faqs

In which orientation should Noctua coolers be installed?

Depending on the cooler model, CPU socket and motherboard, you may have the possibility of choosing between different cooler orientations. Choosing the optimal orientation can be important for compatibility reasons and to achieve the best possible performance. For easy identification of the orientation options, we distinguish between four cooler orientations (O1, O2, O3 and O4). Please refer to the images below for what the different options mean for top-flow and tower coolers.

Top-flow coolers (NH-C and NH-L12 series)

When using top-flow coolers (such as the NH-C14, NH-C14S, NH-L12, NH-L12S, NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition and NH-L12Sx77) in a tower-style case, we recommend installing the cooler with the heatpipes in horizontal position (O1, O3) or with the bends of the heatpipes pointing downwards (O2). Installing the cooler with the bends pointing upwards (O4) may result in slightly reduced cooling performance. In desktop cases, the cooler can be used in any orientation.

Orientation 1 has the heatpip endings pointing towards the right, Orientation 2 towards the top, Orientation 3 towards the left and Orientation 4 towards the bottom. Orientations 1-3 have a green checkmark, Orientation 4 has a red X

Tower coolers (NH-D and NH-U series)

For tower coolers, the recommended default orientation is to have them blow towards the rear exhaust case fan (O1).

Using the other orientations is generally possible (depending on the cooler model and socket used), but may result in slightly lower performance due to suboptimal airflow and marginally worse contact between the heatsink and the CPU: Since the base of these heatsink is carefully optimised to achieve ideal contact in O1, turning it by 90° (O2 and O4) usually produces slightly worse contact. At the same time, when using hot GPUs, having tower coolers blow towards the top of the case (O4) means they may take in hot air from the GPU, and if they blow down onto the GPU (O2), they may heat up the GPU and work against typical airflow paths inside the case. While orienting tower coolers so that they blow towards the front of the case (O3) is fine from a contact quality perspective, it typically requires using an unusual airflow configuration inside the case with the rear fan intaking to achieve decent performance. Overall, all orientations can be used, but sticking to the default O1 orientation is the safest bet to achieve optimal results in typical applications.

For heatsinks that are built asymmetrically (e.g. NH-D15 G2, NH-D15S or NH-U12A), it can be an option to use O3 for compatibility reasons such as offsetting the cooler towards the top PCIe slot to make more room near the top edge of the motherboard. In this case, we recommend turning the fans around so that while the cooler is installed in O3, the fans are in the same orientation as in O1.