What just happened? Austrian-based cooling specialist Noctua has announced a new addition to its NH-L9 line of low-profile CPU coolers. The NH-L9a-AM5 and NH-L9a-AM5 chromax.black were designed specifically for use with AMD's new 65W CPUs, the Ryzen 5 7600, the Ryzen 7 7700 and the Ryzen 9 7900.

The low profile coolers measure just 37mm tall and do not encroach on RAM or PCIe zones. Even with tightly-packed mini ITX boards, near-socket connector access should not be an issue.

The heatsink comes equipped with Noctua's NF-A9x14 92mm fan , which supports fully automatic PWM speed control. With the included low noise adapter, the fan generates just 13.5 dB of noise (or 19.9 dB without the adapter). Buyers also get a tube of Noctua's own NT-H1 thermal compound with their purchase.

The NH-L9a-AM5 is available in two configurations. The standard model utilizes a copper base and heatpipes along with aluminum fins and nickel plating plus Noctua's familiar cream and brown colored fan. The chromax.black variant is an all-black version of the same for a stealthier appearance.

Our own Steven Walton recently took a look at all three new AMD processors and put their stock cooling solutions to the test. The 7600 with the Wraith Stealth peaked at a toasty 97c while the 7700 and 7900 with their improved Wraith Prism cooler only hit 79c. Noctua makes no claims for its new low-profile coolers but CEO Roland Mossig said they have been running them at up to 130W on the Ryzen 7950X and 7900X.

If you are in the market for a low-profile cooler for use in a small form factor chassis or other custom build, Noctua's latest are certainly worth a look. They have been turning out top-notch coolers since 2005 and recently claimed several spots in our best CPU cooler roundup .

Both are available from today via Noctua's official Amazon store and come backed by a six-year warranty. Pricing is set at $44.95 for the standard variant and $54.95 for the blacked out model.