Installation

Installing the cooler is a quick and painless process. While I don't see any reason for moving to Torx for the mounting hardware it does work fine. To start with on AMD you will need to remove the default motherboard brackets. Then take the gray spacers along with the AMD bracket and install them with the four long screws. Make sure to put the brackets in the specific spot and orientation they are labeled for, to make use of an offset for optimal cooling. Once the mounting hardware is installed ensure to apply thermal paste, the included tube of NT-H2 is well regarded and of high quality.


Now attach the cooler to the mounting hardware, alternating tightening each screw for a more even mounting pressure. With the heatsink secure you can now attach the fans and plug them in. If you want an even quieter experience at the expense of some cooling performance, you can also opt to make use of the low noise adapters at this point.


Overall on either Intel or AMD the process is simple, quick, and painless with no issues to report. I will point out here that Noctua's mounting hardware includes an offset for optimal performance on AMD and the manual says to use it for the best performance. Keeping that in mind the cooler was tested via the installation method outlined in said manual which you can see the information for yourself in the image above.