Reviews & awards

The Noctua NL-LC1-36 takes the top spot in our charts, delivering an average delta of 44°C at a 200W heat load. It outperforms coolers from Lian Li, Astra, DeepCool, and ID-Cooling, beating the second-best cooler by 1.8°C at full fan speed.

But things get even more interesting when we look at its noise-normalised performance at 40 dB(A). At the same 200W heat load, Noctua leads by an impressive 4°C, showing exactly why this cooler stands out for noise-to-performance efficiency.

At full RPM, the cooler produced just 46 dB(A), which is excellent considering the thermal performance it delivers. In our charts, none of the competing coolers came close to the NL-LC1-36 in overall noise efficiency.