The NH-L12 is a low-profile quiet cooler designed for use in small form factor cases and HTPC environments. While it provides first rate performance in its class, it is not suitable for overclocking and should be used with care on CPUs with more than 95W TDP (Thermal Design Power). Please see the following table for our detailed recommendations and also read the explanations below:

		Dual fan setup (NF-F12 & NF-B9)	92mm single-fan mode (NF-B9 only, top fan removed)
Intel	95W or less
	130W		Recommended with good case ventilation only.
AMD	65W or less
	100W		Recommended with good case ventilation only.
	125W	Recommended with good case ventilation only.	Not recommended.

CPU temperatures depend on various different factors, so please take note of the explanations below and keep in mind that our recommendations can only serve as general guidelines for typical setups.

1) Our recommendations are based on an ambient temperature of 25°C or less. If your ambient temperature is significantly higher (30°C or more), we don’t recommend running the NH-L12 in single-fan mode on 130W Intel or 100W AMD CPUs as well as in dual-fan mode on 125W AMD CPUs. For all other setups, please ensure good case ventilation when ambient temperature is 30°C or more.

2) Our recommendations assume that the cooler is installed in a typically equipped, properly ventilated HTPC system. If you are using particularly hot components inside your system, it may be necessary to use stronger case ventilation to ensure sufficient CPU cooling performance.

3) Our recommendations assume that the fans are used with PWM control (configured so that they can speed up to 100% when necessary) but without the supplied Low-Noise Adaptors. If you would like to use the NH-L12 with the supplied Low-Noise Adaptors, we recommend choosing Intel CPUs with a TDP of 95W or less or AMD CPUs with a TDP of 65W or less.