Noctua NH-D15 G2

[rv8000]

I meant this

Is it moved 8mm to one side for more gpu backplate clearance?

As far as actual measurements who knows, as you said no detailed spec pdf on their website. From the product photos it does look shifted in a similar fashion.

 

[Assimilator]

WTAF is this price??? I guess cheap AIOs are really killing air coolers and Noctua has decided they don't want to be part of a race to the bottom, but... they were already the Apple of air coolers, you can't really become the Apple of Apple of air coolers. Not expecting Noctua to be around for too much longer at this rate.

 

[mahanddeem]

1- Do you record CPU temp (main board sensor) or hottest core temp (internal reading from like HWInfo64)? And how long do you keep max load in minutes?
2- Do you use contact frame or stock intel retention mechanism?

I have a 14900k and a D15 gen1, for 250watt it's hard to keep it under 90c with excellent mounting and thermal paste application. And limited PL 1 and 2 to 253watt and ICCMax 307A with plenty of case ventilation.

 

[ymdhis]

I have a 14900k and a D15 gen1, for 250watt it's hard to keep it under 90c with excellent mounting and thermal paste application. And limited PL 1 and 2 to 253watt and ICCMax 307A with plenty of case ventilation.

Try undervolting it, from what I heard that will also prevent that chip from killing itself.

 

[mahanddeem]

Try undervolting it, from what I heard that will also prevent that chip from killing itself.

Already did. I use Typical Case Scenario on SVID behavior (which lowers ACLL to 0.4mohm). DC LL is level 4 (1.0mohm). Disabled Synch AC/DC LL calibration (stupid default settings on recent z790 BIOSes).
Max voltage is 1.39v.
SP is not bad, 99 for my 14900k too.
It's just a poorly designed, factory far pushed chip. Worse Intel CPU I had, and I had many for the past 20 years.

 

[veleciraptor]

Extremely expensive for what it offers. TR PS 120 Evo which is 1/3 the price of Noctua only 1 degree hot. Very bad price/performance ratio for Noctua. I wonder what will happen when TR release Royal Preytor Ultra. Not a good buy for conscious consumers.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I just identified that one of the lowest large fins buzzes in this spot on my sample:

View attachment 355655

If I was keeping the cooler I would just bend these little ears so that they touch the fin above:

View attachment 355656

I found where does the buzzing come from on my sample and how to easily fix it.

 

[mahanddeem]

Extremely expensive for what it offers. TR PS 120 Evo which is 1/3 the price of Noctua only 1 degree hot. Very bad price/performance ratio for Noctua. I wonder what will happen when TR release Royal Preytor Ultra. Not a good buy for conscious consumers.

Noctua is not only good for thermal performance, material quality, ease of installation and quietness are all additional great aspects. In addition to great customer service.

 

[ARF]

Noctua is not only good for thermal performance, material quality, ease of installation and quietness are all additional great aspects. In addition to great customer service.

This applies to many, if not all the others, cooler makers. Previously, I had a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme, from 2008, which I was offered to get an AM4 bracket for.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Noctua is not only good for thermal performance, material quality, ease of installation and quietness are all additional great aspects. In addition to great customer service.

Did you just rewrite a sentence from Noctua brochure?

Thermal performance is NORMAL and comparable to competition, and could you please explain how do materials differ from other taiwanese or chinese made coolers?

 

[fevgatos]

I already using 13+ year my old Noctua D14 still original fan working silent, I even receive free mounting kit to AM4 currently using it with Am5. And his is oldest part in my PC

Yeap, that's the whole point. People look at the price but forget this thing is going to outlast the user. You buy it once, you have it for life.

Noctua have never been about value. This is the best air cooler you can buy and the graphs confirm it. You can't use more than 1 cooler on a CPU, so the amount of coolers you can get for this is somewhat irrelevant. This cooler was never going to be about value, it was about Noctua engineering the very best air cooler, and they achieved that.

You're paying for the engineering that has gone into making this the best air cooler you can buy(R&D isn't cheap). You're also paying for top notch customer support, and if the past is anything to go by, future socket support at no-cost. That being said, this costs a bit too much with how close to the competition it is. I think a more reasonable price would be $100-130, and I think it'll get down to that ~$130 within the year.

What? You are saying that a cooler being designed and engineered and scrapped and started again from scratch several times is going to be expensive? Oh lord, who would have thought

/s

 

[gffermari]

Yeap, that's the whole point. People look at the price but forget this thing is going to outlast the user. You buy it once, you have it for life.

For those who are willing to keep it for more than 10 years, the price is fine.
The problem is people get bored and want a change. So selling it, they lose money.

 

[fevgatos]

For those who are willing to keep it for more than 10 years, the price is fine.
The problem is people get bored and want a change. So selling it, they lose money.

If you are frequently change your coolers for no reason then noctua isn't for you. Nothing wrong with that, buy something else.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Yeap, that's the whole point. People look at the price but forget this thing is going to outlast the user. You buy it once, you have it for life.

So you presume that Noctua will still exist in the next decades and supply several mounting uprages for their decades old coolers? And do you really believe that those plastic fans will last for decades?

What would they sell if they were only supporting their old coolers?

 

[fevgatos]

So you presume that Noctua will still exist in the next decades and supply several mounting uprages for their decades old coolers? And do you really believe that those plastic fans will last for decades?

What would they sell if they were only supporting their old coolers?

It's the only one company thus far that almost begged me not to buy one or their new coolers and just ask - free or charge - for a new mounting bracket. That's a company I want to support. I don't know if their fans will last for 10 years but they'll last twice as long as everyone else's so there is that.

 

[ymdhis]

So you presume that Noctua will still exist in the next decades and supply several mounting uprages for their decades old coolers? And do you really believe that those plastic fans will last for decades?

What would they sell if they were only supporting their old coolers?

I have noctua fans that have been working almost 24/7 since 2011, and according to the gamers nexus interview they have customers who have been using the same fans since 2006.
So yeah they do last decades.

 

[Assimilator]

What would they sell if they were only supporting their old coolers?

And therein lies the problem with capitalism: companies are perversely disincentivised from producing high-quality products because such products provide a lesser revenue stream.

It works in business because you can sell extended warranties and after-sales support, but that isn't really a thing for a consumer product - especially one as uncomplicated as an air cooler.

 

[KaitouX]

Yeap, that's the whole point. People look at the price but forget this thing is going to outlast the user. You buy it once, you have it for life.

I mean while there are benefits to Noctua, many manufacturers will send/sell you adapters for older coolers. Sure Noctua will probably do it for free and have a good and fast support, but I would guess you probably could just contact Thermalright buy the adapter, and use a Thermalright Ultra 90/120 from 2006 with your new AM5/LGA1700 CPU, even if with some issues arise while doing so.
BTW they do actually have the adapter for the mentioned cooler, but I have no personal experience on how it's to actually get it.

 

[Assimilator]

I mean while there are benefits to Noctua, many manufacturers will send/sell you adapters for older coolers. Sure Noctua will probably do it for free and have a good and fast support, but I would guess you probably could just contact Thermalright buy the adapter, and use a Thermalright Ultra 90/120 from 2006 with your new AM5/LGA1700 CPU, even if with some issues arise while doing so.
BTW they do actually have the adapter for the mentioned cooler, but I have no personal experience on how it's to actually get it.

And the required adapter can probably be found for a handful of $ on Ebay or AliExpress.

 

[Onasi]

Yeap, that's the whole point. People look at the price but forget this thing is going to outlast the user. You buy it once, you have it for life.

To be fair, it’s a hunk of aluminum. Unless you physically abuse it ANY such cooler will last a lifetime. There’s nothing to really break on them. Of course, Noctua fans ARE incredibly long lived too, but really, it’s up to one’s discretion to decide whether essentially paying 100-120 bucks over the competition just for said fans is something that’s worth said fans. Comes out to 50-60 bucks per fan which… eh, it is what it is.

 

[notanin]

Given similar performance I certainly can pay some premium for aesthetics.
G2 markup is crazy and it is quite ugly as well (subjective, of course) :/

 

[Ruru]

Great cooler, but 150USD for an aircooler is just insane. A "core" version without fans would probably be priced wiser.

 

[Onasi]

@Ruru
Like two thirds of the price ARE the fans. The heatsink itself is much of muchness with the old NH-D15/S. “Core” version would be grabbing one of those used and slapping the new fans on when they come out this Fall, I would think. Or doing the same with a TR cooler, I guess.

 

[ARF]

Yeap, that's the whole point. People look at the price but forget this thing is going to outlast the user. You buy it once, you have it for life.

1. The user will upgrade the system, with very low chance they will keep the cooler.
2. The fan MTBF is around 100,000 hours.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I do not know if many of you commenters noticed that the cooler body vibrates and a fin buzzes. I have never seen any cooler with a buzzing fin before.

I compared the vibrations with each one and both fans running and one fan seems to vibrate more. So the fans you are complimenting so much can be faulty.