Cooling

Noctua NH-L9i chromax.black Cooler Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Available for a price in the region of £47.99, while the Noctua NH-L9i isn’t particularly inexpensive as a low-profile air cooler, in terms of what it offers, it’s head and shoulders above the competition.

Putting the performance to one side (because we’ll be getting to that shortly) with its chromax.black design and huge 6 year warranty, this is, without a doubt, some amazing value for a truly great cooling solution!

Overview

The Noctua NH-L9i is primarily designed for the low-profile mini-ITX market and, as such, shouldn’t really be directly compared to other larger models as they will always (or at least generally), in terms of performance, have an advantage just in terms of size!

For such a small package, however, it’s hard to overlook just what an amazing level of performance Noctua has squeezed from this design. If you are, therefore, looking to create a mini-ITX system or are looking for an upgrade on your existing cooling solution, there are no two ways about it, the Noctua NH-L9i is certainly your best option! And if Noctua’s usual color-scheme put you off in the past, then this chromax.black design should easily dismiss those naysayers!

Should I Buy One?

If you’re looking for one of the best air coolers for your mini-ITX build, in terms of aesthetics, design, and performance, then the Noctua NH-L9i is one of the best options around at the moment. Better still, this cooler should happily work in practically any system! It certainly handled our processor happily enough! Admittedly, based on the price, this level of performance doesn’t come cheap. With that colossally huge 6-year guarantee and stunningly sleek chromax.black design, however, you would be exceptionally hard pushed to find anything better! Noctua does what Noctua does, they make excellent coolers!

Pros

The sleek black design overcomes one of Noctua’s biggest aesthetic criticisms
Amazing levels of performance from such a small design
Ultra-simple installation – You should have this cooler fitted within 10 minutes at the most!
Exceptionally quiet fan design
Designed for mini-ITX, but suitable for the vast majority of systems
A 6-year guarantee makes the price seem like a solid investment