- Review -

28.03.2015 HiTechLegion.com

There are no surprises in the finish and design of either the U9S or D9L. They are exactly what we have come to expect from Noctua; made up of top quality materials with flawless execution, and mounting kits that are second to none. And, of course…the brown. While the U9S is pretty straightforward, the D9L is much more unique with a 110mm tall dual tower design sporting a fan only in the middle. Obviously an ode to the D14 and D15’s design, which has been a landmark for a number of years. So while the U9S and D9L may be small, it is obvious they were designed to do some serious cooling. The install on both was absolutely smooth, as we have come to expect from the SecuFirm 2 kit, with each easily under five minutes. Once in the case and powered on, the NF-9Ax14 fan idled at an absolutely inaudible 385rpm. Even ramped up to full speed the sound levels barely cracked 30 dBA. For noise critical applications, including HTPC and SFF gaming, you will be hard pressed to find a more impressive small cooler. This meant that even under the heaviest of loads, things stayed cool and quiet at stock CPU speeds. Performance was distinctly top tier for their size class, but stock speeds were not where the interesting things happened. When we upped the clock on the 4770K to 4.4GHz both the U9S and D9L quickly decreased any performance gap the more expensive top flow coolers had, and even outperformed the NH-L12. While the other small coolers were reaching their limits, the tower style Noctuas were not. Adding second fans enabled both coolers to shave another couple of degrees off, and surprisingly added very little noise.

"Both of these coolers can handle a very surprising load for their size, and may well be setting a new performance standard for their size under heavier loads. I walked away very, very impressed." (George Cella, HiTechLegion.com)