NH-D15S Features and Cooler Design
Features
Courtesy of Noctua
- High-compatibility version of NH-D15
- Excellent RAM compatibility
- Asymmetrical layout for better PCIe compatibility
- NF-A15 140mm fan
- Dual-fan ready
- PWM support and Low-Noise Adaptor
- Excellent component cooling
- SecuFirm2™ mounting system
- Compatibility with past and future sockets
- NT-H1 thermal compound
- 6 years warranty
The Noctua NH-D15S CPU cooler is a high performance, dual tower cooler with an asymmetrical design based on the Noctua NH-D15 cooler. The cooler comes stock with a single 150mm fan, nickel-plated copper heat pipes and base plate, and two densely-finned aluminum radiators sandwiching the fan. The unit's six integrated heat pipes are constructed out of copper to optimize heat absorption from the CPU base plate and heat transfer to the aluminum radiators. The aluminum radiators were designed to facilitate optimal transfer of the heat from the heat-pipes to the air medium. The thin nickel plating encasing the base plate and heat-pipes give them corrosion and scratch resistance, while not inhibiting heat transfer between the cooler's components.
Courtesy of Noctua
The NH-D15S' twin radiator towers were designed with a fin density of 11 fpi (fins per inch) with each tower being about double the thickness of a standard fan. The fan placement is optimized to pull air through the front radiator and push it out the back. However, the thickness of the radiators seem to work against the unit's cooling effectiveness in its stock configuration. The radiators thickness add a immense amount of surface area from which to disperse the heat of the processor, requiring a fan able to push a volume of air sufficient for optimal heat transfer. To aid in heat transfer to the radiator fins and add rigidity to the structure, the heat-pipes are individually soldered to each of the aluminum radiator layers.
From the side view, you can better see the design optimizations implemented to enhance the units performance. Along the middle of both sides of each radiator is a fold-down spacer to give the fins rigidity, as well as to act as an air guide, created an air channel through which the center mounted fan can pull and push the air through. Even though the unit comes standard with only a single center mounted fan, the radiator can support up to three fans simultaneously. The side view of the unit best illustrates the true massiveness of the cooler. The integrated heat pipes are designed in a U-shape configuration, terminating in each of the towers with center of each heat pipe passing through the copper base plate. The unit's base has a top mounted, integrated hold down plate containing two spring-loaded screw-in nuts, giving the unit more than enough force for a solid mount with the CPU surface.
The top-down veiw of the cooler gives a better perspective of its asymmetrical design, better illustrating how the base plate is off center to accomodate a higher variety of motherboard layouts. Each radiator's rectangular layered construction gives it the ability to maximize its internal surface area while minimizing its depth footprint for motherboard fit compatibility when used in its default or alternative, multi-fan configuration. The top plate is stamped with the Noctua name and acts at the termination point for the four embedded heat pipes. The heat pipes are soldered in place and capped to ensure heat pipe integrity, keeping the contents under pressure and promoting the phase change required for the heat pipe transfer medium to be effective. Integrated into the sides of the radiator are the standard dual hook configurations found on most Noctua coolers, used to hold the fans in place. The wire fan holds have two set of straight sections that lock into the hooked sections of the radiator to firmly secure fans to the front and/or rear sides of the radiator.
The unit's base plate is a seamless copper plate with nickel-plating to prevent corrosion and surface scratches. The base plate is fixed to an upper plate to which the hold down assembly is fixed, sandwiching the copper heat pipes. The heat pipes run through the center portion of the base plate to ensure optimal heat transfer. The base plate is machined flat and polished to a mirror-like sheen, ensuring a near-perfect mating surface with the CPU.
There are absolutely no fit issues with the NH-D15S mounted to the test bench's Z87-based board. All DIMM slots remain easily accessible and the radiator towers are well above the surface level of the surrounding board heat sinks and memory modules. You may have issues when using a front-mounted fan with the unit, but then it just becomes a matter of mounting the fan higher up the radiator to clear the memory modules. Notice how both radiators have a stepped design to accommodate memory modules along both sides of the CPU socket, like that seen on an Intel X99-based board.
From the closeup board shots, it becomes even more apparent how well Noctua designed the NH-D15S for board compatibility. In its default configuration, you should few mounting issues with this cooler on any Intel-based board.
Morry,
As this article
Morry,
As this article appears on the Front Page, the “read more” link at the bottom of the snippet isn’t a link to this article, it’s a link to the Front Page. (On this page, the full article, the link is correct.)
Just tryin to be helpful. 🙂
Thanks for catching that,
Thanks for catching that, fixed up now.
Simply a message to
Simply a message to congratulate your effort, intriguing details in this posting..:)
My website … upgrade games
It’s unfortunately that I
It’s unfortunately that I didn’t known about this cooler a few weeks ago. Apparently some AM3+ boards only allow the CPU cooler to mounted in one direction. The CoolerMaster T4 overhangs the RAM slots making it impossible to remove the memory without removing the cooler.
Why didn’t you test the
Why didn’t you test the DH-15S with an additional fan? I have the DH-15 which has two fans and it blows the newer version out of the water other than at idle. It seems moronic for Noctua to design such a massive cooler for a single fan.
Single fan helps with
Single fan helps with compatibility and noise (just look at the noise charts in this review: the D15S and C14S are in a league of their own), but it still doesn’t make sense for it to cost so much; you may as well get the regular D15 and remove one of the fans. At $70, the single fan coolers would be a good option.
Sorry I cannot hear my twin
Sorry I cannot hear my twin fan DH-15 at all, so who cares if the DH-15s is less noisy if it doesn’t cool and it’s clearly an inferior product as tested. Have you asked yourself that the reason it’s so quiet is the reason it sucks as a cooler. No free lunch.
The D15 may be quiet, but it
The D15 may be quiet, but it is not silent. Maybe you can’t hear it because your PC (or room) has other, louder components, but for people who aim for exceptionally quiet PCs, that difference does matter. And saying that the cooling performance “sucks” is a bit of a stretch – this review tested it against a flagship AIO and custom watercooling, both of which used loud, high speed fans. Any single fan air cooler will lose against those unless it uses a 8000rpm Delta fan. It should have been compared to other quiet air coolers, not only to coolers intended for the last word in overclocking.
Still, I agree that as it is, these are not good coolers. Just too expensive, but with a solid price drop, they could be reasonable.
I wonder how the single fan D15 compares to dual fan with LNA. You might be able to get a better temp:noise balance with two slower fans.
I’d like to see it tested
I’d like to see it tested with an extra fan too. This seemed like it would be the perfect air cooler being an offset NH-D15 for PCIe slot compatibility but those Haswell-E numbers are ugly.
I’m sorry, but these tests
I’m sorry, but these tests doens’t make any sense to me. According to other reviewers the D15S beats the C14S with quite a margin.
Since noise and size is more
Since noise and size is more important to me than getting that last couple hundred MHz, the C14S will be on the shortlist for my next build. Thanks for the review!
Wish I knew about this
Wish I knew about this Heatskin before purchasing the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. Having the same Corsair Vengeance Pro Memory with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO makes the first DIMM 1 Slot unusable and even more with Corsair’s Memory Cooler.
PhoneyVirus
http://twitter.com/PhoneyVirus
http://phoneyvirus.wordpress.com/
Check out the CRYORIG H7. It
Check out the CRYORIG H7. It cools better and is quieter than the 212 EVO while also having full RAM clearance for the same price.
I just bought a D15 and I
I just bought a D15 and I have to admit whilst its thermal performance and acoustic performance under load is admirable (PWN/Silent Mode — the deep tonality helps), the fact that its idle/low-power noise is audible in any capacity is somewhat disappointing (and something I’m hoping to address in software).
Keep in mind a low power state is the one I do most of my work in (Word, Spreadsheets, emails) and where I appreciate absolute silence.
No doubt it will be quiet enough for most, but if you are the kind of person paying the premium price for these kinds of coolers then you are also, in all liklihood, a complete silence freak, right down the last decibel.
My machine is pretty much made from every conceiveble angle with silence in mind, so it’s safe for say the D15 is actually the loudest component in the machine in the lower power scenario.
In the high power scenario the graphics card kicks in somewhat but to be honest if I’m in that power state it means I’m playing a game. And if I’m playing a game the audio from the speakers handily drowns out the sound of the machine.
From my perspective, idle acoustic performance is actually more important than acoustic performance under load.
I’m also not shouting in
I’m also not shouting in silence but do want silence when I’m quiet. Nice perspective, like it. 😀
Anyhow, looks like NH-D15S failed on X99 Broadwell-E. Good to know, guessing I’ll go with Corsair H100i GTX when 6900k comes out.
We received new samples to
We received new samples to test with from Noctua on the Hawell-E system and the performance was improves dramatically over the orginal review samples. You may want to give the Haswell-E performance numbers another look…
So what went wrong if both
So what went wrong if both units were faulty should owners of the coolers be looking for something.
Or were they not installed properly or something went wrong in the testing of them.
Cheers
Not sure what the issue with
Not sure what the issue with the units. The old and new units were tested in the same method each time. Could have been something with the shipping of the units.
However, if you do run into similar issues, contact Noctua and they should replace them for you without issue.
(NH-C14S – Single Fan) My
(NH-C14S – Single Fan) My 4790k @ 1.25 volts, 4.6ghz on all cores (override mode for testing) OCCT peaks around 80 C, I mean its not amazing but it works and is pretty quiet. I considered an NHD15 but its massive. Hit 85C @ 4.7ghz @ 1.275 volts. Basically what I am saying is this cooler seems good for around 1.25 volts for nice temps during normal use.