The Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition is 66mm tall low profile cooler with 48mm of RAM clearance and 92x25mm fan. The L12 Ghost Edition heatsink is based on original L12 design and not the newer L12S.
SPECIFICATIONS
| MODEL | NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition |
| DIMENSIONS | 150×128×66mm (L×W×H) |
| COMPATIBILITY | Intel: 115X/1200/1700 AMD: AM4/AM5 |
| MATERIALS | 4x 6mm nickel plated copper heat-pipes, copper base (nickel plated), aluminium cooling fins |
| WEIGHT | 410g (heatsink only) |
| FANS | 1x Noctua NF-B9 PWM (SSO-Bearing), 300~1600RPM (+/- 10%) |
| RAM CLEARANCE | 48mm |
TEST SYSTEM
Testing is carried out on BC1 Mini v2 (open testbench), using the following hardware, in 20°C ambient room temperature. We noise normalised the cooler fan speed to 35dB(A) at distance of 50cm. This helps eliminate brute force cooling from higher RPM fans.
| CASE | BC1 Mini v2 (Open Testbench) |
| MOTHERBOARD | Rog Strix B650E-I Gaming WiFi (paid link) |
| CPU | R7 7800X3D (paid link) |
| CPU COOLER | Noctua NH-L12 Ghost Edition (paid link) |
| PSU | Extreme 850R (paid link) |
| RAM | 32GB Gskill Ripjaws S5 DDR5, 6000MHz, CL30 (paid link) |
BENCHMARKS
We run Cinebench R23 multicore (stability test), for period of 30 minutes. This provides worse case scenario for a given CPU. CPU coolers are typically tested across range of CPU’s for data validation and to reduce risk of errors in testing. This also helps account for variables between CPU platforms.
CONCLUSIONS
Noctua NH-L12 Ghost has good build quality, and has straightforward mounting system. Unfortunately, we found it rather difficult to achieve consistent CPU contact on LGA1700. In some cases resulting in more than 5°C temperature increase vs good mount. It has quiet operation thanks to the 92x25mm NF-B9 fan. During normal use it was barely audible and even at full speed stayed reasonably quiet. Noctua includes NT-H2 thermal paste in the box which is very useful and reliable thermal compound.