Noctua NH-U9DX i4, Premium CPU Cooler for Intel Xeon LGA20xx (Brown)

This is such an excellent cooler. Firstly I purchased two of these to use in one dual-socket 4U height server and I picked this model because with two chips in one case there was going to be a lot of heat generated so I needed a couple of good quality coolers and I wanted the server to be as quiet as possible.So I turned to two of these i4 coolers based on the reviews and specifications from Noctua's website I thought they would work and I have to say not only do these things cool incredibly well but they are so quiet.BOX CONTENTSEverything in the box feels premium, you get a nice amount of thermal grease in a tube applicator with a nice screw on lid. You get a very long tool to screw down the heatsink (feels very premium by the way), you receive a narrow-ILM bracket (the wide one is pre-installed on the cooler for your convenience) and you also receive some voltage lowering cables and a two fan to one PWM header adaptor. As I said everything in the packaging feels premium.INSTALLATIONInstalling these heatsinks is so easy, I actually had to install, uninstall and re-install them several times but not because of the heatsinks, it was due to troubleshooting issues with my CPU's and Motherboard. So I really got to experience what these heatsinks are like to attach and remove.Firstly probably the easiest heatsinks I've ever installed on a computer, the tool included is so long you can easily get it down to the bolts without unduly knocking anything around the heatsinks and the accuracy of Noctuas machining meant all the screws meet up with their holes perfectly every single time.If you've looked at pictures of the heatsink you'll see that both fans are held on to the heatsink using clips. I had to clip and unclip these a lot during my re-installations and I found them to be very sturdy with just the right amount of flex enabling you to easily remove and install them. Each heatsink has a cut grove on either side for the fans to easily slide down before you pull the clips back making installation of the fans even in a tight chassis a breeze. Noctua even included rubber glued-in slips along these grooves to dampen fan vibrations.Also the included thermal paste was actually quite plentiful, I was able to re-use the tube of thermal paste from just one of my accessory boxes included with the i4 for all of the installs I performed during my issues which was about 5 total. Noctua isn't providing an enormous amount of thermal grease in the package but it was enough for several attempts if you were to get it wrong on the first try.Last thing to note here is that the instructions were very easy to read and understand. They were printed on nice paper and were concise.PERFORMANCEPrior to using the Noctua i4's I was using a Supermicro 4U compatible cooler that was about twice as loud as these. It moved a lot of air with its single 90mm fan and yet the chip it cooled ran 20c hotter than with the Noctua i4's I'm using. I went from one chip to two with one heatsink blowing its warm air into the second one and they both still cool better than that Supermicro 4U cooler did.With an 8 core XEON E5 I'm getting around 45c under normal load conditions and 56c under 100% load conditions. Which is a big come down from 60c to 75c I was getting on the Supermicro cooler previously. This is a huge improvement.NOISEAs I said at the beginning of the review, these coolers are so quiet. They are now the quietest pieces of equipment in my server that have fans on. I'll likely need to swap out my case fans for Noctuas also. To think you can get this kind of low noise with such high cooling performance is incredible.COMPATABILITYIf you've read the product brief from Noctua you likely know these heatsinks are designed for a 4U height chassis. I can confirm they fit perfectly, they do not foul the top lid on a 4U height case. They also do not hang over the memory modules if you're using wide-ILM sockets which is the default mounting mechanism installed on the cooler. I was able to access the closest memory modules to the CPU socket without removing the heatsinks which is a great time saver.My only comment about spacing is if your sockets are very close together for example some LGA 2011 / LGA 2011-v3 dual-socket motherboards try to stick two sockets almost right up against each other to fit within an ATX or EATX form factor, on these motherboards you may not be able to get both sets of fans on each of your two heatsinks. Obviously this isn't an issue if you're using a single-socket motherboard or a dual-socket with wide spacing as I am.CONCLUSIONReally fantastic heatsink and fan combo. The quality is just so great, from the mirror finish cold plate at the bottom to the shiny fins and heatpipes the high quality silent yet performative fans and the easy installation these are probably the best air coolers I've used yet and I'll definitely be looking at future Noctua products for other builds I do, I really cannot recommend these heatsinks enough.

Noctua have a rep for making excellent things. This doesn't disappoint.The aim of this cooler isn't for the average consumer (ones, for example that have a Skylake Socket 1151 or the like). These coolers are designed for specialised ILM's or, in my case, server boards with a pre-threaded backplate.Having built my own home sever (Tyan S7012, 2x Xeon X5570's, 56GB RAM), I needed coolers. The Tyan had a pre-threaded backplate for which I thought I wasn't going to find a cooler. Literally, I thought 'ah, right okay so now what?'. I found this though, and they're good! They are quite heavy though so make sure the board is mounted securely (esp. if, like me, you've jerry-rigged a SSI EEB board into a XL-ATX case and have had to drill standoffs into the case). I'd estimate they weigh around around 750-1150g (0.75-1.15 kg) each.Installation is easy - in my case (with the 1366) I had to take off the silver screws and replace them with the black ones, then apply some thermal paste (the included stuff is brilliant - I bought a tube before and am still using), popped it on using the LINE method (ftw) and just criss-cross screw the cooler down using the tool provided. YOU MUST remove the fans in order to secure the cooler onto the board, but this isn't hard, and the fans are easy to clip back on afterwards. Three minute install (five including cleaning the old thermal paste off using some 99% isopropyl).Two of them mounted, temps don't jump over 60degC last time I checked when stressing using IBT. Noctua qualty as per usual as well excellent performance. Brilliant.

As per usual with Noctua, really excellent cooling. Both FANS that came with the CPU Cooler work really well with a good range of FAN Speed. The cooler itself dissipates heat well enough and fits really nicely inside a 3U server chasis - plenty of room to spare above to run any extra cables etc you may need.The included Thermal Paste is really good and is in use in the server this CPU Cooler went on. The included Y splitter for the CPU fans was really useful. Also included are the 2 low noise adapters which again, are really nice touches and have been used on other fans within the server chassis.The extra ability to use the cooler on more than just the LGA-2011-3 Narrow is nice and makes the cooler more re-usable, not only for server use but also general desktop use in the future.Really happy with this purchase and for £55, this performs better than the watercooler that was in the system beforehand.

Yes Noctua are exspensive, but man are they good. Fans very quite, took me a bit of time to swap it to ILM but once done easy to fit. Remember when screwing ths down to go diaginal and dont screw one of themin all the way. A few turns on each screw until all 4 are screwed down

Bought this to replace the stock cooler, it fits perfect and it works even better. I wasn't sure at first because it was a Dell server but thanks to Noctua for including brackets for different types of ILM and to be able to orientate it which ever way you want.At max fan speed it's still very quiet.Well done Noctua.

This fan is quite large and sadly would not physically fit in the case that I had, my fault for not measuring properly. The heatsink and fan itself looked premium quality and I am disappointed that it did not fit.Noctua do other shapes and sizes so I picked up the one that fitted my case and am very happy with that.

My AIO died on me and needed an urgent replacement compatible with my X-99 mobo. Easy to install and I was surprised at how quiet it is.It's almost as cool as the AIO I had - a variant of the Corsair H100.Would recommend and next build might just do another noctua set up.