Noctua NH-L12 120mm & 92mm SSO Bearing PWM Fans CPU Cooler

Pros: Great build quality. Well packaged, and included thorough, easy to read manuals. Everything about the packaging was really high quality as well. Easy installation on AMD boards; was very quiet even in an open teshbench. Fans were pushing out a great amount of air for being a cpu cooler. Came with everything you could think of relevant to cpu heatsinks.

Cons: No cons.

Other Thoughts: I was a little hesitant at the price compared to some of the other cpu coolers on the market because it was also a low profile design. But when you hold the product and look at it for yourself you see the incredibly design and quality that went into it. Was my first noctua product but (as lame as it sounds) they've made a believer out of me.

Pros: Nicely designed, quiet, comes with thermal paste along with all the mounting hardware you could ever possibly need. Very low profile in single fan mode.

Cons: Stay away if you have a 120W TDP Processor!!!! If you check the manufacturers website they tell you that you can only use this with a 120W TDP AMD processor if you have good case flow! And the single fan operation mode won't work at all! I found this out the hard way when trying to run single fan mode with an 8320. Works great 99% of the time, but when you stress test it the system will crash due to overheating.

I managed to mount the 120mm fan to the bottom, since I have a small case and it seems to help the temps, but I still can't stay stable when running Boinc or any stress test.

Other Thoughts: I've been looking for a quality low profile cooler and thought this would fit the bill. It definitely beats the stock cooler without question, however for anyone with an FX8xxx series processor I can't recommend this cooler. I'm either going to have to leave the side of my case off or get a water cooling setup. Still kicking myself for not going to Noctua's homepage, but I'd like to see this 120W TDP info on the product data page to warn consumers.

Pros: Excellent packaging, great thermal paste, super quiet, outstanding quality. Does the job !

Cons: Little pricey.

Other Thoughts: Have been struggling for many years to get a good cooler solution for the Zalman HD135 HTPC (notorious for poor ventilation) and now my struggle is over. Fits perfectly in the case with space on top to allow airflow via the upper opening. Have both fans installed, directly connected to the Mobo without the Low Noise Adapter and it's never been quieter. Running AMD B555 stock with Gigabyte 78xx motherboard, at high load CPU temps are in the area of 40C. As many have mentioned, I would likely not overclock with this cooler (and especially not OC anything in this case!) but for my needs, it works as advertised. Finally a quiet and cool HTPC. Highly recommended for this particular application!

Pros: - installed on an ASROCK FM2A75 Pro4-M FM2 motherboard to cool a A10-5800K that I have overclocked to 4.6GHz.
- Keeps my overclocked A10 at only 4C over room ambient (27C) and never gets over 42C during stress testing.
- easy install
- VERY quiet. Case fans are louder than these fans
- Fairly low profile. Lots of room to spare in my Lian Li case
- Will cool your RAM as this will hang over it.

Cons: - If I had all four of my RAM slots filled, the bottom fan would have run into the Team Xtreem Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) RAM. Since I only had two sticks, I moved the RAM to "B" slots and everything is good.

Other Thoughts: - Make sure you don't get duper tall RAM as that could cause an issue. Also, if you use all RAM slots, make sure this won't run into any of the slots if you intend on using all of the slots.
- Highly recommended.

Pros: .
- Design allows for full size dual fan config or a single fan for compact builds.
- Very quiet operation.

Cons: .
- None.

Other Thoughts: .
This is a great cooler and I highly recommend it to anyone!

Pros: Fantastic, top notch build quality on both the cooler and the fans.

Installation is so easy a 5 year old could do it.

Comes packaged with a tube of the best thermal compound out there (Noctua NT-H1)

Noctua's support is AWESOME... I had an issue (see below) and they were emailing back and forth with me within 24 hours to help me fix it.

This thing is as close to silent with the low noise adapter as any fan can be.

Does a slightly better job than the stock AMD cooler, but does it silently.

Cons: Price is perhaps a tiny bit high considering the class of cooling performance it's in - it's very much at the entry level of after market CPU-cooling performance, yet most entry level CPU heatsinks are just 1/2 or 1/3rd the price.

Not worth docking an egg since you do get a top quality fan that sells for $20+ on its own, and Noctua offers fantastic support over the life of its products, plus all the pros listed above, etc...

Other Thoughts: I am using this in a mini-ITX rig to cool an AMD A8-5600k APU running at stock settings.

The reason to buy this cooler is to get a low profile cooler that is so close to silent it's unbelievable. Do not purchase this cooler if your goal is to cool an overclocked CPU. Other coolers will do that better. Purchase this cooler if you want a silent CPU cooler.

I am using an ASRock FM2A85X-ITX board, which does not support a backplate thanks to some baffling design decisions from ASRock. I emailed Noctua about this (as a backplate is normally required for installation) and they were very helpful and explained that I could mount the cooler without the backplate if I wanted to use it with that board.

So I did - mounted the cooler without a backplate and had no issues! Wouldn't dare try that with my D14, but it's fine with this L12 :)

Pros: This is a highly efficient and a very low noise CPU cooler that I am using in two of my systems.

Cons: None so far

Other Thoughts: This CPU cooler seems to work better than many larger "tower" type coolers.

Pros: Mounted with no backplate

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Meant to say the INTEL no backplate bolts (round head) + washers combined with the AMD spacers + brackets in order to mount it on an AMD board.

Pros: No backplate required - even for AMD though not officially supported
Cools quite well even in a very confined space with limited air flow

On an FM2 100w a8 5600, fractal node 304 case:

the stock cooler on full leveled out at about 64C at max load, and was LOUD... with all other case fans also on high.

a Noctua NH-D14 which does fit in that small case barely, maxed at about 58C, with all fans in the case on medium. Normally the D14 would do better, but because of the way the case is designed and the board, the rear 140mm fan had to be removed, and the d14 had to be mounted perpendicular to the front/back airflow. The sink cooled well, but the airflow was completely destroyed. Also it shouldn't really be mounted on that board since it has a backplate.

The NH L12 max at 47.5C with all fans in the case on low. At this setting the fans can not be heard 6 inches away from the case.

Cons: The heat pipes just barely touch one of the other heat sinks attached to the motherboard. Not sure i really care, seems not to be a problem, but a cutting it down about 1/8 of an inch with a dremel would solve it anyway.

Could only be placed one way on my itx board.
Had to move the lower fan way toward the heatpipe bend in order to fit without hitting my ram. If oriented the opposite direction, the heatpipes touch the side of the ram.

Bottom line, it's a tight fit on an itx board depending on the layout. Worst case though you can remove the bottom fan completely... but if the heatpipes conflict with your mobo heat sinks... you may have to do some modding.

Other Thoughts: Specifically purchased because another reviewer claimed to be able to mount this on an asrock a75 mini itx board, and the board I have the a85 successor has the identical layout and problem of not allowing for backplate mounted coolers.

I was able to easily mount the cooler on an AMD board without the backplate. Doing this requires mixing the AMD no backplate bolts/nuts with the AMD apacers and brackets. Everything will fit together with no problems once tightened properly. Be sure not to over tighten as the holes on an AMD board tend to be almost as wide as the screw heads. If you over tighten you are likely to catch one side of the screw heads in the hole and make the screw start to go crooked. Make sure all the screws are level and flush with the board, and everything will sit fine.

I'm not sure i would recommend mounting this way if the board is in a case where it is mounted vertically, although I think it would hold fine. For a horizontally mounted board though, there is absolutely no problem.

Pros: Replaced the stock AMD Phenom II X61090T fan because I was getting Blue Screens of Death.
picked this one because of the double fan and offset so it would not interfere with my memory.
Runs 100% cooler and is not hot to the touch as the stock fan was.
Installation instructions were good and all of the supplied hardware made it easy to install on my Gigabyte MB.

Cons: None so far.