# The Best Ultra Low Profile Coolers Right Now (2026 Edition)

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Hardware Canucks
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0
- **Дата:** 03.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 24:42
- **Просмотры:** 26,517

## Описание

Finding an ultra low profile cooler in the sub-50mm category isn't easy but in this buying guide and roundup, we take a look at 9 different models from companies like Noctua, Scythe, Thermalright, ID Cooling and more to see which is the best low profile cooler in 2026.  The answer might come as a surprise.  

Buy items in this video from Amazon at the links below:
Thermalright AXP90-X36 - https://geni.us/AXP90X36
Thermalright AXP90-X47 - https://geni.us/AXP90X47
Noctua L9a AM5 - https://geni.us/NOCTUANHL9A
ID Cooling IS-47-XT v2 - https://geni.us/IS47XTV2
Scythe Shuriken 3 - https://geni.us/SHURIKEN3
be quiet! Pure Rock LP - https://geni.us/PUREROCKLP
Silverstone Hydrogon H90 - Not available right now
Metalfish DH450 - Check AliExpress
upHere H45K6 - https://geni.us/UPHEREH45K6

NZXT H2 Flow (Sponsor) - https://geni.us/H2FLOW

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - The Low Profile Problem
1:12 - NZXT H2 Flow (Sponsor Spot)
1:41 - Low Profile vs Ultra Low Profile
2:49 - Meet the 9 Coolers
3:40 - be quiet! Pure Rock LP
4:43 - ID Cooling IS-47-XT v2
5:24 - Metalfish DH450
6:44 - Noctua NH-L9a AM5
7:08 - Scythe Shuriken 3 is BAD?
9:01 - Silverstone Hydrogon H90
10:06 - Thermalright AXP90-X36 & X47
11:04 - upHere H45K6
11:54 - Test Setup (REAL ITX Conditions)
13:17 - 65W Full Load Temperatures (Ryzen 5 5500)
15:10 - 65W Gaming Temperatures (Ryzen 5 5500)
16:28 - 9800X3D Full Load Temperatures
18:38 - 9800X3D Gaming Temperatures
20:35 - 9800X3D PBO TUNED Temperatures
21:45 - Knowledge = Power for ITX Builds
22:50 - My Recommendations

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Review units either provided by companies or . This video is sponsored by ????. As per Hardware Canucks guidelines, no review direction was received from manufacturer. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. 

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## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0) The Low Profile Problem

I think a lot of folks will agree with me when I say that we've reached a sort of like interesting point in the small form factor market because there's this like constant battle going on, right, between this ridiculous ballooning sizes of GPUs and case manufacturers who are trying to keep their footprints as sort of compact as possible. Now, there's been a lot of solutions to that have come out over the last couple of years, right? there's sort of like a dualchamber approach like Fractal is doing with their ridge or there are a couple of cases on the market now with these movable spines like the Thermaltch TR100. But both of those designs and many others are starting to sacrifice CPU cooler height in order to maximize GPU compatibility. In some cases, all-in-one liquid coolers aren't even possible. So, for those situations, what's the best air cooling solution? I mean, to maximize GPU space, some enclosures allow for less than 50 mm of height, which is even less than some AIO pump heads. And that's where ultra- lowprofile coolers get factored into this equation. And you know what else should get factored into this equation? Well, it's the perfect ITX case from NZXT, the sponsor of this video.

### [1:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=72s) NZXT H2 Flow (Sponsor Spot)

Seriously, if you're not cooling your PC like this, you're doing it wrong. This is a perfect workout. I don't understand why more people don't ice cool their PCs. Come on. Not many people know, but sun protection for your PC case is absolutely crucial, including sunscreen. Oh, — well, everybody knows you got to maintain a certain level of moisture in the air. Or, you know, you could use the airflow it already has. Sometimes simple and effective just works.

### [1:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=101s) Low Profile vs Ultra Low Profile

So, what is the real differentiation here between what we call an ultra lowprofile cooler and a standard lowprofile heat sink? Well, we reached out to you guys and we talked to a bunch of people in the industry to see if we're either like going crazy with this distinction or if these were two distinctly separate categories. And it turns out they actually are. So, typically the ultra lowprofile category has a height of 50 mm or less. Basically, what we're covering in this video. Then we have the 51 mm to 70 mm height coolers, which are your regular lowprofile variety. We'll actually be attacking those in a video sometime a little bit later this year. I promise. Because this one, this video has taken us forever to come out with. But the main problem facing anybody who's buying into the small form factor market is simply a lack of component choice, especially when it comes to coolers. This is actually something that we figured out when trying to put together this roundup. A lot of these we ended up buying either locally or from overseas. We've come up with nine of them. And I think this gives a pretty good cross-section of what's out there in the ultra lowprofile category. And they

### [2:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=169s) Meet the 9 Coolers

really do come from all over the freaking place. We've got some AliExpress specials from Metalfish and up here. Some absolutely legendary coolers from Noctua and Thermalite that can normally be found on Amazon right across the world. And even some relative newcomers from Scythe, Be Quiet, and ID Cooling. So, I also wanted to take a closer look at all of these coolers, but there's one thing that's going to jump out to anybody who has been shopping for components within the SFFF space, and that's the fact that a lot of the cooling solutions have been around for like ever with very, very small modifications to their mounting for updated socket compatibility. Some of these designs have been around for like 10, 15 years. But the first cooler I actually wanted to look at here is one of the I guess you would call it newcomers that has been launched within the last I would say about 2 years and

### [3:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=220s) be quiet! Pure Rock LP

that's the B Quiet Pure Rock LP. Basically this thing was designed as B Quiet's answer to the Noctua L9 series with it having a bit smaller footprint but a slightly higher heat sink that's topped off with a pretty standard 80mm slim fan. It's only available in black and the build quality, well it feels like a freaking weapon. There's only two small little hiccups here. First of all, it has one of the roughest contact plate finishes I've seen on any cooler we've ever reviewed, and its installation process is a royal pain in the ass. I mean, look, most of these ITX coolers have pretty unique mounting kits because they're mounted from behind the motherboard instead of the front like most other heat sinks that are available, so like tower style coolers. But Be Quiet adds to that frustration with a ton of microscopic nuts and screws and a mini me hex wrench to top it all off. And yeah, if you're an AMD user, count yourself lucky since most of those bits are for Intel, while AM4 and AM5 systems just need a quartet of screws that mount through the motherboard. Next up is the ID Cooling

### [4:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=283s) ID Cooling IS-47-XT v2

IS-47 XT, and it shouldn't need any introduction whatsoever since it's been one of the top performing ultra- lowprofile coolers out there. But the V2 version, that's the new one, it takes things up a few notches. The fin has been updated for better performance, though there's a 2mm height reduction to compensate for a thicker, higher performance fan. But the biggest change is a much, much better installation setup. As a matter of fact, it's the best, and I'm not kidding you, the very best in this entire roundup. The process is simple. There's only a few pieces of hardware and it's mounted from the front onto standard brackets rather than from behind the motherboard and that makes a huge difference. Meanwhile, I can't

### [5:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=324s) Metalfish DH450

really say that Metalfish is a household name in North America, at least in the ITX cooler space, but they've been slowly gaining traction, and I can sort of see why. The DH450 is a tiny six heat pipe monster with a relatively compact height of just 45 mm. And it's one of only a handful of SFFF coolers that's available in both black and white. Unfortunately though, it uses an older HDPbased design, something a lot of manufacturers have moved away from since it's not optimal for modern CPUs which have their heat concentrated into smaller areas. And that's exactly where HDT tends to struggle. On paper at least, this thing has a super straightforward mounting process, but it ends up being unbelievably frustrating. That's because its studs don't lock into place, so they slide all over the damn place. Aligning them with your motherboard requires this delicate balancing act between your fingers, the motherboard, and the cooler. You almost need like three hands to mount this thing. Another problem we encountered was the heat pipe smashing right into components on some motherboards. Like here, they sit right on top of the M. 2 heat sink, and simply flipping it around sometimes just isn't an option either. Though, luckily, a 180 degree rotation fixed compatibility on our specific system. As for Noctua, yeah, look, it's

### [6:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=404s) Noctua NH-L9a AM5

the L9 series. What else were we going to put here? It's the exact same cooler that's been around for the better part of 15 years now. I mean, what more do you need to know? Build quality superb. It's a compact 37 millimeters high and every other heat sink wishes it had Noctua's installation kit. Oh, and it's also, yeah, tied for being the most expensive cooler here. And we have

### [7:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=428s) Scythe Shuriken 3 is BAD?

another, I guess you would call legend here. That's the Scythe Shuriken series, which has always been the go-to option for a ton of small form factor builders. And the Shuriken 3 is their latest ultra lowprofile offering. It combines four small heat pipes that snake into a very, very short fin array that's topped with a pretty unique fan. Instead of completely closed sides, this one has notched openings that are supposed to direct a portion of the airflow towards components around the CPU socket area. And unfortunately, in my opinion at least, Scythe has by far the worst mounting kit I've ever experienced on a modern small form factor cooler. They use these like dinky little screws made of the softest possible metal that strip away too easily and they have the finest threading I've ever seen. It never felt securely installed no matter how hard any of us tried. And we went through, I'm not kidding you, three separate coolers, hoping somehow that we'd get a proper mount. And look, Scythe knows. They bloody well know they messed up here because they gave not only one extra screw, but every single one of these coolers comes with two or in some cases three extra screws. And I can't tell you, right? I can't tell you how many times someone of our team, including me, wanted to throw this cooler up against the wall and just exclude it from this roundup altogether. And I'll give you a good example of what ended up happening to me when I stepped in and tried to install this thing. Basically, what you do is you start one of these tiny little screws and then you go to the next one diagonally on the opposite side. And as you're tightening that one down, because of the small tiny threading, that one that you first started with, it ends up popping out. And this happens over and over again until that screw ends up being completely stripped. Anyways, let's just

### [9:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=541s) Silverstone Hydrogon H90

move on to Silverstone because it's been a long time since we looked at a cooler from them. And while the Hydrogon H90 is a pretty rare site here in North America, it's actually widely available in a lot of other regions, it also feels like, I guess you would say, like a blast from the past. Nothing about it feels particularly like modern. I mean, sure, there's a well-finished base and four heat pipes, but the fin isn't anywhere near as dense as most of the others in this roundup. And the RGB fan is just as generic as they come. And yet at $50, this thing is anything like but generic. It's not to a level expensive, guys. The installation process isn't all that straightforward either. You get a kit of parts that look like a Warhammer plastic miniature set alongside an almost ludicrous number of different screws. Luckily, once you get all of that stuff sorted out, the process is like straightforward with a front mount, so there's no fiddling with bits behind your motherboard. But still, there's so many things here that can easily be lost. Moving on to Thermal, right? And the AXP90 series has basically become

### [10:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=606s) Thermalright AXP90-X36 & X47

the de facto standard for most ITX systems these days. They're well-built, widely available all over the world, and more importantly, they're extremely affordable. But essentially, the X36 and X47 are the exact same cooler. They have identical bases, quad heat pipe layouts, and 2400 RPM fans. As a matter of fact, even their aluminum finays are copy paste of one another with the only difference being the X47 gets a bit more height, expanding its thermal capacity by about 30%. And despite them being the least expensive coolers here, their installation kits are among the absolute best. They're straightforward and easy to mount. The Intel back plate is fully metal, not the plastic junk that comes with most of these other coolers. And I mean, look, I'm not a huge fan of using tiny hex nuts to mount anything and a screwdriver adapter on top of that, but this setup gets you a surprisingly good amount of socket pressure. So, overall

### [11:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=664s) upHere H45K6

GG thermal, right? The Up here series is another one of those AliExpress specials that started to gain popularity in ITX circles for its combination of price, compactness, and cooling performance. Overall, it's a pretty basic cooler that's available in either white or black with a dense fin array, six heat pipes, and a really basic fan that runs from 800 to 2,800 RPM. Just like the Metalfish, the H45 has an old school HDT base and the same frustrating mounting system. And that means those damn metal studs either move too much or they get jammed in place. It's so frustrating. And for some reason, it seems like every I guess you would call it like gray market ITX cooler comes with this exact same setup. Still, based on our experience with some of the other heat sinks here, this I guess could have been a whole lot worse. So, I guess that sets

### [11:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=714s) Test Setup (REAL ITX Conditions)

the stage for the benchmarking. But before we get into the results, I do need to do a little bit of housekeeping here about how we tested and why we chose the systems that we did. First of all, we decided to run on two different CPUs. There's a Ryzen 5 5500 which represents what people might be running for a lower power 65 watt processor and more budget focused ITX systems. We're also using a 9800 X3D. It's high wattage single CCD setup is very hard to cool properly even for tower coolers. We're also testing in what you would call I guess a little bit more realistic conditions here inside of two ITX cases. The AM5 system is installed into a Thermalite TR100 alongside an RX970 XT GPU, while the lower wattage AM4 setup is housed in a Fractal Ridge, also with an RX970 XT. Now, look, I understand that we're introducing a bunch of variables into our testing here. But we want to be situationally correct. Unlike tower style heat sinks that get installed into bigger cases with good air flow, these ITX coolers will find themselves in constrained environments with very limited access to fresh air. And yes, that's absolutely the situation they should be tested in. So expectations end up being a little bit more realistic than if they were tested in like an open test system. All right

### [13:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=797s) 65W Full Load Temperatures (Ryzen 5 5500)

so let's start here with the Ryzen 55500. And Thermalite's X47 jumps right out to a commanding lead, which is where it stays throughout its entire noise range. It's actually so good that at 39 dB, it gets almost 2° lower temperatures than the Metalfish when it's running at 44 dB. The race for second place is an interesting one, too, with the Noctua L9 actually beating everything else at 30 and 31 dB before trailing off a little bit at higher noise levels. And that's an incredible result considering it's tied for being the shortest cooler here. I mean, look at its direct competitors. The Purok LP, Shuriken, and Up here are all running at elevated temperatures compared to it. On the other hand, the AXP90X36 also delivers super strong numbers here despite costing less than half of what the Noctua does. Meanwhile, the IS-47 XTV V2, MetalFish, and Silverstone get almost identical results to one another with the ID cooling heat sink having a slight edge over its direct competitors. And if we distill this down into a normalized 32 dB, there's evidently a massive gap between the best and the worst coolers here, like to the tune of about 10°. But I think one of the biggest concerns has to be how poorly the Scythe performs. We're used to their coolers leading the pack when it comes to noise normalized cooling, but here the Shuriken is dead last, outperformed by Btier companies and products that cost substantially less. And yes, that gap narrows somewhat at 36 dB, but it's still in that cluster of three underperforming coolers sitting right at the bottom of this chart. Honestly, if you're looking for the most compact solution, the X36 and L9 are both no-brainers. And if your setup allows for more vertical space, the AXP90X47 and IS-47 XTV2 are what you should be

### [15:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=910s) 65W Gaming Temperatures (Ryzen 5 5500)

looking at. Moving on to gaming results, and the Scythe Shuriken 3 has a really, really hard time when ambient temperatures start to climb in a gaming scenario. Remember, the GPU is dumping all of its heat into the area immediately surrounding it. And the Shuriken 3, well, it only starts pulling things back at higher RPM and noise levels. The up here H45K6 finds itself in an almost identical position too, though its performance is a bit more stable across its RPM range. I wouldn't recommend either of these heat sinks. On the other end of the spectrum, of course, we've got the usual suspects. Basically, bigger is better for the X47 and IS-47 XTV2, and they end up taking the lead by a pretty big margin. And yet, guess who's back? Yep, that tiny Noctua is getting a third best result here at 32 dB and under. Meanwhile, the rest of the coolers get, I guess you would call them, middle of the pack results. But we also have to remember that every cooler here was able to keep the CPU under 66°. So, technically, they're all more than adequate for 65W Ryzen 5 or Intel Ultra 5 gaming build. And you don't even need to run them at higher RPM levels, either. I mean, look at this. at just 32 dB. The only cooler struggling are the scythe and to a lesser extent the up here. Everything here is under 61°.

### [16:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=988s) 9800X3D Full Load Temperatures

All right, so those are the results for what I would call a pretty typical wattage for a processor being used in a ITX build in a compact form factor. But then we have the other side of the equation that we wanted to test and that is a 9800X3D which is what I would call like a worst case scenario. you have a single CCD being pumped to over 135 watts or in our case what we've seen is almost up to 165 watts. So all of that heat is being concentrated to a very small area. In addition to that, and I'm going to be transparent here, this is well above the stated TDP spec for every single one of these coolers. So, look, we're not expecting them to exactly pass with flying colors. And well, in a worst case, all core workloads, things go about as poorly for these little heat sinks as you'd expect. Every single one of them hits the processor's thermal limit, regardless of their fan speeds. So, basically, temperature testing gets thrown out the window since the CPU is throttling itself while trying desperately to get under 95°. But how much is it actually throttling? And that's the biggest question here, right? So, let's first understand that under optimal cooling, so a Noctua D15 G2, this particular 9800 X3D hits just over 5. 2 GHz all day, every day in a multi-core workload. But the best cooler here, the Thermalite AXP90X47 got just north of 4. 9 GHz while running at 30 dB and topped out at 5. 052 GHz when running at full tilt. That's a solid 150 MHz frequency cut. Meanwhile, the second best is the IS-47 XTV2, which is another 75 MHz back. And on the other end of the spectrum, we have the Scythe Shuriken 3, which is again a huge disappointment considering how good these guys have done in the past. After that, all the other coolers here fell into a pretty narrow 100 MHz band from 30 dB all the way up to their maximum fan speeds. But what about gaming? Well

### [18:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=1118s) 9800X3D Gaming Temperatures

we're still seeing the Be Quiet, Scythe, and Noctua just getting obliterated by this processor at every single decel level. Meanwhile, the Up here and Metalfish end up getting below the 9800 X3D's maximum temperature once they hit above 40 dB. But in my opinion, that's just way too loud. So, they sort of fail here, too. But I think the biggest surprise here was probably that tiny Thermalite X36, which got one of the better results by heading under 95° at just 36 dB. But anything over 90° is still way, way too hot in this test. And three coolers actually did get below that 90° mark. But they're also the largest ones here. the X47, ID Cooling, and Silverstone all see their temperatures basically plunge downwards the second they're able to move the 9800 X3D below its Tjunction point. Again though, the Thermalite X47 reigns absolutely supreme here. And you can really see that at a normalized 32 dB. It's the only cooler which doesn't smash headirst into that 95° maximum. I should also mention this is pretty much a worstc case scenario since Cyberpunk is one of only a handful of games that are truly multi-threaded and that causes of course higher heat loads than some other titles. Anyways, moving on to 36 dB. The thermal rate is now the only one that's under 90°. Though the Silverstoneone and ID cooling are starting to close that gap a bit. And here's the ironic thing. Despite high temperatures and obviously some CPU throttling, the in-game frame rates aren't majorly impacted, even at 32 dB. I mean, there's, yes, a small fall-off versus a truly optimal air cooling solution like the D15 G2 for a few of the more compact coolers here, but I also want to put this into a little bit more context because the Noctua L9 is delivering big boy numbers for such a tiny heat sink. But I do have

### [20:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=1235s) 9800X3D PBO TUNED Temperatures

to say using something like a 9800 X3D with one of these coolers is actually possible. It just takes a bit more effort than a simple plug, play, and prey approach because with PBO, AMD allows you to finely tune that balance between performance, efficiency, and heat output. So that's exactly what we did by giving our chip a - 18 offset in PBO and running the core at 1. 55 volts. Meanwhile, we also limited the frequency curve to 5. 12 GHz. Basically, that's a combination of settings that guaranteed stability while also maximizing clock speeds. And the effect in gaming is like a night and day difference versus running stock optimized defaults. Most coolers saw a 3 to 7° temperature reduction, which caused the majority to finally dip well below the processor's throttling limit. The only two exceptions were the B Quiet and Scythe, which still slammed like face first into that 95° maximum. And that small modification means that every cooler here, yes, even the one sitting at that 95° mark, gets frame rates which match a system with a Noctua NHD15 G2 running without PBO enabled. So, I think this goes without saying, right?

### [21:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=1305s) Knowledge = Power for ITX Builds

When it comes to choosing components, especially cooling solutions for a tiny ITX build in a more compact case, you have to be very selective. You have to go in with the maximum amount of knowledge because you're trying to finally balance GPU size with cooling capacity for your CPU and a bunch of other things all while properly trying to manage interior case temperatures. Now, from what we've seen in this roundup, if you have one of those 65 watt Ultra 5 or Ryzen 5 processors, or you've tuned your CPU to need around 65 watts, any of these coolers will properly address your needs. But if you really want to push things upwards in your processor selection with like 7 series CPUs or X3D versions, well, you'll need something a lot more substantial than anything in this roundup. or you'll need to manually tune your processor so it delivers better performance at lower power output levels to reduce temperatures like we did with the 9800 X3D and our PBO settings. But

### [22:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS3Svi20ld0&t=1370s) My Recommendations

let's break up my recommendations a bit. Like I said, there's two distinct classes of coolers in this roundup. For the smallest of the small, the Noctua L9 series is by far, like by a country mile, the best of the best. But that also comes with a very high price. On the other hand, Thermal Wright's AXP90 X36 might be a little bit taller and doesn't get you quite as much performance, but it costs half the price. On the flip side of that coin, the AXP90X47 is the runaway winner here. And provided you can find it in your region for a fair price, there's absolutely no reason to recommend anything else. Just buy this thing and you will be so happy with the results. My second recommendation is this guy. It is the IS-47 XT V2. And make sure it's the V2 that you're shopping for because it does come with a bunch of internal and external upgrades for its mount, for its fan, and a bunch of other things. So, if you can't get the thermal rate, this thing is a very, very close second choice. And I guess that's it when it comes to my recommendations. Thermal rate, ID cooling, Noctua. You can't go wrong with those coolers. But where does this leave us? Well, this is going to move us into the next category, which is the 51 to 70 mm category. We're going to take the top two performers from here and move them up to see how they perform against some of the bigger and more expansive small form factor cooling solutions that are available out there. You're probably going to see that in the next couple of months. We've got Computex coming up and a bunch of other things and some really, really interesting budget focused content, too. So, anyways, I'm Mike with Harvard Kucks. If there's something that you want to see us cover, maybe a hidden gem that you found in the small form factor or any other market for that matter, let us know in the comments below. Have a great day, guys.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49717*