. 

As the middle fan is blocking the mounting screws, you will have to remove it in order to get the NH-D9L mounted on your CPU.

A quick check at the heatpipes, what we're seeing here is 4 nickel plated copper heatpipes connected to the base plate of the NH-D9L. 4 heatpipes? That's very uncommon for a 92mm fan CPU cooler!

Here's the base plate of NH-D9L, the very same mirror finish nickel-plated ones that we've familiar with throughout the Noctua coolers that we've checked on for all this while.

Here's the NH-D9L with the extra 92mm NF-A9 provided. Does it reminds you of the NH-D15 now?

Installation

The installation should be a breeze as this is the same backplate used on the NH-D15.

After aligning the backplate and its screw to the mounting holes, the next step is to place the spacers for the mounting bracket.

After placing the spacers, secure the brackets according to the airflow setup that you wish to install the NH-D9L for.

Always apply the thermal paste in a considerate amount, we don't recommend to cover the whole CPU with thermal paste - here we're using the rice grain method, that'll be more than enough.

Now align the NH-D9L mounting screw to the mounting bracket and secure with the screw driver provided in the accessories pack.

Here's something to highlight: the RAM clearance looks fine if you're mounting it with single fan.

If you're going for a 2 fan setup, you might encounter some issue with RAM clearance and will have to opt for low profile RAM. This can be easily fixed with some changes to the orientation of the cooler.

Performance Test

Test Rig Configuration
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D9L
CPU	Intel Core i7 4790K
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Maximus VI Gene
Memory	Kingston HyperX Savage @2400MHz
Primary Hard Drive	Crucial M500 120GB
Power Supply	be quiet! Straight Power 10 600W
Chassis	Vector Benchcase

Moving on to the performance test, we ran the CPU stress test utility Prime95 with the option 'In-place large FFTs' for maximum heat from the CPU. Our room temperature throughout the test is 30ºC in average and the stress test is repeated for several times in order to get a stable and consistent temperature reading. The final result is presented in the graph as below: 

While loading on stock clock, the Noctua NH-D9L did pretty well with a peak temperature of 76°C on single fan and 75°C with another add on of the NF-A9. Among the CPU cooler we've tested, the NH-D9L did well standing up against those coolers that's larger than its size.

We ran another test with our i7 4790K overclocked to 4.6GHz and the NH-D9L is seen doing pretty well for its size - 85°C on single fan setup and 84°C on dual fan setup. What impresses us more, the NH-D9L beats the be quiet! Shadow Rock Slim, Deepcool Gamer Storm Lucifer, Cryorig C1 from a higher category. 

Verdict
It's a surprise for Noctua to kicks in with a dual tower heatsink CPU cooler at this size. The performance did somehow surprised us, it might not be able to stand up against high-end coolers but it did shows that its capable of standing up against quite a few of higher end cooler on our list. As for the fans, just like any other Noctua fans would perform - barely inaudible when its running at full speed even on close range, no complains on that.

If you're upgrading from a stock cooler but not really into super high CPU clocks that will gives you tons of heat output, the Noctua NH-D9L is one you might want to consider to go for.

Pros:

• Solid build quality
• Quiet operation even on full load
• Good cooling performance for its category
• Easy to install

Cons:

• Fan color still Noctua's traditional Beige & Brown which is hard to pair with almost every themed build
• Compatibility issue with tall memory

Noctua at Computex 2015

Vienna, June 11th 2015 – At last week’s Computex Taipei trade fair, Noctua exhibited a wide range of its upcoming products and received the 1st European Hardware Award for its renowned NH-D15 dual-tower cooler. Ranging from fan and heatsink prototypes on custom designs for industrial clients to updates on its Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) project, Noctua’s line-up for this year’s show has received excellent feedback from the international press.

Awarded best cooling product of Computex 2015 by Tom’s Hardware, the highlight of the Austrians’ line-up was the upcoming next-generation 120mm A-series fan, which will succeed the award-winning NF-P12 and integrates Noctua’s latest technologies in order to provide unprecedented efficiency across a broad range of applications. Featuring an ultra-tight 0.5mm tip clearance and a pressure/airflow (P/Q) curve that has been carefully fine-tuned for mid to high impedance applications, the new fan performs exceptionally well on CPU heatsinks and water-cooling radiators. Noctua also showcased a redux version of the NF-P12 that is going to be introduced at the launch of the new 120mm A-series fan, which is currently scheduled for Q1 2016.

After updating their 92mm coolers and 14cm dual-tower model last year, Noctua gave the first preview of future updates to the renowned NH-U12 and NH-U14 single tower series. The fins of the prototypes are deeper than those of the current NH-U12S and NH-U14S, resulting in a 50% increase in surface area on the 12cm model and 30% on the 14cm model. Combined with one extra heat pipe and the next-generation 120mm A-series fan, the 12cm unit rivals the performance of the current NH-U14S. The new 14cm version provides further increased performance and is designed to work with a new 140mm A-series fan that follows the same design approach as the new 120mm model. Noctua plans to introduce both coolers when the respective fans are available in 2016.

Noctua also gave an update on its Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) project. The key milestone of last year’s development was a major reduction in controller size that makes it possible to fit the entire ANC controller directly onto the fan’s internal PCB rather than into an external box. At the same time, the aerodynamic development has been shifted to be based on the upcoming new 120mm A-series fan in order to provide the best possible starting basis.

In the industrialPPC range, Noctua displayed the upcoming NF-A9 and NF-A8 models as well as 24V versions of the NF-F12 and NF-A14. The latter can also be run at 12V in standard PC environments, providing industrialPPC features and looks at speed and noise levels comparable to Noctua’s standard line-up, which makes them attractive for noise-conscious PC users and industrial applications alike. While the 24V versions are set for launch in Q4 2015, the NF-A9 and NF-A8 versions are scheduled for Q2 2016.

Meeting the increased demand for industrialPPC fans from PC enthusiasts, Noctua also showcased its ‘project chromax’, which will give alternative colour options for anti-vibration pads and anti-vibration mounts, allowing users to colour-match their industrialPPC fans to their individual build styles. The respective accessory kits in red, green, blue, yellow, black and white should be available by Q4.

The range of new accessories was rounded off by a silicone spacer frame for 120mm radiator fans that helps to seal off the gap between the fan and the radiator, as well as a PWM fan controller that allows PWM fans to be slowed down by lowering the PWM curve with optional capping of the minimum speed at 300rpm. While the former will be released with the upcoming 120mm A-series fan, the latter is set for release in Q4. For industrial clients, Noctua showed a 10-way PWM fan splitter board with LEDs for status monitoring.

In addition to the upcoming 120x25 and 140x25mm fans, Noctua exhibited its upcoming 20cm A-series fan that is currently scheduled for launch in Q4, as well as a slim 120x15mm version targeted for a mid-2016 release. A possible update to the popular NH-L12 low-profile cooler may use either of the upcoming 120x15 and 120x25mm A-series fans and is planned for later in 2016.

Last but not least, the exhibition included a wide range of custom heatsink designs for industrial clients, showcasing Noctua’s capabilities in manufacturing premium-quality cooling solutions for a broad range of applications.

Aside from the busy show floor, Noctua’s renowned NH-D15 dual-tower cooler was voted the best CPU cooler of the year 2015 by the jury of the European Hardware Association, made up of editors of eight leading hardware publications from Europe.

Links

Noctua Computex 2015 Press-Kit
More information about RotoSub® ANC technology 

Hardwareluxx.de video coverage (German)

About Noctua

Designed in Austria, Noctua's premium cooling components are internationally renowned for their superb quietness, exceptional performance and thoroughgoing quality. Having received more than 3000 awards and recommendations from leading hardware websites and magazines, Noctua's fans and heatsinks are chosen by more than a hundred thousand satisfied customers around the globe.