Noctua's NH-D9DXi4-3U heatsink ships with a single 92mm Noctua NF-A9 fan sandwiched in the middle of two 33.5mm thick cooling towers. An extra set of wire fan clips is also supplied for users who may wish to mount a second 92mm fan (not included) to the heatsink. For this review, Frostytech tested the NH-D9DXi4-3U with a second fan and witnessed a roughly 4°C decrease in temperature results. The stock 92mm PWM fan spins at 2000RPM; if paired with the supplied fan speed reducer, 1550RPM.

At the core of Noctua's NH-D9DXi4-3U heatsink are four 6mm diameter copper heatpipes, unfortunately the wick structure inside these heatpipes isn't disclosed. The heatpipes are soldered to every nickel plated aluminum fin and to the heatsinks' copper base plate. Soldering fins to heatpipes is a bit of a black art, but if done well it can offer lower thermal joint resistance than swaging, so for compact heatsinks it's a worthwhile process. The use of a 5mm thick copper heatspreader helps evens out temperature gradients inherent in multi-core processors which can exhibit localized hot spots due to the die layout.

Noctua's NH-D9DXi4-3U heatsink is rated for heat loads up to 140W TDP and installs onto both "square ILM and narrow ILM" Intel Xeon LGA2011-0/LGA2011-3/LGA1356/LGA1366 processors. The NH-D9DXi4-3U does not support AMD processors, for that see the NH-D9L model. It's covered by a 6-year warranty and the Noctua NF-A9 fan is rated for 150K hours MTBF. The Noctua NH-D9DXi4-3U heatsink retails for about $79CDN at Newegg.ca.

Noctua NH-D9DXi4-3U Heatsink

heatsink specsheet manufacturer: noctua model no.: nh-d9dxi4-3u materials: nickel plated aluminum fins, nickel plated copper heatpipes and copper base plate fan mfg: noctua nf-a9 pwm fan spec: 2000rpm, 12v, 0.1a fan dim: 25x92x92mm heatsink & fan dim: 111x95x95mm (with optional 2nd fan: 111x95x122mm) weight: 531 grams includes: mounting clips, thermal compound, fan speed reducer, screwdriver, instructions Compatible with Sockets: Intel - LGA2011-0/2011-3 (square ILM and narrow ILM), Xeon LGA1356, LGA1366 Pricing: $75USD ($75CDN)

MOUNTING KIT UPGRADEABLE TO SUPPORT AMD SOCKET AM4?

Manufacturer Provided Mounting Kit Required to Support AMD Socket AM4 Motherboards? NOT SUPPORTED AMD Socket AM4 motherboards supported with following Noctua heatsinks Frostytech has tested, using the Noctua NM-AM4 SecuFirm2 Mounting-Kit: NH-C12P,  NH-C14 ,  NH-D14 ,  NH-D15 , NH-D9L, NH-L12, NH-L9x65, NH-U12 , NH-U12P ,  NH-U9, NH-U9B . Noctua NM-AM4-UxS Mounting-Kit: NH-U14S, NH-U12S and NH-U9S.

Noctua NF-A9 Fan

The NH-D9DXi4-3U heatsink cooler ships with a single 92mm NF-A9 fan that spins at 2000RPM and moves up to 78.9 cubic meters of air per hour, at 2.28mmH2O static pressure, according to manufacturer specs. All eight corners of the fan are covered with brown rubber vibration absorbing pads, allowing the fan to be mounted to any surface without the chance of creating errant noises.

As you'll no doubt notice in the photo above, the bottom set of fan rubber bumpers don't actually make contact with the heatsink. The space between the rubber bumpers is 67mm, exactly the height of the aluminum towers! To correct this, Noctua install a thin elastomeric strip to the rear aluminum fin stack, this in turn keeps the fan frame from directly contacting the metal fins.

A NA-RC7 wire fan speed reducer (a 51Ohms resistor on the 12V+ PWM wire) is included which drops fan speed to 1500RPM for situations where much quieter operation is desired.

(second fan not included)