Ryzen 1700 - Upgrade cooler to NH-L12S?

parneshr

Chassis Packer
Original poster
Jul 1, 2017
14
9
Been happy with my Ryzen build in the NCASE M1 thus far. However, my CPU is affected by the sea fault bug and I'm in the middle of the RMA process. One area of improvement I can think of is upgrading the cooler (currently I am using the included Wraith Spire). While it is adequate it does get loud under load and with summer starting here in tropical QLD, it will only get worse.

Since I have two 3.5 inch drives in the side mounted caddy, I am restricted in which coolers I can use. I like the idea of top down coolers with AM4 boards which don't have VRM cooling and so am looking at the new NH-L12s.

Anyone with the NH-L12 or similar cooler can share their experiences on how much of an improvement in temp/noise I can expect? Any other recommendations for coolers?
 

rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,588
2,702
Can I ask which moththerboard you have? If the Asrock or Gigabyte have you looked at the be quiet! Dark Rock TF? It is large and can be a PITA to fit on some motherboards (apparently blocks a ram slot on the Biostar) but it cools really well and is very quiet. I am using one with my 6600k but I have a 8700k that I am just waiting on the motherboard to install and I feel it should work fine with that too.

Here is a pic I took of mine to show that the 3.5 HDD cage would fit with the Dark Rock installed.

 

parneshr

Chassis Packer
Original poster
Jul 1, 2017
14
9
Can I ask which moththerboard you have? If the Asrock or Gigabyte have you looked at the be quiet! Dark Rock TF? It is large and can be a PITA to fit on some motherboards (apparently blocks a ram slot on the Biostar) but it cools really well and is very quiet. I am using one with my 6600k but I have a 8700k that I am just waiting on the motherboard to install and I feel it should work fine with that too.

Here is a pic I took of mine to show that the 3.5 HDD cage would fit with the Dark Rock installed.


Thanks. I have the ASRock B350 ITX so it sounds like it should be ok. Might be a bit overkill (I don't intend to overclock past 3.6-3.7 Ghz) but it is not too much more expensive than the NH-L12 here so I will definitely look into it.