About a year ago , I challenged myself . I want to know howsmall I could make a PCwhile packing in the high-pitched - end play hardware money can bribe , and that ’s send me on a scrap of a journey .
I ’ve made tweaks here and there , swapped out hardware , and endlessly fiddled with my fan breaking ball . But ultimately , after many months and heap of money down the drainage , it feels like my microcomputer has gain its final form . And it all happen because I invested about $ 60 in a tiny Noctua cooler that ’s completely exchange my relationship with my little form factor ( SFF ) personal computer .
Meet the 92mm beast
OK , enough preamble . This mystery story Noctua tank is the NH - L9x65 . It ’s useable in both Noctua ’s chromax.black colour option , as well as silver with one of Noctua ’s iconic beige and brown fans . I choose the latter because I love the look — we be — but it ’s what this cooler has going on under the hood that stands out .
It ’s a low - visibility tank , clock in at just 65 mm tall , and that ’s a requirement give that my PC is built inside of a Fractal Terra mini - ITX sheath — thebest mini - ITX caseyou can grease one’s palms , thank you very much . I was n’t able to use a cooler this grandiloquent antecedently , as I tried cramming in anRTX 4090and was only left with about 55 millimeter of clearance for a C.P.U. ice chest . But a set has changed since then .
Notably , Nvidia turn theRTX 5090 . This is a right two - slot graphics card — at least for the Founder ’s Edition model — freeing up a net ton of extra blank space for a CPU cooler . Previously , I was using an ID - Cooling IS-55 , which was just barely enough to keep the Ryzen 7 9700X in my microcomputer cool . bound from the RTX 4090 to the RTX 5090 opened up more room , permit me to get a improbable tank , and in twist , pile in a more powerful CPU ( more on that in a minute ) .
The NH - L9x65 is a taller cooler , but it ’s not abiggercooler , and that ’s why I bang it so much . Instead of a received 120 mm fan , the NH - L9x65 uses one of Noctua ’s slim 92 mm NF - A9x14 fan . If you ’ve worked withmini - ITX motherboardsbefore , you jazz that ’s a swelled deal . With Noctua ’s ice chest , I do n’t have to fight with my case or the heatsinks built onto the motherboard , and that made in good order installing it a zephyr .
Due to how small mini - ITX motherboards are , you ’re given a limited footprint for a cooler . In the case of something like the IS-55 I was using previously , the cooler actually had a portion of the heatsink clipped out to make room either for the RAM or the motherboard ’s heatsinks . Not a problem on the L9x65 . The ice chest does n’t bug out too far beyond the C.P.U. socket , making the initiation far light .
The difference - maker is the performance , however . The NH - L9x65 , despite its petite size , is one hell of a central processor cooler , and it ’s wholly changed my SFF rig .
Small PC, big performance
I settle down for the Ryzen 7 9700X in the previous looping of my PC . I intended to use theRyzen 7 9800X3D , but give the space and cooler restraint , I determine to ditch the 3D V - Cache splintering for a received 8 - core offering . The NH - L9x65 made AMD’sbest back CPUa possible action , though , and the performance has been grand .
Here ’s a taste . Below , you could see my temperature with Noctua ’s ice chest , and the result are great . For a small form factor PC with a gamy - goal gaming CPU known to run hot , I ’ll take idle temperature under 50 point Anders Celsius . And although the temperature ramp up with an all - sum Cinebench R24 consignment , it ’s still well within safe operating temperature . The chip also maintain its maximal boost clock of 5.2GHz across all core during the run , which is mighty telling .
These might seem a picayune affectionate if you ’re accustomed to a full - sized background , but for a case as flyspeck as the Fractal Terra — and packing some power - hungry computer hardware — this is exceptional performance . I ’ve seen the CPU break 90 degrees before , but only for a brief moment , and while I ’m playing game , it rarely goes above 70 degree .
Temperatures are great , but devote the size of the NH - L9x65 , I usurp it would make trade - offs in noise . This is a 92 mm fan , after all , and the little you go on the devotee , the more loud and annoying the whine is when the fan ramps up . But no . The NH - L9x65 is cool , but it ’s also remarkably quiet given the hardware it has to cool .
Decibel mensuration take a snatch of context . On a randomness scale leaf , 40 decibel is considered the median noise inside a house , so my measure at 0 % sports fan amphetamine represents the ambient noise in my office . Even ramp up to 50 % rooter stop number , the noise is barely audible over the phone of a normal room . For my use , the fan speed hovers between 50 % and 70 % while I ’m work with a 12 or so Chrome tabs open up , as well as Discord and Steam run in the scope .
In practical use , that entail I just get wind my PC while I ’m function . That ’s slap-up .
When you push the fan hard — and it will get pushed severely while playing games — the noise rage up quite a bit . Still , 59.1 decibels is n’t unsound . On the dB plate , this would be just below the racket of a normal conversation ( no shouting ) and just above the idle humming of a icebox . Basically , it does n’t vocalize like a jet locomotive engine , even when the devotee speed is spin out at its maximal RPM and the cores are fully loaded . I ’ll take that any day of the week .
In my previous build , I was invariably fighting noiseandtemperatures , regardless of how much I tweak my devotee curve , and while using a weaker CPU . Now , I ’m able to get honest performance without worrying that my microcomputer is going to take flying with how tight the fan is spinning . And that mostly comes down to pass $ 60 on a new CPU cooler .
