NL-LC1-24

Bringing Asetek and Noctua together to create an AIO was like a dream come true. Noctua having access to Asetek’s manufacturing and pump designs, and being able to combine that with their acoustic engineering expertise and legendary fans, led us to expect a substantial upgrade over the cooling and noise-level performance of existing AIOs.

What we actually found in our testing was astounding. With the Noctua NC-LC1-240, maximum temperatures during our harshest benchmark dropped as much as 10º Celsius compared to our Asetek unit.

It’s hard to put into words what this means to an engineer – maybe because engineers struggle with words sometimes – but we had to rerun these tests to make sure the numbers were real. They are. [...]

The pumps on both the Asetek OEM cooler and the Noctua NL-LC1 operate below the threshold of our audio measuring equipment – an area in which we would like to improve our testing capabilities – but can still be differentiated by the naked ear. The NL-LC1 absolutely passes the ear check. At idle, our previous Asetek model was audible with the chassis side panel removed, albeit only faintly. The NL-LC1 is barely audible at idle with your ear right up against it, and completely drowned out by chassis and GPU fans when the system is under load. Given the impressive thermal improvements, the added benefit of lowering the noise floor of our systems is a welcome feature in a world where computers are getting hotter and louder.