Fans of CPU air coolers aren’t going to want to miss the Noctua NH-L12Sx77, which has just hit the scene today. Aimed at PC gamers running small form factor machines with advanced cooling for the size, it’s a slightly taller version of the NH-L12S with more motherboard clearance and space for more sticks of RAM. It’s available now for $74.90 (about £60.63) through retailers such as Amazon or directly.
Announced in a press release on its site, the Noctua NH-L12Sx77 features a staggering six heat pipes (an improvement over the former’s four heat pipes) with ‘turbo boost modes’ for today’s hotter-than-ever processors. Because smaller cases come with reduced cooling and limited airflow, you should benefit from having more pipes expelling the excess heat. The cooler is topped by a powerful fan that blows the air upwards and away from your vital components.
Specifically, the NH-L12Sx77 is 7mm taller than the NH-L12S. It might not sound like much, but that’s enough headroom to drive the heat away from chipsets and clear RAM easier when installed onto micro ATX or mini ITX motherboard. The company cites Fractal Design Terror as well as SilverStone’s Milo ML12 as ideal choices to install the cooler into. The former is about as small as console-sized computers come, measuring just 8.58 x 6.02 x 13.5 inches.
While you wouldn’t necessarily want to air cool a high-end CPU, even mid-range offerings such as the Intel Core i7-14700K and AMD Ryzen 7 7700X run hotter than their predecessors. Depending on your PC case of choice, you may even experience thermal throttling and reduced performance when under stress for extended periods. Noctua has a stellar reputation for some of the best fans in the industry with a silent and powerful operation. If you can’t quite fit a 120mm or 240mm AIO in your setup then maybe this cooler is what you’ve been waiting for.