Noctua L12 Ghost (120mm Fan Edition)

NOCTUA L12 GHOST
(120MM FAN EDITION)

The Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition is 66mm tall low profile cooler with included 92x25mm fan. The L12 Ghost Edition heatsink is based on original L12 design and not the newer L12S. Using 120mm slim fan under the L12 GE provided substantial performance improvement. 
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SPECIFICATIONS

MODELNH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition
DIMENSIONS150×128×66mm (L×W×H)
COMPATIBILITYIntel: 115X/1200/1700
AMD: AM4/AM5
HEATSINK4x 6mm nickel plated copper heat-pipes, copper base (nickel plated), aluminium cooling fins
WEIGHT410g (heatsink only)
FANS1x Noctua NF-B9 PWM (SSO-Bearing),
300~1600RPM (+/- 10%)
RAM CLEARANCE48mm

FANS

The L12 Ghost Edition comes included with 92x25mm fan. Unfortunately for whatever reason this configuration isn't very effective for cooling AM5 CPU's based on our testing. Squeezing 120x15mm fan under the heatsink is another story providing very respectable thermal performance. This does require low profile 33mm tall ram to work. We found SilverStone AS120 (paid link) works well on this configuration.
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TEST SYSTEM

Testing is carried out on the BC1 Mini (open testbench) in 23°C ambient room temperature. 

CASE

BC1 Mini V2

PAID LINK

MOTHERBOARD

Rog Strix B650E-I Gaming WiFi

PAID LINK

CPU

Ryzen 7 7800X3D

PAID LINK

RAM

32GB Gskill S5 DDR5, 6000MHz, CL30

PAID LINK

PSU

Corsair SF1000 2024

PAID LINK

STORAGE

1TB + 2TB NVME

PAID LINK

THERMAL BENCHMARKS

We compared Noctua L12 Ghost Edition with 120mm slim fan against the Noctua L12S
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FINAL THOUGHTS

We originally tested the Noctua L12 Ghost Edition using stock 92x25mm fan on AM5 and performance was quite underwhelming for this cooler size. I’ve never really known what to make of the L12 Ghost Edition as the thermal numbers didn’t make much sense on AM5. Using a 120mm slim fan really is a saving grace and might be my go-to cooler along with L12S in future builds. You can find our full thermal benchmark charts here and see where the L12 GE (120mm fan) roughly fits in. We’ll add the L12 GE 120mm fan configuration at later date.

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