TechPowerUp Noctua Launches NH-L9x65, a 65mm tall small footprint heatsink

Necere

Shrink Ray Wielder
NCASE
Feb 22, 2015
1,720
3,284
"With the trend towards highly compact, ITX based builds, 60mm fans are in demand again" - Noctua CEO
That's a bit of a stretch. Though this cooler they showed at Computex last year caught my eye. It could work quite well for certain case designs.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
Got one in and took some pics and tested it.

Specs: http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=108&lng=en&set=1


Box


Nicely protective packaging.


Well written documentation and plenty of accessories as usual for Noctua.


The star of the show, shown here with the stock slim 92mm fan.


Not mirror finish but the case is finely machined.


Noctua thoughtfully included the capability to use standard 25mm thick fans.


Installed

5930K at stock clocks and ambient at 23.5°C it was idling at about 38°C with the NF-A9 PWM 92x25mm fan (this isn't the included one) running at ~900 RPM.

After 10 minutes of Prime96 Blend @ 10 threads it got up to about 90°C and the fan was running at 2040 RPM. CPU was throttling slight, dropping briefly from 3.6GHz down to 3.5GHz.

So I tried adding a 120mm on the side bracket blowing towards the heatsink and after 20 minutes of Prime it got to about 81°C.

Left to its own devices, the L9x65 isn't suited to cooling a socket 2011 CPU at heavy load, but with additional case cooling the temps are reasonable considering the small size.
 
Last edited:

PlayfulPhoenix

Founder of SFF.N
SFFLAB
Chimera Industries
Gold Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
1,052
1,990
Not bad at all, considering. The sink and fan look positively tiny inside the (itself very small) case :D
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,937
4,951
Very nice pictures ! Is that a roll of white paper/cloth and a softbox flash I see ?

The cooler is a nice addition for the SFF community, I wonder how quiet it is with an i7-4790K in normal scenarios, like gaming and video stream watching.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
Thanks! Here's my setup:

Camera is a Canon T2i with the 60mm Macro lens. Love this lens for product photography, super sharp with practically no distortion.

I'll be leaving the heatsink installed for a little while to get an idea of how it sounds in normal use.
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,937
4,951
Nice, four studio lights :eek: It explains the great photos !

I'm probably going to upgrade my camera soon, from my Canon Powershot G10 to something with interchangeable lenses, so I can use macro lenses. I don't have the room for a setup like you have, I need to make due with a small phototent for now, sadly.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
I usually only use 3 lights, I found the rear left light isn't needed to light up the background most the time.

The softbox on the left is this and the boom stand one is this, pretty much the cheapest lights I could find on Amazon. So you don't even have to spend that much money on lighting to get really nice results.

I have a cheap phototent too, I got it as a kit with the lights with the metal reflectors in the pic and it gives nice results but I'm limited to small objects with it:



Get a piece of acrylic for that subtle reflection.
 

EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
Left to its own devices, the L9x65 isn't suited to cooling a socket 2011 CPU at heavy load, but with additional case cooling the temps are reasonable considering the small size.
I wonder how it would fare with JUST the 120mm, ducted down to the 90mm heatsink top.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
Thanks for the info, very helpful !

I almost forgot, a good tripod and tripod head is worth its weight in gold. You can get away with cheap low power lights with product photography since the subject doesn't move but if you have a cheap tripod head that sags down due to the weight of the camera it's useless.

I'm using an entry-level Manfrotto legs and head. Not cheap but not outrageously expensive considering they're built like tanks and will last for years.

I wonder how it would fare with JUST the 120mm, ducted down to the 90mm heatsink top.

At that point why not use a larger heatsink like the Noctua C14? I could test it if you want but I don't really see the use case.
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,937
4,951
I think the NH-L12 is the next step-up from the NH-L9x65, with it's low-profile heatsink and multiple configurations to allow 92mm or 120mm fans. But in the case of the Nova, there might be better options. I always felt like the NH-L12 was about the limit for a socket 1150 Core i5/i7 to cool it quietly(ish).
 

EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
At that point why not use a larger heatsink like the Noctua C14? I could test it if you want but I don't really see the use case.
Clearance issues, mainly. Once coolers start straying outside of the keep-out area, then ITX boards where the socket is too near to the PCI-E slot (or the case sidewall, or the RAM) are no longer compatible.
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,937
4,951
The problem isn't the heatsink's size, since larger heatsinks mean better cooling, which is their whole point of existance.
The problem is the location of the CPU socket on some boards, which often isn't due to physical restrictions but max cost and chosen design.

Example that it is always possible:


The ASRock X99E-ITX/ac, a board many people thought could not have existed. Even that board manages twin NIC's, 6x SATA (and SATA Express) and 80mm long M.2 slot, which most mITX Z97 boards don't have.

A board with the socket not in the center also doesn't provide any significant benefits, while a cooler with double the cooling potential does. RAM clearance is rarely an issue with VLP memory, I always advocate it because it has no negatives except maybe a higher price (sometimes more expensive, sometimes cheaper).
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
Clearance issues, mainly. Once coolers start straying outside of the keep-out area, then ITX boards where the socket is too near to the PCI-E slot (or the case sidewall, or the RAM) are no longer compatible.

Ah, I see. I'll try to test it sometime then.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Original poster
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
After using it for a few days now I'm extremely impressed with this thing. With the 92x25 fan it's extremely quiet at idle. Can't hear it over the SX500-LG.

I also did some 3D rendering yesterday, wasn't the most stressful workload but the CPU was at about 60% load on all cores and it was still fairly quiet and temps were only in the 60s.
 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,937
4,951
Nice, good to see that beefier mass is used. Too bad the 25mm thick fan isn't included.
 

PlayfulPhoenix

Founder of SFF.N
SFFLAB
Chimera Industries
Gold Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
1,052
1,990
You're telling me that Noctua made a cooler that's of good quality, and performs well?

Color me shocked, absolutely shocked! :p