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Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition CPU Cooler Review

Performance

With this being a low-profile cooler, it clearly can’t offer extremely high-levels of performance when compared to a larger air design or AIO liquid cooler. That being said, however, despite its relatively small stature, the Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition cooler did remarkably well in our testing.

Offering solid comparative levels of CPU temperature control, this would be absolutely ideal for the vast majority of processors currently available on the market. In addition, despite some potential concerns surrounding the surprisingly small fan, it didn’t even create that much noise. If anything, it was surprisingly quiet.

Admittedly, the results get less impressive when overclocked. It should be noted though that even Noctua themselves clearly state in their product description/specifications that the NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition has not been designed for overclocking and, in fairness, based on the results, while it did cope with our tests, it is perhaps a step too far for good long-term performance.

Taking the results as a whole, however, for such a small package, this cooler clearly packs a pretty huge wallop! Not, incidentally, that we expected anything less for something coming out of the Noctua plant!