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REVIEW | Noctua NH-D15S


For those who are not familiar with Noctua, they are a company founded in 2005 formed with the joint efforts of two companies (Rascom Computer Distribution GmbH and Kolink International Corporation) dedicated to bring state-of-the-art cooling solutions. They have been highly regarded for their well engineered products and has become a well established brand since then.
With that, they sent us one of their products for review: the Noctua NH-D15S. This is the slightly smaller version of the NH-D15 which provides better PCIe and RAM clearance since it uses an off-set, asymmetrical layout and a single NF-A15 fan. Despite it’s smaller footprint, the NH-D15S still provides state-of-the-art heatsink performance.

What’s inside the box?

Noctua is one of the brands that we know that is extremely meticulous when it comes to the quality of their product packaging. The best way to describe it is “premium”. The contents are neatly arranged and is firmly packed in packing foam and cardboard. With this type of packaging, it is sure that your investment is protected in transit.

Inside, you will find the massive heat sink itself and a complete set of accessories and thermal paste:

  •  1x NF-A15 PWM premium fan
  • Low-Noise Adaptor (L.N.A.)
  • Fan clips for second fan
  • NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound
  • SecuFirm2™ Mounting Kit
  • Noctua Metal Case-Badge
  • Screw Driver



 

 

SecuFirm2™ Mounting

Noctua’s trademark mounting solution, the SecuFirm2™ , is definitely the easiest mounting solution that we have experienced considering the massive size of the NH-D15S. It’s very simple to setup and with the help of the included screw driver. It is very sturdy and is compatible with several socket configurations as you can also request for specific mounting kits for different sockets.

Thermal testing

Now we will see how this massive cooler performs. We will put it up against the Cooler Master Hyper 212 and an Intel stock cooler.
Our test setup is as follows:

  • Case -NZXT Source 210 Elite
  • Power Supply -Seasonic S12II – 620W
  • Motherboard -Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z97 (rev. 1.x)
  • Processor -Intel Core i7 – 4790K @ 4.5GHz
  • RAM – 2x G.SKILL RipjawsX F3-2133C10D-8GXM
  • GPU – Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 AMP! Edition 6GB

Testing is done in a warm tropical climate with the room temperature ranging from 30°C-35°C.

Results

Conclusion

We think you really get what you pay for with this cooler. We are amazed on how quiet that fans are yet still delivers optimal cooling performance. Our Intel 4790K is overclocked to 4.2GHz and considering the warm weather in the Philippnes, it still gave pretty amazing results.
However with that being said, the aesthetics of the fan is not for everyone since a lot of people prefer RGB nowadays. Nonetheless, that’s what makes Noctua products stand out and we are pretty okay with it. If you want some color customization, you might want to consider checking out Noctua’s Chromax kits.
Priced at around ₱4,300.00 (If purchased Newegg to PH) or $79.89 (If purchased within the continental USA), this is pretty much one of the best enthusiast class air coolers that you can purchase right now. This product has been around for a while and we totally understand why the design stayed the way as it is with minimal adjustments throughout the years.
 

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