Noctua Chromax Coolers Review – No More Brown!

Noctua NH-L9i chromax.black

Another one from the eTeknix history books is the Noctua NH-L9i low-profile cooler. This one was reviewed by us 7 years ago too. Yet again, we’ve been using these in low-profile builds ever since. It’s remarkable that Noctua release so few products, but they’re so good, they can last many years with basically no changes beyond a few mountings kits for new sockets. Check out the original review here.

Features

• Proven premium heatsink (more than 100 awards and recommendations from international hardware websites), now available in an all-black design that goes great with many colour schemes and RGB LEDs
• Only 37mm height allows it to fit ultra-compact HTPC and Small Form Factor (SFF) cases, 95x95mm footprint guarantees 100% RAM and PCIe compatibility on all ITX, Micro-ATX and ATX motherboards
• Renowned, award-winning NF-A9x14 slim 92mm fan with Low-Noise Adaptor and PWM for automatic speed control: Full cooling performance under load, whisper quiet at idle!
• Includes high-end NT-H1 thermal paste and SecuFirm2 mounting system for easy installation on Intel LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156
• Renowned Noctua quality backed up by 6-year manufacturer’s warranty, deluxe choice for Intel Core i7, i5 or i3 with up to 65W TDP (e.g. 8700, 8600, 8400, 8100) or higher (see compatibility list)

This one is very different to the other two we’re looking at. It’s got more limited socket support, as it screws directly to the motherboard, much like a stock cooler would. So you get the cooler, four screws, a low noise cable, and the thermal paste, that’s it.

It’s an absolutely gorgeous cooler too, and it is pretty damn impressive. It uses a compact radiator design with one of their custom slim fans on the top blowing downwards. It’s designed for those with limited PC space and as a direct replacement for the stock Intel cooler. It’s not going to blow you away with cooling performance, but it’ll be cooler and quieter than the stock cooler, so there’s that!

The contact plate is mounted directly onto the radiator too, there’s really no wasted space here. The mounting brackets are right next to the CPU too.

The fan is pre-installed, but you can actually get the screwdriver between the fan blades to mount the cooler with ease. Noctua even fitted these tiny anti-vibration pads on both sides of the fan too. You can see more of those pads in this review.

These are the screws that you put through the back of your motherboard. They’ve even got their own Nylon washer to keep things fitting perfectly.