- Review -

25.09.2012 APH Networks

Some say the Noctua NH-L12 is a legendary NHL hockey player that hypes the crowd to a roar. Others say it is a quiet night owl keeping watch at night. All we know is that the Noctua NH-12 is a very compact and quiet heatsink delivering very impressive cooling results. Noctua comes out with yet another heatsink that many would say many good things about, but there is really almost nothing to complain about. Simple and clean are my first impressions, while keeping the originality of the design from previous models. However, even with simple designs, the Noctua NH-L12 is solidly built with noise reduction in mind. As well, an excellent tube of NT-H1 thermal paste is provided to ensure heat is transferred efficiently between the heatsink and your processor. Those that have high clearance heatspreaders on their memory modules do not have to worry either. The small NF-B9 fan doesn't take up the whole underside of the heatsink, which allows for more space if the heatsink ever covers over the memory modules. If you are still complaining about space, Noctua gives you the option to take a fan off. With all these great features, I don't think most people would be able to find something bad about it. For approximately $70 MSRP, I think the Noctua NH-L12 is worth the price to performance ratio with a lower profile touch to the equation.

"The Noctua NH-L12 is a great compact heatsink that delivers high performance with noise optimizations in mind." (Preston Yuen, APH Networks)