Noctua Launches L9A for AM5

Jan 24, 2023 at 10:22 AM

Noctua has launched the AM5 version of the legendary L9 CPU cooler. Coming in at the same 37mm total height that the AM4 version did, this SFF friendly cooler is available in both black and traditional Noctua beige/brown. MSRP is set for $44.90 for the brown, and $54.90 for the black.

CLICK HERE for the Noctua product page.

Revenant

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Noctua has launched the AM5 version of the legendary L9 CPU cooler. Coming in at the same 37mm total height that the AM4 version did, this SFF friendly cooler is available in both black and traditional Noctua beige/brown. MSRP is set for $44.90 for the brown, and $54.90 for the black.
CLICK HERE for the Noctua product page.

Reactions: Phuncz and rfarmer

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Kaji

Average Stuffer

SFFn Staff

Jan 24, 2023

And yet they choose to, once again, orient the fins so that the exhaust is severely restricted in 99% of ITX builds..

Reactions: Piewalker and jughead0

Piewalker

Trash Compacter

Jan 26, 2023

Kaji said:
And yet they choose to, once again, orient the fins so that the exhaust is severely restricted in 99% of ITX builds..

You raise an interesting point, but I'm trying to visualize an alternative. Just trying to understand what you mean, not being snarky. What orientation would be an improvement?

Are you saying that instead of a straight up/down fin orientation, it'd be better to angle the fins away from the heatsink's midline to direct airflow - like oriented downward but slightly angled by say bending or curving the bottom of fins 30 degrees outward?

Reactions: Kaji

confusis

John Morrison. Founder and Team Leader of SFF.N

SFF Network

SFF Workshop

SFFn Staff

Jan 26, 2023

The existing orientation directs the exhaust air at the RAM and Rear IO.

A better orientation would be to direct the air out the top of the board and towards the PCIe slot.

Reactions: Kaji

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N

Original poster

Revenant Tech

SFFn Staff

Jan 26, 2023

confusis said:
The existing orientation directs the exhaust air at the RAM and Rear IO.

A better orientation would be to direct the air out the top of the board and towards the PCIe slot.

For the last few generations sure. ITX boards are walled off now on all 4 sides. Using it as exhaust might be the better option…which gives me an article idea…

Reactions: confusis and rfarmer

Kaji

Average Stuffer

SFFn Staff

Jan 29, 2023

Piewalker said:
You raise an interesting point, but I'm trying to visualize an alternative. Just trying to understand what you mean, not being snarky. What orientation would be an improvement?

Are you saying that instead of a straight up/down fin orientation, it'd be better to angle the fins away from the heatsink's midline to direct airflow - like oriented downward but slightly angled by say bending or curving the bottom of fins 30 degrees outward?

Like @confusis mentioned.

Most modern ITX boards have large rear IO housings/VRM heatsinks immediately to the left, and two RAM slots immediately to the right of the CPU socket, which in the case of the L9a due to it's slightly rectangular shape and non-flexible mounting orientation means that the entire exhaust is forced to find less ideal routes to escape.

Noctua (and other manufacturers offering similar design), need to either keep all ITX offerings strictly square and compatible in any orientation, or at minimum, direct the fin stack in a way that is actually conducive to the vast majority of ITX builds.

Picture below isn't a Noctua L9i/L9a, but is a Cryorig C7 G which also suffers from the same issue. They offer mounting clips for alternate fan cooling as implemented here (Noctua NF-A9x14 fan) but their fan clips are only usable in one orientation, forcing poor @GuilleAcoustic to suffocate his exhaust in the same manner since the clips simply do not fit with the cooler rotated 90 degrees.