Do you have a lot of place, a powerful CPU, want the best performance, the most premium accessories, comfortable installation and budget is not an issue? Then the Noctua NH-L12 is probably the one for you. It’s big with a dual fan setup and it will give you great performance with the possibility to alter the height by choosing the fan setup. However, if you can only fit the Noctua NH-L12 if you don’t use the upper fan, or want something cheaper, then you should consider another choice. The Raijintek Pallas is the second best performing and second largest cooler in this article but still the height including the fan is as low (+ 2 mm) as the Noctua NH-L12 without its fan! This makes this option attractive if you want to save space but still have a big and good performing cooler and if you don’t mind the installation procedure. It’s also considerably cheaper.

If space saving is even more important in that you are very limited by the dimensions of the CPU cooler, or you don’t need the best performance, then one of the following might suit you better; Thermalright AXP-100, Noctua NH-L9i or Raijintek Zelos. Which one of these would you choose then you might ask yourself? Out of these three, the Thermalright AXP-100 is the best performer, but also the bigger of them. It’s small enough not to interfere with any surrounding components but still manages to keep our i7 4790k within acceptable temperatures making the Thermalright AXP-100 a really nice sweet spot – good performance in a small, but unfortunately rather expensive, package.

If even smaller size is even more important (for really small and compact cases) then the only remaining options are the Noctua NH-L9i and the Raijintek Zelos. Even though Noctua NH-L9i is specified to only be used for CPUs with a TDP of maximum 65W, we can gladly say that its perfectly fine to use with our simulated i5 4690k (although a test with a real i5 would be preferable). Even though the price is somehow high for a cooler of its size, the performance to size ratio is exceptionally good and a excellent choice for a tiny CPU cooler with some horsepower and with the well-known quality feeling from Noctua. Unfortunately we cannot recommend the Raijintek Zelos in any case as the performance is worse, or on pair, with the Intel stock cooler and not suitable for any mid/high-end CPU. However, it may be suitable for a low-end CPU as a stock cooler replacement, but in our scenario we cannot recommend it.

So it all, once again, comes down to what you are looking for and what you are ready to sacrifice – size, performance, budget or something else. But we hope we have been able to help you on the way to what might be the cooler for your next upcoming build.