Installation:

The installation is very simple, and the key thing to consider is that it does require that you have access to the back of the motherboard. If you do not have a motherboard tray with a large opening around the cooler, you will have to remove the board from your case for installation. The image below shows the basics for installation... You place a plastic washer in each cooler mounting hole around the CPU socket, and then you slide a screw in to each washer. You then align the cooler from the other side so that the screws go in to the threaded holes on the mounting bracket. Tighten the screws and the cooler is securely installed.



The two images below show the cooler mounted on to a Biostar H61 based Mini-ITX motherboard running an Intel i3-3225 processor, with two 4GB DDR3 memory modules installed. What we can see right awat is that it is a very close fit between the cooler and the memory, 4-pin 12V power header, and the PCI Express expansion slot.



The next images show a top down look at the cooler with the board out of the case (a Mini-box M350), and then installed in the case. What we can see here is that the ends of the heatpipes actually extend out over the PCI Express slot to the point that they might touch any card installed in the slot. I don't use a card in that slot, but I might be a little nervous if I wanted to. I think a card could still get in to the slot, but I might at least insulate the contact areas with electrical tape to keep anything from shorting out.



The final images in this section show some angled views of the cooler, primarily to show clearance to objects above the CPU socket. While located just to one side of the CPU socket, the 7.0mm thick hard drive hanging down from what will be the top of the case has plenty of room to clear the CPU cooler. When using the Noctua NH-L9i, the drive actually touches the edge of the cooler, and this interference is something I would obviously rather avoid.