b: I never said they claimed, I said this is not enough for that, yes they cited the 12900k in their tests which in my opinion was a mistake. This low profile cooler is not for the 12900k and yet they included in the tests to brag.
If you didn't say they claimed that, what or who are you arguing against here? I don't get it. "Nobody said this would be possible, but there's no way this is possible" sounds like you're getting confused to me.
My ryzen 5900x uses a 150w aio 240mm cooler and yet it cant cool down a 140 watts cpu. So reason I laughed noctua came up with a low profile cooler using a 12900k hehe, not even their top air cooler can do the job well on that 12900k.
What does "can't cool down" mean? What are your acceptable temperatures/clocks for that? Remember, this is an SFF cooler. It might be able to keep a 12900K running at 160W power draw, but it'll likely be running up against tJmax while doing so. Which is fine - the CPU can take it. If that's not acceptable to you, but you for example insist on thermals in the 60s or 70s, then you obviously have to lower your expectations for clocks and power draws.
It's running unlocked here, which isn't stock.
Nope. All stock settings. The graph is purposely labeled
peak power though - they make no claims to this being sustained over any period of time.
I've used the NH-L9a in a SFF Ryzen 3400G build and it barely kept up there. I think this will work well with the LGA1700 celerons, pentiums and maybe up to the cheapest i3 but anything more than that is a no.
Their claim of 160W is ridiculous at best.
What does "barely kept up" mean? What thermals? In what case? With what airflow? Context is crucial for SFF cooling (and all cooling, really). I've seen plenty of builds cooled using this cooler with much, much more powerful CPUs than a 3400G.
Is not full package, so yes using few cores that is how it is, 12900k single thread power consumption is way better than even my ryzen 5900x. The question is are you buying a 12900k and lock on single thread? I mean, I was thinking few days ago why intel does not release a 12900k single thread version only hehe, i mean 1 performance core only. That will be amazing for power saving ehhe, this low profile cooler will do wonders on that 12900k single thread hehe
Or they could just buy a 12900K (or 5950X for something similarly overkill) with the purpose of maximizing performance in a given case+thermal envelope through selective tuning, power limiting and airflow optimizations. You'd still keep your ST performance through all of that unless you start going all-core underclocking with turbo disabled.