NoctuaNH-D12L chromax.Black, Low-Height Dual-Tower CPU Cooler (120mm, Black)

Easy to follow instructions but at the same time easy to misread. The notches the cooler attaches to should be highlighted better. Other than that its super quiet can't hear anything running. The thermal paste that comes with it...while it may be good....the applicator is a mess. It doesn't push the paste out in a drop fashion at all; instead it pushes it out in lines and not slow either. Had to clean up once and reapply. The second application wasn't much better. I did order different paste however they were delivered separately and I had the time today. It should be listed in the product description that it does come with thermal paste.

This is legit ten times better than expected. I went with this cpu cooler because I had heard Noctua was worth the price and so far it seems correct. Not only do you get two different options for mounting hardware but you also get thermal paste and a metal Noctua badge that you can put on the case if you'd like. It is really quiet too which surprised me with how big it is. I haven't had any issues with overheating during my several hour long gaming sessions and temps seem to be very stable. The mounting hardware comes with instructions incase you aren't sure which option to go with and also lets you know how tight to fix it. It fit better than I thought it would in an atx sized case with the large size of it but I probably still have 2 inches from the side panel. Also with my motherboard its shorter on the intake side so it doesn't block access to the ram. Very good value for what you pay for.

Used as part of a sub-$1000 build using a micro-ATX motherboard in a Cooler Master Q300L case.Fitted beautifully - no interference with the case, RAM, M2 slots or PCIe-x16.Used with a lowish power AM4 processor, it keeps the CPU temp extremely low.It's very quiet.The $100 price is pretty reasonable.Can't think of a negative.

A new PC build in a Silverstone 4U RM46-502 using a Proart x870E MB, 9950X3D and RTX 5070Ti 16GB OC card required a low profile CPU cooler. Noctua was one of the few that allowed proper 4U case clearance and air flow through case. Heat pipe stubs clear case cover by 4mm. Single 120mm fan and at 1200 rpm, CPU at 95C with 30 CPU threads enabled, 10% overclock and 96% utilization during an hourlong 15000 x 12500 rendering run. With these high temps using only CPU to render, a water block may be a better choice. Using RTX5070Ti 16GB OC 10% with 99% utilization on GPU 58C GPU temp , CPU remained at 76C with 10% utilization during same rendering run using Open CL with GPU only render taking about 10 minutes longer to render same image.

I'm still running an i7 7700k. No overclock. It works good enough for me for now (waiting to see how Lunar Lake turns out in the next 6-8 months). Had an Intel TS15A cooler which was good enough 5-6 years ago. It has always given me about 90C temps under load. Recently started hitting 100c and throttling hard. Cleaned everything, still happened. Figured maybe it needed to be pulled and re-pasted. But then figured if I'm going through all that, I'll just upgrade the cooler. Went with the NH-D12L simply for the cost/performance ratio and not a size constraint. It's more than adequate for the 7700k.I pulled the Intel cooler off and the paste looked perfect. So I'm not really sure why the recent throttling. My case moves a ton of air. The only thing I can figure is it getting data faster from an NVMe drive upgrade.I put the Noctua on, reassembled, then put it under heavy load and haven't seen more than about 78C max temps. Plus the added benefit of much less fan noise.

Ordered this cooler/heatsink because I use them alot on servers as they fit the rack cases we use. Always a great product and they work well.The reason for the 1 star rating is that I paid good money for a NEW unit, but they sent me someone else's garbage return.The heatsink had compound all over it, even on the cooling tubes. But that's not the worst problem. When I opened the harware box, half the mounting hardware and screws were missing. I can clean the heatsink, but at this point this kit is useless.Now I have order another unit and waste another day or two to get this server finished. Hopefully the next one won't be garbage.QUIT SENDING USED RETURNS AS NEW PRODUCTS. IT IS DECEPTIVE AND BASICALLY IT'S FRAUD.

I have a fairly high-end PC, which came with liquid cooling. I have never had good luck with liquid coolers as they always seem to fail after a year or two. That is exactly what happened again and I started having overheating issues. I have had Noctua’s in the past, and wanted another. After doing some research, I found that this was the guy that fits my motherboard. Installation was a little tricky on my motherboard as the back plate was glued on, but once I was able to finally remove that (which was a bit terrifying !), the Noctua was a super easy install. Fired her back up in the temps on all CPU’s dropped by over 40°F. Haven’t had a single overheat issue since and it has been months. Noctua makes some great products. This thing is so pretty that I feel like buying another to put it on the mantle as a conversation piece ! Attached pics show before and after temps in speedfan