Noctua NH-U9S, Quiet High-Performance Single Tower CPU Cooler

Fantastic CPU cooler with my AMD Ryzen 7 5700X. I'm seeing around 40–45°C under a light load using MX-7 thermal paste, even during this heat wave. It's been doing a great job keeping temperatures relatively low while staying nice and quiet. The cooler feels very high quality, the installation was straightforward after getting help from support, and Noctua support was a great help too. This is installed in my family's main house computer since I have my own personal PC in my room, and it's been rock solid. Overall, I couldn't be happier with it and would definitely recommend it for anyone serious about quiet cooling.

I usually wait a while before coming back to review a product, to see how things work out over time. This time I'll make an exception ... I have a i3 Skylake build for my home office. My CPU monitor was consistently pinging me that my temps were going over 80c under normal use...under idle, it usually hovered around 50 to 60. The case was free of dust and temps in the room were always not nearly hot enough to explain it. Opened my case up yesterday to install a new vid card and decided to also get rid of the original Intel fan and get a better solution. I searched Amazon and this option popped up on top of the list. The reviews and feedback were so good I only scanned a few other options before coming back to this one and pulling the trigger. Same day delivery was an added bonus! Installation is a bit of a project, but nothing anybody with a bit of experience with this kind of thing can't handle. On most mobos you will need to remove the whole board to get the included mounting bracket on the back. As a bonus its nice they include a (necessary) long screwdriver for the main mounting screws, and some quality thermal paste. The entire kit is very solid, quality materials. I mounted mine so the fan directly faces the rear fan in my case. That way the cooling fan pulls air through the block across the CPU, and the rear fan sucks it out the back of the case. Super quiet I hardly know its even on. I recommend searching YouTube for tutorials, I found a couple of guys that walked through the details of how they got it installed with minimal hassle and no errors. Always a huge help and makes it go that much smoother. Immediately after installation I booted up and checked the CPU monitor. CPU temp now hovers under 30c (27 / 29) at idle. In fact, with about 10 Brave tabs open and normal clicking around / typing, its *still* right there at the same temp. Does not even rise at all! Running 3 YouTube videos in separate tabs ... still does not even budge. I haven't tried any rendering or anything that seriously taxes the CPU yet but for normal every day use this thing is doing its job like a champ! Can't speak to long term use but based on all the positive reviews I'm confident its most likely going to continue to do so!

I was recommended this cooling system for my 13th gen i7 because it was overheating real bad i was not sure about a air cooled when people tell you that the only way to go is liquid cooled but i do have to give it to this cooler i play lots of games and my temps used to go up to almost 100c and now under load the max i see is around 50c to 70c max and its super nice when gaming. I have had my system for a couple of years now and it works great for the price point and compatible with most fans. It fits in the case and super quiet. The build quality is nice and should stand the test of time. All round great solution when on a budget.

I have been building PC's for over 30 years. So I have seen it all. Done it all. And went through all the trends with cooling, performance bumps and efficiency. Cooling is one of those things that things can go wrong even when all else is right. I bought a couple of these Noctua NH-U9S coolers because they were the best cooling for the footprint I had to work with (4U Size Server Rack Cases). These perform well IF you get a second fan for a push / pull configuration. Sure 1 fan is fine, but you really need to ensure your airflow is optimal. And believe me the extra money for a second fan is well worth it for this package size. If you do that this is a decent cooler. You cannot OC on this cooler, and in some cases even stock CPU speeds will be throttled a bit depending on how long you keep cycles pegged. It's a solid buy. If you do have room for something taller, Noctua makes other products better suited for a case with more room which you should definitely do.

My Dell Studio XPS 9100 desktop's cooler was not keeping my CPU cool - due to the well-known plastic tabs breaking on the cooler - keeping the cooler from making solid contact with the CPU. I tried to order a replacement from Dell for a perfect-working computer...but Dell no longer sells a cooler for that model. Planned obsolescence, I presume even though my XPS runs perfect in all other regards. So i checked a few aftermarket coolers that some said "might work" and after viewing some YT videos, this Noctua U9S cooler seemed to be my best option. Before, my core temps were almost "off-the-charts" reaching 90-100 Celsius regularly with very little load. After (easily) installing this cooler, my minimum core temps went from 50c to under 25c in all six cores. My maximum core temperatures decreased from over 95c in all six cores to about 55c. And the fan that comes with the cooler is much quieter than the OEM fan provided by Dell. All the positive reviews I've read about Noctua, turned out to be 100% true. To make this work, Noctua had to send me a modification kit for my Intel 1366 motherboard. I just had to provide proof of purchase of the U9S and my dell 1366 socket. Once I did that, Noctua customer support mailed me the kit I needed. Just great customer support. And my computer is now running cool and calm. Should help me get another year, or two, out of Michael Dell's computer. ****UPDATE - I bought this Noctua CPU Cooler Feb. 2022. March 2024 it is still working like new. My CPU never runs hot and the fan is extremely quiet. One of the best Amazon purchases I've made in the last 15 years. Good company to work with, too.

Before I start the review, I want to list the components I have installed in my computer: Case: Silverstone GD08 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA X99 Ultra Gaming CPU: Intel Core i7 5820K @3.3GHz RAM: 16GB (4x4) Corsair Vengeance LPX GPU: Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 Boot SSD: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB Gaming SSD: Mushkin Reactor 1TB HDD: 3x WD Red 4TB Bluray Drive: Asus BW-16D1HT Bluray Drive: LG WH16NS40 For the last few years, I've had a large case (Fractal Define XL R2) sitting on our TV stand. It was an eyesore to have sitting out under the TV (beautiful case, but ugly in the living room), but it was incredibly spacious with great cable management, and housed all of my components with no issues. In that case, I was using an ARCTIC Liquid Freezer 240 to keep my CPU cool. The computer is a work horse (gaming, video encoding, Plex server, etc.), so having a quality CPU cooler is a must. I was finally able to find a quality case that would fit all of my components while fitting in to the TV stand, and also blending in (SilverStone GD08B). However, the smaller case meant that I would no longer be able to use a 240mm cooler for my CPU. It's HTPC form factor also limited my choices for a new cooler because of its height limitations. I did a great deal of research on low height coolers, and finally settled on the NH-U9S. I knew I wasn't going to get the same cooling performance I got with my AIO, and I knew the air flow in the new case was not going to be great with the number of drives in place. I was maxing out at about 62°C under full load with my old setup. Installation of the heatsink was incredibly easy; I was done in less than five minutes. Once I got everything installed in the new case and fired it up, I immediately saw an increase in idle temps. Where I was getting 28°C-35°C before, I was now seeing 39°C at the low end, but averaging in the low 40s at idle. Not great, but expected. Once I started encoding my first video, I saw temps shoot up to the high 70s, and reaching into the low 80s at some points, which was less than ideal. But, I knew the tradeoffs with the new setup, and it was still in the safe range, so I was ready to deal with it. I decided to try and manually adjust the fan speeds and curves to try to improve the cooling a bit, so I went into my bios and looked at the fan setup. For some reason, it was reporting my CPU fan at 0RPM, no matter how I adjusted it. So I cracked the case open, expecting that I did something stupid like I forgot to plug in the header, and found out that one of my SATA cables was stopping the fan (anyone who has used the GD08 with both optical drive bays and SSDs installed knows that cable management is tough). So i pushed it back, and the fan started spinning again. I booted back into Windows to see if that made a difference. Sure enough, I was now seeing idle temps down in the mid 30s (I set up the fan curves to run at 20% even at idle). Major difference. I saw even more improvements under load. I've been encoding for the last 4 and half hours (95-100% load the whole time), and the CPU has been sitting in the mid 60s for the most part, with only one core hitting 70°C at max (but averaging around 68°C). So in other words, without a fan on this heatsink, my CPU was kept under or at 80°C under full load, and now I'm seeing just a few degrees more than I was with my old AIO. I may even be able to (very moderately) overclock my CPU even in the new case. I am incredibly happy with how well this cooler is working out, considering the space limitations I was working with and the limited airflow inside the case due to how much I've crammed in there. I would definitely recommend this cooler for anyone looking for a low height or small form factor cooler.

I’d just like to preface this by saying I’m a complete beginner with installing computer parts. Bought this cooler in order to replace the crummy cpu cooler in my prebuilt. I didn’t use the backplate mount since I read online that other people using this cooler were able to install it with m3 screws and washers. Those were used to install the intel mounting brackets. It took me some time to align it with the screws on those brackets underneath it, but I was able to screw them in properly. I also added a second fan to it although getting that fan to clip onto the cooler with the provided wires was a pain. In the end though, the cooler made a huge difference with my cpu temps as I can now comfortably game without my cpu reaching alarming temps. The cooler along with another Noctua case fan I installed made a 15-20 degree difference when gaming which I am very pleased with. This cooler now keeps my temps between the mid 50s-60s in most of my games along with barely producing any noise. Installation was a bit tricky since admittedly I had no prior experience, but it paid off very well and I would recommend this cooler if your computer needs one.

Even though I've built systems for several years, this was my very first non-stock-cooler install. I usually go with Intel's stock cooling solutions, which typically work fine for non-overclocked purposes. Since the i5-9600k doesn't come with a cooler, I decided to venture outside of my comfort zone and go for a third-party cooler. After reading many reviews, I decided on this Noctua solution. The primary factors that drove my decision: 1) Air cooler. 2) Single fan. 3) Small profile, so I wouldn't have to worry about overhang/selecting specific components. 4) Quiet. Be very, very, quiet. 5) Excellent build quality and compatibility, so it might last between several system upgrades. I just finished installing it earlier today, and so far the results have been fantastic. On my old CPU (i5-4440), with the stock cooler, my low-stress temps (web-browsing, music playing) were about 65C. With this new cooler on my new i5-9600k, I'm seeing about 38C on average under a similar load. That's in a fairly warm room, with a hot case (Antec Sonata III - I'm going for a quiet, subdued system.) Also, it is even quieter than my old system! I can't tell that the computer is even on (in terms of noise level) unless I turn the ceiling fan off, which is what I was going for - near silence. NEWBIE MISTAKES TO AVOID: I did all of the silly things I'm about to list - if this is your first time installing a more complicated cooling solution, hopefully this will help! If you're an experienced system builder, then here's hoping you have a good chuckle. 1) Hey, look at this nice full-glossy instruction sheet! Guess what you should do before step 3 - you should make sure the CPU is LOCKED IN. I still had it unlocked after dropping in the new CPU, and had all sorts of trouble. 2) Step 4 - yay, time to apply the thermal paste! Only.. how do I get it out of the tube? The old paper-clip to the cap trick, right? NO - that cap unscrews with moderate force. Don't punch a hole through it! 3) Step 5 - Man, tightening that one screw down with a regular screwdriver is a real pain in the patoot. They should have included a specialized screwdriver to help with this. Guess what, they did! I mentally discarded it after mistakenly thinking it was a piece for AMD CPU installation when I first opened the box. In fact, that odd piece of metal *was* a screwdriver. Oops! Overall, my first adventure into non-stock CPU cooling has been refreshing and rewarding. This Noctua kit seems well made, the packaging was great, and so far it's working like a champ, despite the mild levels of accidental abuse I dispensed during the installation process. I'll be looking at Noctua in the future if I need any more cooling for my rig.