Noctua confirms that Intel's Nova Lake won't need new CPU coolers — coolers for LGA1851 and LGA1700 are compatible with the upcoming LGA1954 socket

An image of a man installing a black Noctua heatsink onto a computer motherboard.

(Image credit: Noctua)

Austrian firm Noctua produces cooling hardware that's simultaneously silent and super-effective at its primary purpose: removing heat from PC parts. However, despite top-tier performance, Noctua's products are also notoriously expensive, which is exactly why only one of its aluminum finstacks appears on our list of the best CPU coolers. If you've purchased a Noctua heatsink for your new CPU recently, don't despair at having to dole out for another one when Intel's next platform launches, because Noctua has just confirmed earlier speculation that its current CPU coolers for extant Intel platforms will fit just fine.

All Noctua CPU coolers that are compatible with LGA1851 and LGA1700 are also compatible with Intel’s upcoming LGA1954 socket. No additional mounting parts are needed. Please follow the installation steps for LGA1700/LGA1851, as the installation process is identical.
Noctua

LGA 1700 is, of course, the socket used by Intel's 12th- through 14th-generation Core processors, and then LGA 1851 is the socket used by the current-generation Core Ultra 200-family chips. Enthusiasts are a little down on Arrow Lake due to its mediocre gaming performance, but the multi-threaded throughput is undeniably potent. There's a refresh of Arrow Lake on the way early next year; those chips will socket into existing boards. The LGA 1954 that Noctua is talking about is for Intel's generation-after-next parts, known as the Nova Lake platform.

If you're in the faction that has already discarded Intel as an option, you may want to keep one eye peering in Team Blue's direction, because Nova Lake is looking pretty stout. The new chips will come with new CPU architectures for both P-cores and E-cores, a redesigned interconnect, and, at least on some SKUs, an enormous 144-megabyte last-level cache, which could allow them to finally compete against AMD's 3D V-Cache CPUs in gaming.

A photo of the Noctua NH-C14 heatsink. — The author's NH-C14 from 2010 is still kicking butt on current hardware. (Image credit: Noctua)

This news probably isn't actually that exciting to current Noctua owners. Indeed, one of the perks of the high-priced Austrian-made chilling apparatus is that the company will happily spot you fresh mounting hardware for your older coolers, as long as you can prove you purchased it with your invoice. I'm still using an NH-C14 that I purchased many years ago—specifically to use with a Core 2 Quad system—on a current Socket AM5 machine, all thanks to Noctua's amazing customer support. So saying, even if Nova Lake had required new heatsink mounting hardware, Noctua would have provided it to its customers regardless.

Strictly speaking, Noctua's message doesn't mean that all coolers for Intel 12th, 13th, and 14th-generation CPUs, as well as extant Core Ultra desktop CPUs, will necessarily fit on a Nova Lake CPU. Practically speaking, though, it nearly does. Aside from strange edge cases, this message from Noctua is essentially confirmation that the upcoming LGA1954 socket is fully compatible with cooling hardware for essentially all extant systems. Good news for DIY builders and enthusiasts, but also for VARs and OEMs who are likely breathing a sigh of relief that they don't have to redesign all of their systems for Intel's Nova Lake-powered comeback tour.

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Zak is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware with decades of PC benchmarking experience who has also written for HotHardware and The Tech Report. A modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything.