Noctua NH-L9x65 CPU Cooler Review
Overview
Ok to be honest once you’ve seen one CPU Cooler, especially of the air variety, you have pretty much seen them all. But today I’ll be taking a look at an air based CPU Cooler that I myself have never seen the likes of before! This is mainly due to the fact that this CPU Cooler has been designed for ITX and HTPC based systems, meaning that it’s small, really small!
This then is the diminutive Noctua NH-L9x65
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‘The NH-L9x65 is a taller, performance-enhanced version of Noctua’s award-winning NH-L9 low-profile coolers. With 65 instead of 37mm height and four instead of two heatpipes, the NH-L9x65 is more powerful than its smaller siblings yet retains their 95x95mm footprint, which guarantees 100% RAM and PCIe compatibility on Intel based ITX mainboards and makes the cooler more convenient to work with as it doesn’t overhang near-socket connectors. Thanks to the highly optimised NF-A9x14 premium fan that supports fully automatic speed control via PWM, the NH-L9x65 runs remarkably quiet. Topped off with the professional SecuFirm2™ multi-socket mounting system for Intel and AMD, Noctua’s renowned NT-H1 thermal compound and 6 years manufacturer’s warranty, the NH-L9x65 fuses everything users have come to expect from Noctua’s larger coolers into a compact premium package for space restricted systems.’ |
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We’ve seen a lot of Noctua products here at pcG and they’re always beautifully packaged and presented. The Noctua NH-L9x65 is no different, the front of the box is Noctua brown (still a strange colour in my mind, soz!) as are the other sides of the box. The front of the box shows the product name on the left as well as a QR Code that links to the product page. At the top there’s the product name again as well as the L notation, indicating that this is a Low-Profile cooler. Over on the top right we find a sticker indicating that this (the NH-L9x65) is an enhanced version of the award winning NH-L9. The front of the box goes to highlight some of the main features of the NH-L9x65 and finally lurking in the bottom right corner we find the Noctua Owl!
The back of the box contains a description (see above italics) of the Noctua NH-L9x65 in various languages.
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The left side of the box has seven small images adding a description for each of the features noted on the front of the box. In addition to this there’s also a description of Noctua’s own NT-H1 thermal compound.
The top of the box is basically the same as the front of the box, it’s just missing the QR Code and the silver sticker!
On the right side of the box we find specifications for both the NF-A9x14 PWM fan and the heatsink assembly itself (see Specifications/Features below for more detail). In addition to this we also find a list of box contents.
On opening the box we once again see how impressive the whole unboxing experience is when it come to Noctua CPU Coolers, to be fair I’ve not come across another that does it better!
Below the accessories tray found in the top of the box we find the Cooler itslef protected by a wealth of cardboard.
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At the time of writing, the Noctua NH-L9x65 is retailing on Amazon
Specifications/Features
courtesy of Noctua
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* Additional details available here
First Impressions
First impressions of the Noctua NH-L9x65 are (obviously!) along the lines of, damn that’s small! The dimensions are as follows ((H 95mm) x (W 95mm) x (D 51mm) without fan) with the height increasing to 65mm with fan. The NH-L9x65 really is one dinky little cooler, and because ‘all of the best things come in small packages’, it’s sort of got a charm all of it’s own! On a more official note, it is well made too (as one has come to expect from Noctua) and it’s pretty heavy for its size at 413g (with fan). I hate to say it though Noctua, I’m still not a fan of the colour scheme…
It’s difficult to work out what is the front or the back of the Noctua NH-L9x65, so please just go with the flow! 😉 The front is effectively the same as the back and is mainly dominated by the two heatpipes. On the back (now looking at it it’s probably the front and I’ve called it back!) we find the power cable for the PWM controlled NF-A9x14 fan and a smart embossed Noctua logo. The fan cable is of a decent length and is covered with a nice flexible black sleeving.
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Looking at the sides again both are the same, this time we get a look at the vertical fin stack; the fins are also nice a thick and not of the thin/cheap variety found on other coolers. Not only does this aide in heat dissipation but also stops you snagging a fin and bending it too easily. On each side we find a spring loaded screw that is part of Noctua’s SecuFirm2 mounting system. Access to these screws for installation is actually made through the fan and the heatsink itself, hence that nice long screwdriver that Noctua provide! 😉
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Looking at the base of the Noctua NH-L9x65 we can see that the base is highly polished and thankfully also nice a flat! Also note that Noctua doesn’t have any exposed heatpipes here on the base, preferring to keep them sealed within the plate itself. Also note the use of hollowed out screws that connect to the studs that stick out from Noctua’s mounting brackets.
At this point I have to say that I’m pretty impressed by this little cooler, it really is a cooler that’s likely to fit in any case your going to find, with a maximum height of just 65mm. Of course it would be wrong of me to expect great cooling from such a little cooler, but we’ll push it through our regular benchmarks anyway and see how it performs…
Hardware Installation
| Case |
Cooler Master HAF XB
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Power Supply |
Corsair Professional Series AX 760i
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| Motherboard |
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer
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CPU |
Intel Core i5-4690K
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| CPU Cooler |
Noctua NH-L9x65
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RAM |
HyperX Savage 2400MHz 8GB Kit
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| Graphics Card |
XFX AMD Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition
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SSD |
HyperX FURY 120GB
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The first task before installing the Noctua NH-L9x65 was to identify the parts required for our Socket 1150 installation on our TestRig’s motherboard the ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer. This was made oh so simple by the fact that Noctua provide a parts bag with Intel on it and you use all of the parts in the bag apart from the stand-offs, as these are for an Intel LGA 2011 installation. All of the required parts for our LGA 1155 install are shown below.
The next task was to fit the back plate assembly and get it secured to the motherboard, this required the following parts (back-plate, x4 nylon spacers, x4 nuts & x2 pressure plates). The back-plate is placed on the back of the motherboard and a nylon washer goes on the other side, the pressure plates can then be added and secured with the nuts. It’s a little fiddly as there’s a lot to hold on to, but within five minutes the job was done. There’s no doubt that Noctua’s SecuFirm2 mounting system is one of the best on the market.
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A small pea sized blob of Arctic Cooling MX-4
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The Noctua’s NF-A9x14 PWM controlled fan was then plugged into CPU_FAN1 header on the ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer motherboard, and we were good to go! As you can see from the images below the clearance around the CPU is extremely impressive, this cooler really is a go anywhere cooler…
Testing Methodology/Setup
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For CPU Cooler testing, we here at pcGameware run Prime95 for a 15 minute period. During this period the temperature is monitored with CoreTemp and the cooling performance recorded (the max recorded is the average for all cores). Between each stress test we allow a 15 minute cool-down to allow for more accurate results. To adjust the fan speed we simply use the UEFI. A close eye is also kept on the ambient temperature, with the maximum being recorded for each run, this allows us to calculate the Delta temperature (Core – Ambient = Delta). Each run was performed with the Intel Core i5-4690K CPU at the following frequencies: 3.5GHz (Stock) and 4.0GHz (using the ASROCK OC Tweaker, shown in the picture below), all results have been recorded with CPU-Z. |
* Please note: To ascertain the maximum and minimum noise levels produced by our CPU test coolers. The dBA is recorded at a distance of 1 metre from the cooler, with all case fans unplugged to isolate the sound in question.
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Processor speed is set using the OC Tweaker tab of the UEFI, “Disabled” for stock speeds (3.5GHz) and “Turbo 4.0GHz” for the minor overclock tests. It should be noted that changing the OC settings resets the Fan Speeds, so these are checked on the next reboot and reset to “Full Speed” (see below).
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All the fans installed in the system are set to 100% speed using the displayed settings, this is simple with the ASROCK UEFI with the option of “Full Speed” being available for all system fans.
 CPU-Z – Noctua NH-L9x65 – 3.5GHz (fans @ 100%) |
 CPU-Z – Noctua NH-L9x65 – 4.0GHz (fans @ 100%) |
Hardware Performance
As stated above, to make our performance tests easier to follow and to get the most accurate recordings, all of the following tests have been carried out with case fans set at 100% and the Noctua’s NF-L9x65 fan also set at 100%.
- Intel Core i5-4690K – 3.5GHz (stock)
 Noctua NH-D9L – Prime95 – 3.5GHz (fans @ 100%) |
 Noctua NH-L9x65 – Prime95 – 3.5GHz (fans @ 100%) |
 Silverstone Argon AR06 – Prime95 – 3.5GHz (fans @ 100%) |
| CPU Cooler | Air/Liquid | Fan Speed | Ambient Temperature | Max CPU Temperature (core average) | Delta Temperature | Noise Level |
| NZXT Kraken X61 | Liquid | 100% | 24.50 | 40.75 | 16.25 | 51dB |
| Deepcool Gamer Storm Maelstrom 240 | Liquid | 100% | 24.00 | 43.50 | 19.50 | 50dB |
| Noctua NH-D15 | Air | 100% | 25.00 | 44.75 | 19.75 | 44dB |
| Raijintek Triton | Liquid | 100% | 24.00 | 44.25 | 20.25 | 46dB |
| Fractal Design Kelvin T12 | Liquid | 100% | 25.00 | 46.00 | 21.00 | 40dB |
| Reeven Okeanos | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 43.75 | 21.75 | 45dB |
| SilverStone Tundra TD03-E | Liquid | 100% | 25.50 | 49.25 | 23.75 | 51dB |
| Corsair H105 | Liquid | 100% | 23.00 | 46.75 | 23.75 | 60dB |
| Reeven Justice | Air | 100% | 21.50 | 46.50 | 25.00 | 39dB |
| Reeven Hans | Air | 100% | 26.00 | 51.50 | 25.50 | 34dB |
| Raijintek Themis Evo | Air | 100% | 21.50 | 47.50 | 26.00 | 37dB |
| Noctua NH-U9S | Air | 100% | 24.00 | 50.00 | 26.00 | 38dB |
| Scythe Mugen Max | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 48.50 | 26.50 | 36dB |
| Reeven Ouranos | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 48.50 | 26.50 | 43dB |
| Prolimatech Basic 81 | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 50.75 | 28.75 | 43dB |
| Raijintek Themis | Air | 100% | 21.50 | 52.25 | 30.75 | 47dB |
| Cryorig C1 | Air | 100% | 23.00 | 56.25 | 33.25 | 42dB |
| Noctua NH-D9L | Air | 100% | 25.00 | 55.75 | 30.75 | 33dB |
| Noctua NH-L9x65 | Air | 100% | 23.00 | 61.75 | 38.75 | 43dB |
| SilverStone Argon AR06 | Air | 100% | 23.50 | 79.50 | 56.00 | 28dB |
As one would expect for a CPU Cooler of this size and design it appears near the bottom of our chart. But to worry about that would be to miss the point. What we should note is that the cooler manages to keep our Intel Core i5-4690K at 62 degrees Celsius or less in our Prime 95 torture test, that in itself is pretty impressive. Also note though how much cooler it is than its (true) nearest competitor the Silverstone Argon AR06, outperforming the Argon AR06 by a massive 18 degrees! Let’s see what happens if we try a little overclock and a bit more voltage…
- Intel Core i5-4690K – 4.0GHz (OC Tweaker)
 Cryorig C1 – 4.0GHz (fans @ 100%) |
 Noctua NH-L9x65 – Prime95 – 4.0GHz (fans @ 100%) |
 Silverstone Argon AR06 – Prime95 – 4.0GHz (fans @ 100%) |
| CPU Cooler | Air/Liquid | Fan Speed | Ambient Temperature | Max CPU Temperature (core average) | Delta Temperature | Noise Level |
| NZXT Kraken X61 | Liquid | 100% | 24.00 | 48.00 | 24.00 | 51dB |
| Fractal Design Kelvin T12 | Liquid | 100% | 26.50 | 53.75 | 27.25 | 40dB |
| Raijintek Tritonn | Liquid | 100% | 24.00 | 51.25 | 27.25 | 46dB |
| Deepcool Gamer Storm Maelstrom 240 | Liquid | 100% | 24.50 | 52.50 | 28.00 | 50dB |
| Reeven Okeanos | Air | 100% | 23.50 | 51.75 | 28.25 | 45dB |
| Noctua NH-D15 | Air | 100% | 24.00 | 52.50 | 28.50 | 44dB |
| Corsair H105 | Liquid | 100% | 23.00 | 53.50 | 30.50 | 60dB |
| Scythe Mugen Max | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 54.75 | 32.75 | 36dB |
| SilverStone Tundra TD03-E | Liquid | 100% | 26.00 | 58.75 | 32.75 | 51dB |
| Reeven Justice | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 55.25 | 33.25 | 39dB |
| Reeven Hans | Air | 100% | 25.00 | 59.25 | 34.25 | 34dB |
| Reeven Ouranos | Air | 100% | 24.00 | 58.25 | 34.25 | 43dB |
| Raijintek Themis Evo | Air | 100% | 21.50 | 58.00 | 36.50 | 37dB |
| Noctua NH-U9S | Air | 100% | 23.50 | 60.25 | 36.75 | 38dB |
| Prolimatech Basic 81 | Air | 100% | 22.00 | 59.50 | 37.50 | 43dB |
| Raijintek Themis | Air | 100% | 21.00 | 59.50 | 38.50 | 47dB |
| Noctua NH-D9L | Air | 100% | 24.50 | 67.00 | 42.50 | 33dB |
| Cryorig C1 | Air | 100% | 23.00 | 65.75 | 42.75 | 42dB |
| Noctua NH-L9x65 | Air | 100% | 23.00 | 73.50 | 50.50 | 43dB |
| SilverStone Argon AR06 | Air | 100% | 23.50 | 92.50 | 69.00 | 28dB |
In the 4.0GHz test the Noctua NH-L9x65 still manages to keep the temperatures in check (at below 80 degrees) with a maximum average Core temperature of 73.50 degrees Celsius. Again outperforming its nearest true rival by almost 20 degrees! So it is possible to have an overclocked CPU and a still use a Noctua NH-L9x65, especially as we’ve said before; there’s not many of us who sit down for an evening of Prime 95! 😉
Acoustically the Noctua NH-L9x65 is very quiet even at its full rotational speed of 2500RPM. Which is obviously good news, in fact the highest we could record using our test equipment (with the NF-A9x14 fan at 100%) was 40dBA. Switching the fan over to PWN controll saw this figure drop to around 37dBA during regular (not Gaming!) use. For me, I have found that (according to our test gear anyway) anything below approximately 35dBA is pretty much silent, or as close to silence as I’m going to get in my office… 😉
Final Thoughts
The Noctua NH-L9x65
The Noctua NH-L9x65 arrived at pcG in a smart box adorned with Noctua’s signature colour, brown (and no I’m still not a fan!). But as has become expected of Noctua the NH-L9x65 was beautifully packaged and presented as always. To be fair ‘nobody does it better’ than Noctua.
Once out of the box I was pretty shocked at how small the NH-L9x65 actually is measuring in at just (95x95x65cm with fan) and weighing in (with fan) at 413g. It’s well made though and feels pretty darn solid too! The cooler comes equipped with a single NF-A9x14 PWM controlled fan with a maximum rotational speed of 2500RPM. The NH-L9x65 also features Noctua’s Secufirm2 mounting system, that again is simply one of the best mounting systems on the market today. The cooler can literally be fitted within a matter of minutes, and the beauty of the Secufirm2 system means that you can tighten screws (gently!) on the cooler until they stop, no need to be worried about under/over tightening screws, now that’s useful!
Now before we look at the NH-L9x65’s cooling performance I think it’s worth noting what this cooler is designed for. Now the obvious answer is it’s for ITX cases and HTPC’s, which is of course true. But it is maybe better described as a cooler than can fit where no other cooler can go! And that, my friends is actually the most important point here! This cooler has 100% compatibility with ITX PCIe slots and 100% compatibility with RAM slots on an Intel platform. This is the main reason that you use this cooler; space or the lack of it! 😉
Obviously due to its size the NH-L9x65’s performance is lackluster if you were to try and compare to other air based CPU Coolers. But that would be like trying to compare the top speed of a Bugatti Veyron to that of a Smart Car! So let’s look at it’s nearest rival (that we have tested), the Silverstone Argon AR06. Simply put the performance of the Noctua NH-L9x65 put the Argon AR06 in the shade, being approximately 18 degrees cooler when looking at both the stock and overclocked results. It also does this while staying pretty quiet with a maximum recorded dBA of 40 with the 90mm fan at 100%, this drops even lower to around 37dBA with the fan switched to PWM control. This could be reduced further by using the included Low Noise Adapter, although I wouldn’t recommend using it as temps could spiral!
The bottom line here is that we have a cooler designed to go where no other cooler is likely to fit, it’s beautifully made and extremely easy to install. The Noctua NH-L9x65 also performs well enough for modern day use and Gaming, even with an overclock! But just be careful, watch your voltage and just keep an eye on those temps…
Verdict
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Where possible we always use Amazon’s price for Value… |
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Many thanks to Noctua for providing this sample for review
