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Noctua Confirms Its AMD AM4 Compatible Coolers Will Also Support AM5 Platforms
One of the most popular premium PC cooling companies has announced news that will be of interest to those considering an upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 7000 series ‘Raphael’ processor. Today, Noctua formally confirmed that all its Socket AM4 (PGA1331) compatible coolers and mounting kits will support Socket AM5 (LGA1718) platforms you might be planning to build.
Currently there is one exception: The NH-L9a-AM4 low-profile cooler and the NM-AM4-L9aL9i mounting-kit, aren’t AM5 friendly at the time of writing. Noctua isn’t going to be deterred from achieving a 100% record though, as it says that it will be making available a new NM-AM5-L9aL9i kit, available free-of-charge to the CPU cooler owners, starting from the end of October. Moreover, a new version of the NH-L9a cooler that already includes AM5 mounting hardware is planned for Q1 2023.
The (currently) troublesome Noctua NH-L9a (Image credit: Noctua)
As part of its news release, Noctua included a statement from its CEO, Roland Mossig, who boasted that Noctua has been offering free of charge mounting upgrade kits to AMD customers since AM2 was cutting edge in 2006. All of the company's coolers that support multiple sockets, as they have been sold since 2019, will "already support AM5 out of the box." Whether you need a free mounting upgrade or not, Noctua underlines that coolers up to 15 years old will be able to handle the newest AMD desktop platform.
If you need more information on which coolers support which sockets, check the Noctua Compatibility Center at ncc.noctua.at. This resource has a search field at the top, so you put your hardware choice into the box, or you can simply click through lists of CPUs, motherboards, cases or RAM modules to see if they are compatible with your Noctua cooler. The tool allows users to start at the other end of the equation, selecting their Noctua cooler and checking what hardware it is compatible with. As of this writing, the tool wasn't up to snuff with AM5 info, but that might have something to do with the timing of AMD Ryzen 7000 (Socket AM5) CPU and motherboard availability. AMD launched its first Ryzen 7000 CPUs over three weeks ago, but they don’t go on sale until next Tuesday, September 27.
If you do need a free mounting upgrade kit, (perhaps you bought your Noctua cooler before 2019) head on over to the Noctua website and upload your purchase receipts (Noctua cooler + motherboard or CPU). If you don't have your proof of pu rchase Noctua offers the same mounting kits for $7.90 via Amazon.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
