Noctua NH-L9i low profile cooler - thoughts?

T

Thunder888

Limp Gawd
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Feb 11, 2004
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Hi Sportsfans,

Anyone have this cooler? If yes - are you happy with it?

I recently built a new mITX build in a Cooler Master Elite 120 case (awesome little case, especially for the price), but there's more space in a student's wallet compared to the space available for a cooler on my Gigabyte H87N-WiFi mobo. Just bought a Zalman CNPS8900 only to discover it blocks the PCIe slot :mad: :mad: :mad:

Anyway, ordered the Noctua and there seems to be good reviews on them. Can anyone give me a ballpark idea on the improvement over the stock cooler? I'm running an i5 4670.

Thanks.
 
I just purchased this cooler as well for a i5-4570S - won't receive it till Monday though.

Not sure what the case ventilation is like in the Cooler Master Elite 120, but Noctua says only use a CPU with 84W TDP in a well ventilated case and have the following turned off: Intel Turbo Mode disabled and typical workloads only (not recommended for continuous 100% load on all CPU cores)

Not sure if you read this yet.... test results were based off a i7-2600K.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/noctua_nhl9i/
 
I installed my cooler yesterday evening and it works really nicely for what it is.

It dropped around 15-20C off the stock intel cooler, so I'm very happy with it. This is my first Noctua cooler, having gone Zalman in the past, and I'm sold. The Noctua quality is amazing, with attention to every detail.

The kicker is, it was cheaper than the Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet here is Australia... Live and learn.

I'm not OC'ing this build and this cooler won't handle it, but it's nearly silent and fits beautifully into my CM 120 Elite. I'm running with turbo on and no issues - sits around 38-44C for 'normal' tasks and hits around 55-60C when gaming, so it's all good.

I had it run Intel BurnTest on maximum stress for a while and it got toasty, i.e. 80-90C+, but you won't see those temps under normal use.

Let me know how it goes once you get yours, but rest assured I'm very happy with mine.
 
Just got this cooler today with my i5 4670K. No overclocking and the case is open with the PSU outside. After 20min of Prime95, I'm getting up to 83degC. It then drops below 80 once the fan hits max. Checking out the forums, seems like people are getting a range of temps on load from 60s to 90s. Was expecting to see lower temps to be honest as my build isn't complete. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.
 
NH-L9i is not all that good but should be able to keep stock CPU cool.
Often reversing the fan so it is pull air out of cooler / away from motherboard instead of pushing into cooler to motherboard improves cooling.

When testing TY-100 pulling out of AXP-100 rather than pushing in I found the air being drawn into fan pushing down into cooler was much warmer than surrounding air. It appears to be because air blowing down through AXP-100 hits motherboard and goes out hitting the GPU, RAM, I/O housings, etc and comes back up around cooler and is sucked back in by fan.

With fan pulling out of AXP-100 the heated air flows up and away. On open bench testing the CPU was 5-7c cooler with fan pulling out of cooler.

AXP-100 w/ TY-100 pushing in
Tested with i7 920 stock (130w CPU)
Handbrake @ realtime

Room ambient . Idle CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust. . 100% CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust . mobo; NB; Cooler intake*
21.5c . . . . . . . . . 33-34-35-31c 2400rpm 28.0c . . 67-68-67-66c 2400rpm . 39.5c . . 36c . . 51c
22.0c . . . . . . . . . 33-34-35-31c 2250rpm 28.0c . . 68-68-69-67c 2250rpm . 39.5c . . 36c . . 51c . . 30.0c
22.5c . . . . . . . . . 36-35-39-33c 2000rpm 30.0c . . 69-70-70-69c 2000rpm . 40.0c . . 39c . . 51c
22.5c . . . . . . . . . 35-34-38-33c 1750rpm 29.5c . . 72-73-73-71c 1750rpm . 43.0c . . 40c . . 54c
22.5c . . . . . . . . ; 35-35-39-34c 1500rpm 30.0c . . 76-78-77-75c 1500rpm . 47.0c . . 40c . . 57c
23.0c . . . . . . . . . 37-36-41-36c 1200rpm 31.0c; 39c & 46c mobo & NB
2400rpm is maximum rpm mounted pushing in
*Temperature of air 30mm above TY-100
:doh: I re-ran a couple of the fan pushing in tests. Intake air is much warmer than room ambient.. like 8c warmer!.

AXP-100 w/ TY-100 pulling out
Tested with i7 920 stock (130w CPU)
Handbrake @ realtime

Room ambient . Idle CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust. . 100% CPU; rpm; Cooler Exhaust . mobo; NB; Cooler intake*
21.5c . . . . . . . . 32-31-35-31c 2450rpm 26.0c . . 62-62-63-61c 2450rpm . 33.5c . . 34c . . 46c
21.5c . . . . . . . . 33-31-35-31c 2250rpm 25.5c . . 63-64-65-63c 2250rpm . 34.5c . . 37c . . 45c
21.5c . . . . . . . . 33-32-37-33c 2000rpm 30.0c . . 64-65-65-64c 2000rpm . 35.5c . . 34c . . 48c
21.5c . . . . . . . . 35-34-39-34c 1750rpm 28.5c . . 66-67-66-65c 1750rpm . 37.5c . . 35c . . 50c
21.5c . . . . . . . . 34-33-38-32c 1500rpm 27.0c . . 69-70-70-69c 1500rpm . 39.5c . . 34c . . 51c
21.0c . . . . . . . . 35-34-38-33c 1200rpm 28.0c; 34c & 47c mobo & NB
*I neglected to put a probe under cooler, sorry.
. 2450rpm is maximum rpm mounted pulling out

Running TY-100 pushing in and find the heat difference is because of air temperature over cooler / fan intake. Running at 2400rpm the air 30mm above AXP-100 is 28.5c with 22c ambient. That's with a TY-140 40cm away and 15cm above work top blowing 22c ambient over test setup. It also shows in the exhaust temp readings with TY-100 pushing into cooler.

From now on I'm going to worry more about what actual cooler intake temperature is than ambient temperature.
Click to expand...
 
I've got this cooler and it worked nicely, but it is only cooling a lowly i3 3220. I too have the fan direction (and fan itself swapped w/ Scythe PWM) so that it draws air in the side of my case and is exhausted out the top (with assist from a 120mm fan directly above it. Maybe a 2mm gap between the two fans.
2013-12-30213444.jpg

2014-04-09191338.jpg
 
Tried to reverse my fan on the cooler, but the screws don't reach :eek: Didn't realise the screw holes are inset on one side only and I don't have any spares that would do the job. Ah well. Will just leave it for now. Or may consider buying a replacement fan :D
 
To test and see if it improves cooling with fan turned over use a couple of toothpicks. Just break them off so you can put the cover on. :D
 
lazimutha said:
Tried to reverse my fan on the cooler, but the screws don't reach :eek: Didn't realise the screw holes are inset on one side only and I don't have any spares that would do the job. Ah well. Will just leave it for now. Or may consider buying a replacement fan :D
Click to expand...
I happened to have just 2 screws long enough to go through the entire width of the noctua fan (see pic), but when I put the 25mm thick Scythe on there I ended up putting shorter screws on one side of the fan only, not through the whole thickness of the fan (see pic).
 
@doyll Sorry, I don't understand what you meant by toothpicks. I've ordered another fan anyway, so I'll see whether that works. Will update when that happens.

I've also run the intel burn test and it gets to low 80s, so not too bad. I'm still deciding on how to optimise the case airflow, so will spend a bit more time there.
 
Wooden or plastic pieces put through fan mounting holes into threaded screw holes in cooler to keep it from moving.
 
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