Greatest Noctua CPU Cooler  | WePC

How we select

How will we select our greatest picks? Nicely, we don’t simply pluck them out of skinny air. The selecting course of is an amalgamation of our product specialist’s expertise with the product and person critiques on-line. 

Earlier than leaping into something we do our analysis and be sure that these merchandise maintain up and so they’re one thing we’d fortunately put into our personal PCs. We’d by no means deliberately make a foul advice. 

How we check 

From PC circumstances to CPU Coolers, we wish to get hands-on with all of the {hardware} we suggest. Testing the merchandise is a large a part of our total choice course of and it’s a manner we be sure that our choice is one of the best for the job.

CPU Coolers should meet our expectations, which largely include a variety of acoustic and thermal exams. After all, fashion and aesthetics are massive elements when contemplating any PC element. 

With a CPU cooler, we have to assess construct high quality, thermal efficiency, acoustic efficiency, and at last, worth.

This course of permits us to give you an correct tackle how nicely a cooler performs and, in the end, if it’s value your priceless time. 

Issues to think about 

Earlier than we soar into Noctuas finest CPU coolers, we’ve a number of issues we should always think about earlier than selecting our subsequent CPU cooler. 

TDP

CPU TDP is a large issue on the subject of choosing your subsequent CPU cooler, as that is the first purpose for having a CPU cooler. However what’s TDP precisely? 

TDP stands for thermal design energy and is the utmost quantity of thermal power a element can output below manufacturer-defined working circumstances. The extra highly effective or much less environment friendly a CPU is, the upper its TDP shall be. 

TDP isn’t an issue so long as you’ve gotten a CPU cooler that may deal with it. A 105W TDP is definitely dealt with by a superb air cooler.

It’s all the time finest to depart some headroom, nevertheless, on the subject of cooling particularly with overclocking in thoughts. Overclocking drastically will increase CPU TDP with even the slightest of tweaks. 

Spacial limitations

The CPU cooler, as with something, is a bodily object that takes up area in our huge universe. SO, when planning out your subsequent CPU cooler, it’s necessary you think about the profile of your system and the quantity of area you’ve gotten inside your PC case. 

Noctua has you lined, with a variety of different-sized coolers to go well with any spacial limitation or kind issue. You would go for the beefy NH-D15 when you’ve got room or the slimmer NH U14s if area or RAM clearance occurs to be a problem. 

Socket

The CPU socket is the place the CPU sits on the motherboard, but it surely’s additionally the place the CPU cooler mounts. As sockets are a particular form and dimension, coolers have to have a suitable mounting configuration to suit the socket they’re attaching to. Not solely that, however coolers must have a screw sample that corresponds to the motherboard. 

A CPU socket is sort of a form, you have to have a CPU cooler that matches that form. Fortunately, all Noctua coolers match just about all mainstream CPU sockets or include a backplate that allows compatibility. Noctua coolers even come outfitted for Ryzen Threaripper processors, however they’re separate coolers and clearly state their supposed socket within the title (NH-U14S TR4-SP3). 

Greatest Noctua CPU cooler: In-depth evaluation

With out additional adieu, let’s soar into our picks for one of the best Noctua CPU coolers. 

Noctua NH-D15

Noctua NH-D15

(H)165 x (W)150 x (D)150 mm

The Noctua NH-D15 stands robust in opposition to its competitors, this air cooler may even give some liquid coolers a run for his or her cash. The design is actually very Noctua if that’s your factor, but it surely’s the cooling potential that issues most when choosing a CPU cooler. 

The dimensions could be a problem in the event you’re wanting to construct in a smaller kind issue, with further clearance wanted for the 2 large heatsinks and accompanying 140mm followers. Noctua does provide an ‘S’ variant, which is considerably downscaled for people who lack the area for the bigger mannequin.

General, in the event you can match this into your PC, it’s among the finest air-based coolers available on the market so far. The max noise sits close to 24.6dB and with a max RPM of 1500, providing excessive efficiency with low noise ranges. 

Noctua NH-U14S

NH-U14S

LGA1700 (since 2021), LGA1200, LGA115x (LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156), LGA2011, LGA2066 and AMD (AM4, AM5 (since 2019)

The design of the NH-U14S is similar to the D15, apart from one evident element. The U14S solely options one of many heatsinks that the D15 does and for that reason, it’s a a lot decrease profile however is just about half as environment friendly at cooling. 

The Low profile cooler is suitable with just about each RAM stick on the market within the wild, because the fan could be positioned on the other facet of the heatsink. Even supposing this cooler sports activities a full 140m fan, the cooler is barely 165cm tall and 150CM broad in its entirety. 

 Regardless of the large 140mm fan, it’s fitted with anti-vibrational pads that dampen the vibrations brought on by the spinning fan for a near-silent operation.  

Execs

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  Close to silent
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  Environment friendly
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  Simple to put in
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  Robust mounting mechanism

Noctua NH-L12S

NH-L12S

LGA1700 (since 2021), LGA1200, LGA115x (LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156), LGA2011 (LGA2011-0 & LGA2011-3), LGA2066 and AMD AM4 and AM5

Now for one thing just a little completely different. The NH-L12S is a flat 120mm CPU cooler with a complete top of 70mm. This type of CPU cooler can be utilized in PCs with little to no top clearance, or possibly you’re engaged on a customized undertaking that wants a beefy but low-profile cooling resolution. 

In case you do want the additional clearance, nevertheless, you’ll be able to swap the cooler to “excessive clearance mode” the place the fan could be put in on the highest of the heatsink, providing you with that further RAM clearance beneath must you want it. 

Noctua’s SecuFirm2 mounting system has turn into synonymous with high quality and ease of use. The mounting system is produced from metallic and has the total vary of compatibility you’d count on from a CPU cooler. This cooler is suitable with AM5 all the best way to LGA 1150. 

Execs

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  Environment friendly
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  Close to Silent
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  Extraordinarily Low profile
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  Simple to put in

Cons

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  Much less cooling capability than vertical coolers.

Remaining phrase 

Whether or not you want a tall, environment friendly cooler, otherwise you want a smaller low-profile cooler to suit right into a particular undertaking, Noctua has you lined. 

These three superb CPU coolers are all stellar selections on the subject of holding your CPU cool. All of them carry out extremely nicely in our thermal testing and by no means made any pointless noise. There are usually a number of complaints on the subject of loud CPU coolers, however you received’t have a single grievance in regards to the noise utilizing any of those three.

No matter CPU cooler you select, you’re in good palms with Noctua. We hope you discovered this Greatest Noctua CPU cooler wrticle useful.