When you think about the best CPU coolers on the market, one name consistently crops up: Noctua. The company makes some of the best CPU fan coolers, adhering to quality and cooling performance that can match liquid AIO solutions and has a distinctive signature brown and light brown color scheme,

The launches of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series and Intel’s 13th-generation chips came with high-performing, high-power drawing CPUs that need reliable CPU coolers to get the best out of their high boost clocks. We’ve put together a list of the best Noctua CPU coolers to use with AMD and Intel CPUs, with size, thermal performance, and price all considered.

Our top Noctua CPU coolers

Noctua’s NH-D15 is one of the highest-performing CPU fan coolers available. Its dual 150mm wide aluminum fin stacks are cooled by two NF-A15 140 mm fans with PWM for fine-controlled speed. Noctua also includes a low-noise adapter, a Y splitter cable, some of its own NT-H1 thermal paste, and mounting hardware for almost every CPU socket, past and present. You also get a six-year warranty and a promise that future mounting upgrades will be supplied free of charge.

This CPU cooler can comfortably keep high-performance desktop CPUs like the Ryzen 9 7950X or Intel Core i9-13900K under control, even matching the cooling performance of 360mm liquid AIO coolers. It manages to do this at a whisper-quiet noise level.

There are a couple of things to remember when considering this CPU cooler. It’s large, with a 165mm maximum height, and weighing in at 1.3kg. That could make it too tall to fit in your PC case. The front fan also has RAM clearance issues, with 32mm of clearance when using two fans and 64mm in single-fan mode. Either buy low-profile DIMMs, run a single fan with a minor performance hit, or choose another Noctua CPU cooler with better RAM compatibility.

The Noctua NH-D15 has one divisive feature – the brown-on-brown colorway on the fans. Noctua’s signature browns put would-be purchasers off even with the premium cooling performance. To counter this problem, Noctua released a matte black version of the NH-D15 in 2019, the chromax.Black, where every metal surface was coated in black, including the fan clips, heat pipes, fin arrays, and cold plate. It was then packaged with a pair of all-black chromax fans. Noctua was able to get the same cooling performance here, even with the full coating, so the NH-D15 could be used with more aesthetically pleasing builds.

The same considerations from the regular NH-D15 apply. You need case clearance of 165mm and 32mm RAM clearance when using both fans and 64mm when using a single fan. So do the weight considerations, with the heat sink weighing 980g without fans or 1,320g with both fans installed.

The Noctua NH-U12S redux is a cost-reduced version of its popular NH-U12S CPU cooler. While it comes with fewer heatpipes, a different fan, and fewer accessories, it doesn’t skimp in performance. The 120mm fan is controlled by PWM and has a max speed of 1,700 RPM. That fan still helps the cooler keep high-performance CPUs like the Ryzen 5950X or Intel’s i9-13900K within operating temperatures while staying at low noise levels.

To keep costs down, Noctua pre-applies its NT-H1 thermal paste to the coldplate. That means you’ll need a tube of thermal paste to reinstall the CPU cooler, but that cost is balanced out by the initial $50 price. The slimline design should also leave all four RAM slots free on modern platforms, so RAM with RGB or taller heatsinks can be used.

While most of Noctua’s CPU coolers have the fin stack horizontal with airflow going from the front to the back, the NH-C14S flips the fins 90 degrees to direct the airflow to the RAM and other smaller components on the motherboard that don’t normally get cooled. It also has a quiet 140mm NF-A14 fan with PWM speed control. That also means that Noctua can use the same number of fins at a lower total height, with the cooler able to squeeze into small form factor cases with a 115mm height if the fan is installed underneath the fins.

When the fan is installed above the fin stack, there is enough room for RAM modules up to 70mm tall. That’s more than enough space for the 5mm tall Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB, which is one of the best DDR5 memory kits.

The Noctua NH-P1 is a huge, passively-cooled CPU cooler. The 1.2kg of heatpipes, cooling fins, and coldplate are all designed to aid natural convection for fan-free airflow. The company says it can cool demanding, high-performance CPUs, although the operating temperatures will be higher than on the better-performing CPU coolers on this list. We suggest sticking to mid-tier CPUs like the Ryzen 5 5600X for lower temperatures and peace of mind.

This is a CPU cooler for those sensitive to noise who don’t mind sacrificing a little bit of performance to rid their PC of fan sounds. Noctua includes fan clips for a 120mm fan and suggests its NF-A12x25 LS-PWM if your CPU needs more cooling. The NH-P1 is also intended for use with cases designed for fanless use or open benchtable-style cases like Thermaltake’s Core P1. If you’re interested in a fanless PC build, check out Noctua’s suggested case list before purchasing.

Noctua’s premium small form factor CPU fan cooler, the NH-L9i, is the perfect companion to Mini-ITX motherboards and tiny PC cases. It’s one of the only CPU coolers that will only be slightly taller than low-profile memory modules when installed, thanks to its 37 mm total height when the fan is installed. That fan is parallel to the motherboard, cooling the CPU while providing airflow to the motherboard and its tiny components. With most small form factor PC cases having airflow restrictions, every little bit of moving air across heat-generating components helps.

The 95 mm by 95 mm footprint means it won’t interfere with PCIe slots on the smallest Mini-ITX motherboards or encroach on the RAM slots. It’s compatible with high-profile memory modules, and won’t cause issues for chipset coolers. With every millimeter counting in small case builds, that could be the difference between a viable build or having to rethink CPU cooling options. It comes with a tube of NT-H1 thermal paste and mounting options for Intel LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1156, and LGA1200 sockets.

Noctua’s NH-9a-AM5 is a high-quality CPU fan cooler designed for small-factor builds. It’s the AM5 version of the NH-L9i cooler, with the same 37mm total height, 100% RAM compatibility because the 95mm x 95mm footprint doesn’t interfere with the RAM slots on Mini-ITX motherboards, and it's small enough to stay away from the PCIe slot so large PCIe graphics cards can be used.

With its small size comes a smaller cooling capacity. Noctua suggests using mid-tier Ryzen 7000-series CPUs, like the Ryzen 5 7600, Ryzen 7 7700, or Ryzen 9 7900. That doesn’t mean a less-capable PC build, with the Zen 4 mid-range models providing more than enough CPU performance for most users. Even the smallest of the trio, the Ryzen 5 7600, can be the heart of a midrange AMD build with surprising performance with AAA games.

The NH-9a-AM5 is also quiet, with a whisper-quiet fan at idle temperatures and no irritating sounds when it ramps up under load. All in all, it’s the best option for AM5 small-factor builds when you can’t fit a larger liquid AIO cooler.

AMD’s Threadrippers are big processors for big tasks, like 3D rendering. The larger CPUs put out a correspondingly large amount of heat, so they need a beefier CPU cooler to keep them in check. Noctua’s answer is the NH-U14S TR4-SP3, which has a larger contact plate to cover every square inch of the Threadripper CPU.

The cooler weighs 1kg and uses one 140 mm NF-A15 PWM fan to move heat away from the huge fin stack. So that it doesn’t cover the top PCIe slot on some motherboards, Noctua added a handy offset to move the cooler towards the top of the motherboard by 3 or 6 mm. That increases the chance of not covering the top PCIe slot. One of the reasons to use a Threadripper CPU is the increased PCIe lanes, so covering any slots would already reduce the benefits.

The Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 is also one of the quietest Threadripper coolers. It’s proven to keep the powerful CPU’s temperatures out of the danger zone.

Intel’s Ice Lake Xeon Scalable CPUs are high-performance chips on the 10 nm manufacturing process designed for server or workstation use. The large CPUs put out a correspondingly large amount of heat, which needs to be kept in check for sustained workloads. Noctua is known for having a CPU cooler for every situation, and the NH-U9 DX-4189 is its most adaptable cooler for the LGA4189 socket.

The copper contact surface is 70 mm by 56 mm to suit the large Xeon CPUs. Keeping the height under 125 mm by using two 92 mm NF-A9 PWM fans means this cooler can fit into 4U server racks or is equally at home in desktop workstations. The cooler's airflow is along the socket's length, keeping the fins away from the top PCIe slot on workstation builds while sending heated air to exhaust near the rear I/O.

If you want to upgrade to Sapphire Rapids Intel Scalable Xeon CPUs on the LGA4677 socket, Noctua sells an upgraded mounting kit to enable the NH-U9 DX-4189 to fit.

Noctua’s NH-L9i cooler gets an LGA 1700-specific model in the NH-L9i-17xx chromax.black. Everything that makes the NH-L9i great is here: a 37 mm maximum height with the fan installed, a 92 mm slim fan that’s whisper quiet at idle, and NT-H1 thermal paste. Then Noctua gave it the chromax treatment, with everything from fins to coldplate to mounting hardware and the fan coming in matte black.

While most Noctua coolers come with mounting hardware for many different sockets, this cooler is keyed for Intel’s LGA1700 socket, used on Intel’s 12th and 13th generation of Core processors. It’s compatible with every Mini-ITX motherboard and won’t block the PCIe slot or interfere with RAM clearance. The drawback to the small size is that we wouldn’t recommend using it with any CPU over a mid-tier model. It just can’t shift heat fast enough from power-hungry high-end CPUs.

One of the biggest problems builders of small form factor cases encounter is cramming enough cooling for their hardware. The Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition was created to ensure high-performance cooling in one of the most popular high-end small form factor cases, the Louqe Ghost S1. This Mini-ITX case has a maximum CPU cooler height of 66 mm, making cooling high-end CPUs a challenge.

Noctua already had the well-regarded NH-L12, which had a 66mm height without the 120 mm fan it was paired with. The solution for the Louqe Ghost S1 was to remove the larger fan and keep the 92 mm one mounted underneath the fins so it didn’t add anything to the overall height. That does mean this cooler is only suitable for mid-tier CPUs of 95W TDP or lower.

The coolest Noctua CPU cooler

That’s our thoughts on the best Noctua CPU coolers for various CPU and PC case choices. We think the NH-D15 is the best overall CPU fan cooler because of its excellent cooling potential, quiet fans, and long-term support. It’s built like a tank and will cool your CPU for years without any drop in performance. Air coolers for CPUs don’t get much better than this, with the only drawback being size. Of course, the best CPU fan coolers can’t cool without airflow, so our collection of the best PC cases for airflow has suggestions to keep thermals under control.

If the color scheme isn’t to your liking, the matte black Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black is the same cooler with a more stealthy color. When you’ve decided on your computer’s CPU cooling, we can also help you install a CPU cooler and a CPU before you start to build.

If you are cooling one of the best cheap CPUs, so you can use a smaller cooler; the Noctua NH-U12S redux might be for you. It has a smaller height to fit into more cases, and the pre-applied NT-H1 thermal paste and SecuFirm2 mounting system make it quick and easy to install.