Noctua NH-D15, Quiet High-Performance Dual Tower CPU Cooler

My AIO died suddenly, no warning dead. After 2 years I should have expected it. Luckily I had an old Evo 212 in my spares box which got me up and running. I searched through Amazon and on-line to find an alternative to liquid cooling. I was never really comfortable having liquid in an electrical environment. Eventually I came across the Noctua NH-D15. Every review both on Amazon and on the web, Highly recommended it. Basically it's one of the best. Probably the best out there. OK it's big and you need a good sized case to fit it in. My Corsair 540 case had plenty of room. After reading the difficulties others had fitting it. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to install. I have low profile hyper x memory cards so the adjustment to clear them was minimal. High profile cards would profit changing the 140mm fan in the front to a 120mm fan. Air flow in my case is good. So it is fed from the front of the case by 2 140mm and out the back by another 140mm fan. Coupled by 2 overhead 140mm fans which remove any hot air pockets. I have to say the temps inside the case have reduced incredibly well. The CPU and Core temps are better than what I was achieving with an AIO which I had to have running at full belt when heavy gaming. With the Noctua NH-D15 I'm running cool and quiet and not going over 40 degrees. That was the big eye opener. Not to mention the reduced amount of power I am using when gaming. Which in the present environment of energy hikes from greedy companies is a good thing. My power consumption has been reduced by half. Which for parents out there, is a good thing. Keeping the kids happy and saving money on energy. The Noctua NH- D15 is a good all rounder. Giving excellent cooling, far superior to many AIO's out there. With energy saving to boot and half the price of AIO's. Air cooling is getting better and better which is a good thing for those like me on a budget and to be honest there isn't any sudden breakdowns apart from a fan failing. Which can be easily and cheaply rectified. All in all the Noctua NH-D15. Is an excellent product. From the moment you turn it on it is giving you the best cooling and energy savings out there.

The review is split to a couple points: - do you need it / who should buy it - performance - built quality - extras out of the box - assembling it So scroll down to the topic of your interest if you don't want to read it all do you need it / who should buy it? If you think of using the newest CPUs if Intel or AMD, it makes a lot of sense buying the NH-D15. I went with a BeQuiet Shadow Rock Slim, which was sufficient before. But highly powered CPUs need better cooling if you want to use them more efficiently. Don't get me wrong, the BeQuiet cooler is still enough, but you will have to think of two things. First, for how long do I want to use my CPU? Longer than a couple of years? Then you need better cooling to ensure the performance to last by cooling the CPU sufficiently. Secondly, what do you want to do with it? High res gaming? Bit of overclocking but not willing to invest in a water cooling loop? Well... The best air cooler for CPUs is the NH-D15 so far. You can't make anything wrong with that beast! I personally don't trust the AIO water cooling solutions so far on the market to hand them my precious hardware to, although I thought about it for a long long time and nearly went for it. Hence, buying the best product in air cooling then is no question really. And if you don't want to replace any pump, look out for leaking pipes, etc. AND want to be able to use that thing for more than a couple of years then this is a no-brainer. Durability is the key word here. You basically invest in a cooler which will most definitely run more than twice as long as AIO watercooling loops. As for the performance: In short it is cooling very well! Never reached levels above 70 degrees Celsius (prime95 included). Stress tests were not sweating this beast! NOW I have no doubts about the CPU being cooled enough and to be honest after having made stress tests and always having looked at temperature within the day, I have let it be as it never let me down on my expectations. Thus, I don't feel the need to check the temperature anymore. Noise wise I think it is known by now that noctua is first class in building silent, high performance fans. Yes, you hear the air being pressured in full speed mode, but come on! Physically it doesn't seem to be possible to not hear a sound if you pressure air! And as I said, FULL SPEED! But just hearing air is something different than hearing the fan itself which doesn't happen with noctua fans, but with most other. So conclusion noise wise: great, silent to no sound performance even at full load. The built quality of noctua is also very well known and doesn't have to be further mentioned I guess. Very well built, quality material all over. The lamellae are very quality made as well as the heat pipes and the CPU heat plate conductor. Simply put: great quality! Extras out of the box It comes with a second fan, screws, backplate, thermal paste, instructions for all of AMD AM boards and Intel 115 and 2011 boards AND (which is simply great) a screwdriver which is the most useful one in the world! Noctua simply knows about problems in assembling such a beast! Further you get low noise cables (called L.N.A. look it up if you don't know what it is) and a y-cable to get to fans into one fan header on the mainboard. So a lot of extras... Great packaging and great quality all over here as well. Assembling it is tricky IF you have a midi case like me (fractal design define r4) but it could be much worse if noctua didn't send the tools and made assembling it simple via its backplate. IF you have a midi tower it might be quiet tight with the roof fans when assembling it. Also I had to get the graphics card out of the way in the process. But as I said it is very easy to assemble, I made my life a bit harder when doing it anyway. After the beast is assembled there is enough space for everything so NO WORRIES! you will get your roof fans and the upper slot for you graphics still fit into that. But again: noctua made it very easy to install. So all in all a GREAT PIECE OF HARDWARE NOCTUA! Again perfectly executed guys!

I bought this after attempts to replace my aging Corsair AIO fell through. Having previously bought a selection of Noctua case fans, I took the plunge back to trying fan coolers. I did not expect this beast to be the size it was, but after following the instructions and mounting it...what's that...silence. Not only silence, but also temperatures that rivals my old AIO liquid cooler. It is massive, it is quite heavy, but the mounting bracket it came with for AM5 was large and sturdy, and once firmly in place, it felt solid. With a drop of Artic MX-6, this had very decent idle temperatures, and using my Asus motherboards standard fan-sweep auto-set-up the fans run steady and quiet, if not un-noticeable . Manually setting speed for testing only really kicked in the fan sound at 80%, its very reasonable for a fan only cooler. Have tried it in two different cases, the Fractal Design R5 and the Pop XL Silent, and fits with space to spare in both. Now the downsides, which can be important, but easily avoidable. The size, that is it, only the size its its downfall. If you have a small case, this will not fit, no way, Its wide, its long, its deep. In my server, ASUS H170-PRO with socket LGA1151, I could not fit my test graphics card as well as the cooler (without fans installed), as the cooler extended up to the top PCIE slot. Its width as well blocked use of the second fan to the front of the case also due to the furthest left RAM sockets being used. The secondary fan can be installed on either left or right section of the cooler, however it depends on clearance also to any heatsinks near the I/O area of the board, and any external case fans. If you are getting this, I would highly recommend to look at your clearances on not only your case, but also your motherboard, for your PCIE 4.0 slot, and your RAM slot location. This shouldn't be as much of a problem on Full ATX boards than MATX, but still worth heading to the manufactures website to read on specs.

This is the best cooler in the world...probably. I installed this on an FX8350 in a HAF X case, with chromax covers. I added an extra and unnecessary fan (all the fans in this HAF are also Noctua) on the rear because I had one laying around, it doesn't make any difference to the temperature reduction but does help to vent heat more directly out of the case. With the Chromax covers the fans are definitely even quieter and don’t ramp up any higher than 700rpm under Prime 95 which I ran for half an hour after applying the thermal compound. CPU temps are at a steady 26c idle and haven't gone above 50c yet gaming and I’m pretty sure they never will. This NH-D15 is a quality product and everything about it, even the box it comes in, says,”You’ll never top me!” and I have to admit that even after looking at the Be Quiet Dark Rocks, the Cooler Masters and Zalmans (which I love) and the fierce rivalry they offered, the choice, for me, had to be Noctua. Noctua because they offer so much more in the quality department, they’re beautifully made and of very high quality materials. I owned a Dunhill lighter many years ago, one with the thumb bar on the side and just picking it up informed me that I was holding an item of superior construction. Its a bit like that with the Noctua NH-D15, you pick it up and you just know that you’ve made a great purchase. Other owners out there will know what I’m talking about but even if you are a newcomer to after-market coolers my advice is to always do your research and double check everything you investigate. I don’t work for Noctua, they’re just another company but this cooler is something I will always recommend to anyone who’s looking for the best. Others will disagree and that’s fine and other coolers are good, great in fact but in my mind I’ve made the best choice...for me. Installation is ridiculously easy. The kit comes with mounting brackets for both Intel and AMD, screws, low noise adapters, Noctua’s own thermal compound, a fan splitter and yes, a screwdriver! I’m sure I’ve missed a few things out but essentially, everything you need to get it on the CPU and plug the fans into the board are included. I would recommend getting the Chromax covers for this cooler, they complete the look even if they are a little costly. Hey, the NH-D15 ain't cheap but you’ll only ever have to buy one. If you’re using this cooler on a new build, great because you need to get to the back of the board unless you already have a case with a cut-out for access. With the bracket installed, the cooler is then mounted using just two spring mounted screws which can’t be over-tightened. It’s designed for higher ram clearance but you should check this in any event. Once installed the fans come with clips which take seconds to mount them. Noctua's your uncle, you’re done! I have only one word of caution and its not about the cooler itself but you should know that this is a Brobdingnagian thing, very tall so, as I said before, check that your case will accommodate it. Apart from that, welcome to air cooling the way it should be done. If Noctua made beer, it would also be the best in the world...probably.

I am running an i7 9700k at 4.9 GHz on an MSI Z390 Gaming Plus board (in a standard ATX case), so obviously need a decent cooler. I had previously been able to get 4.5 GHz using a cheaper Arctic cooler, which ran well, but the system was at it's limit. So, my observations: - Not the easiest in the world to fit, but ok. Fitting instructions come in paper form, and are easy enough to follow. It has to be said, I do have some spatial awareness issues, so I'm not the best at this type of thing, but I got it done (maybe in half an hour after having a good read at the instructions and separating out the different fittings to avoid confusion). It's a big beast, and it gets bigger if you add the second fan (which I was not able to at the time of fitting). The second fan might have fitted, but it would have meant crushing the cabling up into a corner, something I wasn't comfortable with. I might be able to sort this out with cable ties at a later time. Do what I didn't, and take out the GPU before fitting! My case also had 2 silly fans built into the case wall, and I had to remove these to get the case closed again. Also, I observed that for my own board, the second fan would only fit onto one side of the radiator nearest the front), as on the other side, the board heatsink impeded this. RAM clearance was not an issue for me. I have one block of regular RAM, and the radiator overhangs it. If you think you will be pushed for space in a standard case, you are quite right! - Performance: Well, first class. My system will now run Handbrake at 4.9 GHz, reaching a maximum of 64C after a while. Previously at 4.5 GHz with the Arctic cooler (a good cooler in it's own right), it was hitting 90-100C immediately. Basically, at 4.9GHz, I'm hitting other issues with the overclock, but heat is not one of them. Bear in mind, this is without the second fan fitted. - Noise: There isn't any, fairly much. Under full load it sounds the same as it does with no load. It's as quiet as a machine at idle. I'm quite amazed by that, since the other cooler I used (like I said, pretty good) was working like crazy at 90C, and was a bit noisy. I have no experience with liquid cooling (nor do I want any), but I gather that this cooler might be as quiet. I wanted a cooler I could throw pretty much anything at, and I appear to have it. It's not cheap, but if you can afford it, and need it, go for it. It has a 6 year warranty as well, so all in I'm pretty pleased. It's probably easier to fit for someone with more experience than me, so I wouldn't let that put you off. Just read the instructions! Comes with thermal paste (which I didn't use as I have some already), a low noise adapter (I have no idea why and I didn't use) and a Y splitter cable to allow 2 fans to be linked to one CPU fan port on the board. Additional information 25 Mar 2023. Been using for 2 years now, does exactly what I need, and has never missed a beat. My clock speed has been increased to 5Ghz recently, temperatures are still in the 70s, maximum. As for my statement regards the noise of the cooler under load, it sounds more like a sales pitch than I'd want. On reflection, there is a bit more noise when running the system under full load, although it is not offensive, and I'm quite noise sensitive. This is possibly a moot point as my GPU is reasonably noisier than this cooler when the system is working hard. And it obviously depends on fan settings in the BIOS. I can never see the noise of the cooler becoming an issue, as it's rare that the CPU is working alone, the TV sound is off etc. In the real world it solved two problems for me: noise and heat. I simply don't have to think about them. I am so pleased I am in the process of getting another for a new PC build, there is no choice for me, this is it.

OK I'm going to start with my setup as this is a huge cooler and any help I can give I think will help anyone! ASUS M5A97 R2.0 motherboard, AMD FX8350 4.0GHZ cpu (arctic mx4 thermal paste), 2X 4GIG FX HYPERFURY DDR3 RAM, PALIT GTX970 reference gpu and a corsair RM850 gold edition power supply all installed in a NZXT phantom410, The cooler is fantastic can't tell you the ambient temperature of the room but my cpu at idle went from 42 degrees Celsius with a cooler master hyper 212 (which is a fantastic cooler) to 37 degrees Celsius for NH-D15 Fitting could not of been easier, but it does require the standard mounting backplate from the stock cooler. fans are silent with no more than a hum at full 100% running! Now I love this cooler BUT if I had a slightly smaller case or slightly higher profile ram, it would fit but I would have to take off the fan to the right as it sits on top of the ram and hard up against the window of the case, so any ram I want to add/remove I will have to remove to cooler 1st, also as the cooler sits so close to the top of the case it is kind of necessary to remove the top panel (on this case anyway) to secure the fans properly. it doesn't cover the 1st pci slot but it is close. I have attached pictures for as much help as I can give, Please keep your opinions of my pc to yourself good or bad as this is a review of the cooler nothing more! any questions I will answer as best I can Overall 5/5 easy install, great performance, looks good and near silent operation! BUT do some homework due to the size check you case and RAM SIze details here http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=productview&products_id=68&lng=en&set=1 compatability http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_gen&products_id=68&lng=en

Took a few tries to get it installed right but it performs better than my previous cooler and its way quieter. Packed nicely with all the itema you need - thermal paste, 2 NF-A15 fans, AM4 and 115x mounting hardware and a long phillips head driver. Didnt quite account for the slant on my trident z RAM modules so one fan is slanted slightly and prevents me from closing my case. No big deal as i can swap my case or I can change the fan so its on the opposite side. Not the fault of noctua though. It is a fantastic cooler. Cant speak to the long term reliability, but noctua have a reputation for lasting a long time. Im happy with this cooler and you will be too if you can fit it in your case

This heatsink cooler has been used in 3 different builds since I purchased it and still does a fantastic job. It's on par with the most entry level water cooling set up, but without the fear of water leaking into your PC. It comes with 2 large fans, which are variable speed and can be slowed down to a level that's inaudible. Noctua fans are known to be among the quietest, and these are the same high quality fans you'd normally purchase as a single. Mounting the heatsink can be an issue because of the sheer size of it. There's a long screwdriver tool included in the box which can help, but most cases will have a GPU nearby on one size and the top of the case nearby on the other size, so getting this beast mounted can be challenging. Once it's installed and working, leave it alone! I've tested quite a few heatsinks from different brands over the years and this one always gives the best cooling performance. It's expensive but you get what you pay for, a premium product that does exactly what it's supposed to do. Noctua support is great and if you keep using their older coolers but eventually upgrade to a new platform, they'll send you updated mounting pieces for free as long as you show them proof of purchase. Excellent company with excellent products.

Haven't done tempersture tests yet, so this is a review just of visual checks and assembly experience. Solid piece of engineering. Well-designed with loads of fins, included 2 fans that can be fixed in whatever direction you want (depending on your case airflow direction). Came with all accessories, incl long screwdrivers, to be able to uuse for AMD and Intel mobos (last 3 generstions or so as of 2024). Peach-brown fans are Noctua trademarks, but ugly. Came with paste, just enough for 1 application. Overall, pricey, but great quality and well thought-out design.

Acheté en août 2024 pour 109,90 €, le Noctua NH-D15 s'est rapidement imposé comme le refroidisseur idéal pour mon PC gamer milieu de gamme, équipé d'un AMD Ryzen 7 7700X et d'une GIGABYTE Radeon RX 7800 XT sur une carte mère MSI Pro B650-S WiFi. Et je dois dire que je suis impressionnée ! Tout d'abord, parlons des performances. Bien que je n'aie pas de point de comparaison directe, mon processeur tourne à environ 70° en session de jeu avec un seul ventilateur de monté (2 possibles), ce qui est très satisfaisant. On peut dire que ce refroidisseur fait son travail avec brio ! Côté bruit, c'est le silence absolu. En fonctionnement normal, le NH-D15 est presque inaudible, et même sous charge, les ventilateurs de ma carte mère sont légèrement plus bruyants. Pour les amateurs de silence, c'est un véritable atout. L'installation a été un jeu d'enfant. Tout le nécessaire était fourni : pâte thermique, outils et adaptateurs. Je n'ai rencontré aucun souci lors du montage, si ce n’est que de me rendre compte que je ne pourrais pas ajouter le second ventilateur faute de place dans mon boitier. Je l'ai donc monté avec un seul ventilateur, car le second touchait ma barrette de RAM. Cela n'a pas posé de problème, car même avec un seul ventilateur, les performances sont déjà excellentes. Donc un conseil pour ceux qui envisagent d'acheter ce refroidisseur : faites bien attention à ses dimensions. Il est massif, et il est essentiel de vérifier que le NH-D15 s'adapte à votre boîtier, tant en profondeur qu'en largeur, surtout si vous prévoyez d'utiliser un second ventilateur avec une config plus gourmande en rafraichissement. En termes de design, le NH-D15 est magnifique. Les lamelles du radiateur sont fines et nombreuses, assurant une excellente dissipation de la chaleur dans le boîtier. J'aurais souhaité une autre couleur pour les ventilateurs pour s'accorder avec mes composants noirs, mais cela ne gâche en rien l'esthétique générale. Les tiges de métal qui ressortent du radiateur sont plutôt élégantes et détournent le regard. Quant au rapport qualité-prix, il est indéniable. Les performances obtenues avec un seul ventilateur, couplées à la réputation de Noctua sur les sites spécialisés, justifient amplement l'investissement. En conclusion, le Noctua NH-D15 est sans conteste le roi des refroidisseurs d'air. Il offre des performances exceptionnelles, un fonctionnement silencieux, et un design soigné. Si vous cherchez à garder votre processeur au frais tout en gardant votre PC silencieux, ne cherchez pas plus loin ! 😄❄️

Il est franchement nickel, et facile a monter, le seul truc c’est qu’on doit surélever le 2eme ventilateur a cause des barrettes de mémoire, du coup j’ai mis que le ventilateur du milieu et meme avec un seul ventilateur mon processeur ne chauffe vraiment pas

TDP105WのCPUに3年間使用したが、故障無く良く冷やしてくれた。CPUに負荷をかけるとうるさくなるけど、耐久性や冷却性はとても良いです。 但し大きいのでゆとりのあるケースでしか使用できません。

Fantastic cooler, a bit expensive but worth it