Noctua NH-L9a-AM5 Low-Profile Heatsink Works Great For 2U AMD Ryzen AM5 Servers

Noctua at the end of January announced the NH-L9a-AM5 and the all-black NH-L9a-AM5 chromax.black heatsinks as their new ultra low-profile active CPU coolers for the AMD AM5 socket that support AMD's recently announced Ryzen 7000 series 65 Watt CPUs. The height with fan at only 37 mm makes the new NH-L9a-AM5 heatsinks work out very well for small form factor (SFF) builds and for our case at Phoronix an instant hit for running the new AMD Ryzen processors within 2U rackmount enclosures.

Three years back at Phoronix I reviewed the Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 for AM4 processors while the NH-L9a-AM5 is an updated version for new AMD AM5 processors. Noctua rates the NH-L9a-AM5 as being able to effectively cool the Ryzen 5 7600, Ryzen 5 7600X, Ryzen 7 7700, and Ryzen 9 7900 series processors. Plus whatever other lower-end / 65 Watt CPUs end up coming about for AM5. The higher-end processors generate too much heat for being able to see their heat effectively dissipated by this very low-profile heatsink.

With a fan the NH-L9a-AM5 measures up to just 37 mm or without a fan is just 23 mm. The NH-L9a-AM5 heatsink is 114 mm wide and 92 mm deep and weights 465 grams with fan.

The NH-L9a-AM5 is quite similar to the earlier AM4 model with a copper base and copper heatpipes with aluminum cooling fins and roughly the same overall size.

This heatsink accommodates 92mm fans and installs a 92mm Noctua fan with 14mm height by default while also comes with screws for accommodating a 25mm tall fan if wanting to install a higher-end fan.

The NH-L9a-AM5 is backed by a six year warranty from Noctua, an Austrian company we've come to very much enjoy over the years for their premium cooling products. Noctua kindly supplied the NH-L9a-AM5 and NH-L9a-AM5 chromax.black products as review samples for my testing at Phoronix.