Shared Components
Included Accessories
Noctua includes all necessary mounting hardware and accessories needed to setup and install both the NH-D15S and the NH-C14S into your system, including fans, motherboard and fan mounting hardware, mount install tool, and thermal compound. Aside of the mounting cage orientation, both units share similar CPU mounting and fan hardware.
For cooler to board mounting, Noctua includes kits with detailed instructions for both Intel and AMD type sockets. They even differentiate between the LGA115x and LGA2011 sockets with separate manuals for each because of the slight differences in mount hardware.
For Intel LGA 115X sockets, you use the included backplate with integrated uprights in conjunction with the included plastic spacers, metal brackets, and thumbscrews to build the board mount. The backplate is not used for LGA2011 sockets. Instead, the included metal stand-offs are screwed directly into the provide socket holes.
For AMD sockets, you fix the C-shaped brackets in place over the white plastic spacers with the included screws going directly into the stock AMD back plate.
Noctua includes an L-shaped Phillips head screwdriver to help with mounting the cooler to the mounting bracket, long enough to clear the radiator. It can also be used to remove the center screw holding the hold-down plate to the top of the CPU block. Also bundled in with the cooler is a tube of Noctua's own NT-H1 thermal compound and a Noctua-branded metal case badge.
Keeping in-line with their current mounting kits, the included LGA115x backplate has its uprights permanently fixed to the backplate. This eliminates the possibility of the uprights spinning in place while attempting to set the cross brackets in place. It also makes for much easier construction of the LGA115X mounting cage on the board.
For the LGA115X mounting cage, the black plastic spaces slip over the threaded uprights in the base plate with the metal cross brackets sitting on top of them. The brackets are held in place via thumbscrews screwed into the uprights. The nuts fixed to the cooler's mounting bracket screw into the threaded uprights located on the top center of the board mount brackets.
The Intel mounting cage is designed to allow for mounting the cooler in a vertical (front-to-rear) or horizontal (bottom-to-top) orientation, depending on the orientation of the mounting cage's cross brackets. In the horizontal orientation (which is also the default mounting orientation for the NH-C14S cooler), the mounting cage has no contact or fit issues in the CPU socket area allotted.
In the vertical orientation (which is the default orientation for the NH-D15S cooler), the mount cage fits perfectly into the CPU socket area as well.
On an Intel LGA115X board, the base plate bottom rests on the socket bottom plate, eliminating direct board contact except for the arms housing the threaded uprights. This design minimizes the potential for contact or crushing of any components in close proximity to the socket base plate.
Noctua included two sets of fan mounts to use the coolers in the default single fan mode or optional dual-fan mode. To use the NH-D15S in tri-fan mode, you would need to contact Noctua for an additional set of wire fan mounts. Noctua also included a low noise adapter, for reducing the fan speed to a whisper quiet 1200 RPM (revolutions per minute).
The fan mounts are held to the fan via the front upper and lower holes on the fan. The hooks on the inside of the mount go into the holes on the front face of the fan so that the mount sits vertically on either side of the fan. The body of the mount then snap in place to the hooked sections on the sides of the radiator.
For heat dispersal, Noctua packaged one of their NF-A15 140mm fans in with the NHD15S unit. The NF-A15 is rated for a maximum speed of 1500 RPM with a rated maximum airflow potential of 82.5 CFM (cubic feet per minute). The brown colored fan body sits in a tan colored housing with a total of seven large fan blades. The fan blades have shaped fins along the inside top of the blade to assist in directing airflow into the radiator and minimize the airflow dead spot in the fan's center caused by the motor. The fan cables are sleeved in a dense, black colored plastic sleeving and ending in a 4-pin PWM-style power connector. The fans is rated to run at 12V, drawing 0.13 amps of power during full speed operation.
For NH-C14S, Noctua packaged in one of their NF-A14 140mm fans. With specs similar to the AF-A15 fan, The NF-A14 is rated for a maximum speed of 1500 RPM with a rated maximum airflow potential of 82.5 CFM (cubic feet per minute). The major difference between the AF-14 and AF-15 fans is the outer housing shape. The AF-15 has a rounded housing while the AF-14 is a more traditional square housing. The brown colored fan body sits in a tan colored housing with a total of seven large fan blades. The fan blades have shaped fins along the inside top of the blade to assist in directing airflow into the radiator and minimize the airflow dead spot in the fan's center caused by the motor. The fan cables are sleeved in a dense, black colored plastic sleeving and ending in a 4-pin PWM-style power connector. The fans is rated to run at 12V, drawing 0.13 amps of power during full speed operation.
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.