Performance
The performance of the NH-L9i has been tested on the platform, which seems too demanding for this cooler. However, we were curious how it handles the 3700X CPU, which is specified at 65W TDP and how it compares to the stock AMD cooler, which is at the same time significantly larger than the NH-L9i.
As a side note, in our tests, we had similar results on the 3700X and the 3600/3600X even though there is a two-core difference, and the 3600X is 95W TDP processor while others are 65W TDP.
Our comparison includes three tests. The idle mode is a PC left without any load besides standard Windows services running in the background. The mixed-mode base on a PCMark 10 extended test that uses popular applications and simple games. The max load is a CPU+FPU AIDA64 stability test. Shows about maximum CPU load during the most demanding work on all CPU cores.
If we take a look at the test results, then we may think that the temperature is high. On the other hand, AMD Ryzen 3000 series is designed to work up to 95°C and then adjust temperature and voltage to stay slightly below 95°C.
On the stock AMD cooler, the 3700X processor was throttling under full load, and the CPU clock was as low as 3.5GHz. On the L9i, even though the registered temperature would say otherwise, the CPU clock was 200MHz higher. The base clock of the 3700X is 3.6GHz, so we can see that Noctua NH-L9i can handle even 8-core CPU.
The generated noise has been measured about 1m from the PC in which was installed the NH-L9i. While idle, the fan was spinning at about 1000-1200 RPM and was really quiet, around 26dB. During mixed-load tests, we could see between 1200-2000 RPM, and depends on the test; we could clearly hear it. The results were around 32dB. The maximum load made the fan to work at 2300-2400 RPM with the result of 37dB. It’s hard to call it silent, but it’s a fair result considering the cooler size and used the 8-core processor.
Because of the used processor, we will skip overclocking tests. On the other hand, new Ryzen processors are not really overclocking, so there wouldn’t be much to show.
