Introduction and Technical Specifications
Today we look at Noctua’s flagship cooler, the NH-D15, the biggest, baddest cooler of the bunch…
Introduction
Courtesy of Noctua
Noctua is a well known player in the CPU cooling business with their focus on high quality solutions that don't kill your eardrums. The NH-D15 cooler is their current flagship product, building upon the design of their much loved NH-D14 cooler for an even higher performance product offering. The NH-D15 is composed of dual cooling towers, threaded through by six heat pipes. The heat pipes and copper base are all nickel-plated, giving the unit the signature Noctua look. We put the NH-D15 up against other high-performance solutions to best gage its cooling abilities. High performance comes at a cost with the NH-D15 being no exception at a $99.99 MSRP.
Courtesy of Noctua
Courtesy of Noctua
Courtesy of Noctua
The NH-D15 incorporates everything that Noctua has learned in designing its NH-D14 and U-series coolers, coming up with an extreme performance product that maintains almost universal motherboard compatibility. The cooler features twin 150mm wide cooling towers with airflow provided by dual NF-A15 150mm, 1500RPM fans. The heat transfers from the copper base plate to the aluminum radiator towers via six copper heat pipes. The copper base and heat pipes are all nickel-plated, providing scratch and corrosion resistance without affecting thermal transfer capabilities. To ensure optimal acoustics, the NH-A15 fans have rubber corner guards on all four corners to minimize fan vibration and vibration transfer to the radiator. The CPU base plate is seamless and polished to a mirror finish, ensuring an optimal mating surface.
SecureFirm2™ LGA115x mount kit
Courtesy of Noctua
Noctua bundled SecureFirm2™ mounting kits for using the NH-D15 with any current AMD and Intel socket motherboard. Also included are two Noctua-branded NF-A15 140mm 1500RPM fans, NT-H1 thermal paste, a PWM power splitter cable, two LNA (low noise adapter) cables, and two sets of fan mounts (four mounts total).
Technical Specifications (taken from the Noctua website)
NH-D15 Cooler Specifications | |
Socket compatibility | Intel LGA2011-0 & LGA2011-3 (Square ILM), LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA1150 & AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, FM1, FM2, FM2+ (backplate required) |
Height (without fan) | 160 mm |
Width (without fan) | 150 mm |
Depth (without fan) | 135 mm |
Height (with fan) | 165 mm |
Width (with fan) | 150 mm |
Depth (with fan) | 161 mm |
Weight (without fan) | 1000 g |
Weight (with fan) | 1320 g |
Material | Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminum (cooling fins), soldered joints & nickel plating |
Fan compatibility | 140x150x25 (with 120mm mounting holes), 140x140x25 (with 120mm mounting holes), 120x120x25 |
Scope of Delivery | 2 x NF-A15 PWM premium fan 2 x Low-Noise Adapter (L.N.A.) Y-cable NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound SecuFirm2™ Mounting Kit Noctua Metal Case-Badge |
Warranty | 6 Years |
Fan specifications | |
Model | 2 x Noctua NF-A15 PWM |
Bearing | SSO2 |
Max. Rotational Speed (+/- 10%) | 1500 RPM |
Max. Rotational Speed with L.N.A. (+/- 10%) | 1200 RPM |
Min. Rotational Speed (PWM, +/-20%) | 300 RPM |
Max. Airflow | 140.2 m³/h |
Max. Airflow with L.N.A. | 115.5 m³/h |
Max. Acoustical Noise | 24.6 dB(A) |
Max. Acoustical Noise with L.N.A. | 19.2 dB(A) |
Input Power | 1.56 W |
Voltage Range | 12 V |
MTBF | > 150,000 h |
Haswell results are
Haswell results are suprising; the D15 is (slightly) outperformed by the U14, which is basically half of D14. Maybe some kind of mounting issue?
Pricing is not really much of a weakness when it outperforms more expensive AIOs.
I would like to see how it performs with a higher power CPU like LGA2011 or AMD.
The following is probably
The following is probably splitting hairs, but for a cooler on the upper end of performance and price, every detail is worth consideration. For example, there is some evidence that shows heat pipes work more efficiently in vertical versus horizontal orientations. For this cooler, I like that (when used with an Intel CPU, not sure about AMD) the orientation of the heat pipes allow the length of the actual CPU core located beneath the IHS to sit perpendicular to the axis of the heat pipes that pass through the base plate while also directing air flow in the typical front to back pattern. The IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader), lid, cap, slug, or w/e you want to call it is pretty much square, but the actual Intel CPU package hiding underneath it is an elongated rectangle. This relative perpendicular arrangement allows the CPU core to conduct heat more directly and evenly to all 6 of those heat pipes instead of mainly just the middle 2.
The Hyper212 EVO is not in the same league, but is a solid performer because it has direct contact heat pipes which also span most of the width of it’s base. However, it unfortunately has the heat pipes aligned parallel to the actual CPU core when installed in the typical front to back air flow orientation. This is why I eventually rotated mine 90 degrees so now the CPU core spans under all 4 heat pipes. The tradeoff is that it moves air vertically like a chimney and exhausts out of the top of my tower case.
Of course relative performance all depends on the particular case, fans, installed cards, and their orientations. Anecdotally, I can say it performs maybe a degree better like this despite a hot GPU being uncomfortably close to the Hyper212’s intake. But hey, it is essentially a chance for free performance. I should also add that my case has bottom and front intake fans with top and rear exhaust fans so there is a fairly coherent vertical component to air flow in my case already.