Noctua NH-L12 Tiny CPU Cooler
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
995 words · ~4 min read
0:00
we never actually intended to do a review of this cooler originally I was
0:05
just going to use it to upgrade the stock cooler that I installed in edel's
0:09
upgraded workstation back around the time I originally built it almost a year
0:14
ago since our whole room water cooling project is a thing now though Ed won't
0:19
need an air cooler in his workstation anymore so when Luke asked to borrow
0:22
this for our MSI Nightblade review I was like sure take it and then apparently
0:27
you guys liked it so much that you wanted to see a alone review so here we
0:38
are with the purchase of a qualifying Intel processor SSD or knck you could
0:42
instantly win an Intel gaming Jersey and be entered in the draw for the ultimate
0:46
system click now to learn more let's start with a physical tour of the unit
0:50
you get the usual awesome noct TOA accessories thermal compound splitter
0:54
cable two fans two low noise adapters a mini ITX mounting kit a case badge and
1:00
their standard suu firm mounting hardware more on that later then you get
1:04
the heat sink itself which actually comes with both the nf12 pwm 120 mm fan
1:10
and the nfb 992 mm fan pre-mounted to it
1:14
now the challenge with this little baby was keeping it narrow enough to avoid
1:19
potential interference with nearby memory slots or vrm Solutions on Tiny MX
1:24
motherboards while keeping height low enough for half height or unusual size
1:29
computer cases and then achieving both of those things with adequate cooling
1:34
for you know high performance quad core processors so Noctua went with an
1:38
aluminum fin array soldered to four copper heat pipes then soldered those
1:42
again on the other side to their as always beautiful and shiny base plate
1:47
they then put a clean looking nickel coating finish over the whole thing and
1:51
I mean that's tidy it looks nice and all that but it's not exactly groundbreaking
1:56
no the really cool stuff with this cooler happens when we start looking at
1:59
fan mounting options you probably noticed I said it comes with both 120 mm
2:04
and 92mm fans that are pre-mounted now you can leave them both on there giving
2:08
the cooler a 92 mm total profile or you
2:12
can actually remove that top fan for reduced performance but a mere 66 mm
2:20
profile which gives you some great flexibility in terms of mounting options
2:25
speaking of mounting options I guess it's time to hand off to Luke to give
2:28
you guys the performance skinny get it it's a joke cuz it's a slim cooler
2:35
anyway uh sorry the performance and mounting rundown on the NHL 12 in both
2:40
our standard test bench and MSI's night
2:43
blade small form factor barebones PC where we originally showed it to you
2:48
installation of the nh- l12 was incredibly easy and I was kind of
2:52
surprised you don't actually have to worry about that bottom fan you can just
2:55
leave it installed because all you have to do is uh Drive feed your screwdriver
2:58
through the little hole ho on the heat fins on the top and it goes in between
3:02
the fins of the fan down below and lets you screw in a pretty elegant solution
3:06
and they definitely thought about this while they were designing it okay so
3:10
fairly obviously it gets crushed in the C70 because it's going up against some
3:14
pretty big dogs some dual rad coolers and really big towers when we put it in
3:18
the night blade against the Intel cooler it crushes there as well and something
3:21
to notice here is the zero on the Intel cooler under load isn't because the
3:26
Intel cooler is Magic given to us by some crazy demon it's because it totally
3:32
failed it hit TJ Maxx under load and I had to stop it before bad thing started
3:37
happening or it throttled itself to hell so and that that processor was not even
3:41
overclocked the only overclocked one was on the C70 where we were doing our
3:44
standard test at 1.3 volts 4.0 GHz with
3:48
uh small ffts running on Prime 95 and
3:51
combuster so I don't know pretty good job for a small cooler and a really good
3:56
alternative in a small case to a stock Intel cooler but but if you have a
4:00
full-size cooler maybe not but you probably knew that already speaking of
4:03
fans I am a fan of the way Ting provides their customers with affordable and
4:07
reliable wireless coverage they claim that they're pay only for what you use
4:11
model will save 98% of people money on their monthly cell phone bill but you
4:15
don't have to take their word for it if you head over to lin.com you can find
4:19
their savings calculator where if you enter your information from the last
4:22
three Wireless bills you've had they'll let you know what you could have paid if
4:26
you were on Ting they have amazing customer service since they actually
4:29
employ humans like human beings rather than robots which is kind of sucks and
4:35
they let everyone know that their service runs on the Sprint network so if you check out how Sprint coverage is in
4:39
your area you'll know what kind of service you'll have and how reliable
4:42
it'll be with tting and the last and best part is that if you Lo use the link
4:47
in the description down below when you sign up that's listing.com you'll get
4:50
$25 off an awesome new device or $25 off
4:53
service credit that's a decent payout and thanks for watching this video so
4:56
check out ting.com and check the link in the video description for a discount
5:00
I'll see you guys next time checking.com