Noctua NH-D15S, Premium Dual-Tower CPU Cooler with NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fan (Brown)

This CPU cooler is outstanding! I have OCD and I meticulously research and look through tens if not hundreds of coolers and AIOs. Different combinations, different fans, everything. I researched 280-360mm AIOs forever we that’s initially what I wanted to go with. I didn’t bother with 240s as I knew this could out perform those without the worry of leaks. After checking benchmarks, watching videos, and comparing aesthetics and price I settled on this. The Noctua NH-D15S. This is imo the best air cooler money can buy. It performs as well as any AIO and you don’t have to worry about having water around your expensive components. While leaks are rare they do happen. Air coolers never leak! The S version of the DH15 has better compatibility for the top GPU slot and allows for taller ram as well. My only issue with the cooler was the looks as the S version doesn’t have a Chromax Black edition like the normal N-DH15. To solve my issue with the looks I ordered the Chromax Black 140mm fan to replace the one it came with. Then I also ordered an extra Noctua Chromax Black Slim 120*15mm fan to add as well. This way the cooler could have two fans and still maintain it’s superior GPU and ram compatibility while gaining some extra cooling performance. I also got the Noctua Chromax Black heatsink covers for the cooler as well. You can see in the picture I uploaded that with the Chromax fans and heatsink covers this N-DH15s looks amazing! I went with black and blue theme but you can choose and change to any of the included 6 colors that you like. As for the cooler itself it came extremely well packaged. All the Noctua products I ordered which also included some Y Chromax Black and blue cables, the cooler, both the 140 and 120mm fans, and the heatsink covers all were some of it not the best packaging I have ever received. The installation process was the easiest I have ever experienced installing any cooler ever. So simple you attach two small bars and the cooler screws down in two spots with the included L shape screwdriver. It also comes with a Low Noise Adapter, premium extension cable, premium thermal compound, extra fan clips, and 3 seperate instruction booklets per different platforms. The cooler performs amazing! I am definitely a Noctua fan for life now. The 140mm fan tops out around 1500rpm and the slim 120 around 1900. During long gaming sessions they both stay around 1000 rpm and I can’t hear it at all. Even during a Prime95 stress test at max rpm it is still super quiet and I can only hear it if I stick my ear right on the case next to it which is just the sound of air being pushed through it. As for temps in gaming no matter how long my overclocked Ryzen 3600X never goes over 63C! This is with both fans staying around 1000 rpm as well so about 50-60% speed. In a stress test with every core at 100% load, my ram(32GB 3600mhz), and GPU(RTX 2070 Super) all maxed out this thing still keeps my CPU around 68-70C! It’s just absolutely insane. It’s such high quality, super easy to install, looks fantastic(if you get the accessories to make it so), and is one of the best performing cpu coolers you can buy counting AIOs! I only use a 140mm fan and a slim 120mm so with two 140s you would have even more performance! With the heatsinks on the cooler is about 165mm tall. It adds 5mm to the height so keep that in mind. My case holds coolers 166mm tall or under and it fits in mine with no issues at all. This cooler is amazing and if it will fit in your case you should stop your search here and just buy it. It will handle whatever you have with ease. Check out my pics to see what it looks like with everything together. One final note is the thermal paste included is Noctuas own NT-H1 which is amazing stuff but I have always used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut so that’s what I used here as well. It’s imo the best high performing paste you can buy but the included stuff is more than good enough and also great performing paste. Just something to note if you get temps different than mine. I also have a fully mesh case with amazing airflow so there’s that too. Best cooler out there imo. If it will fit in your case buy it!

I am running an Intel i7-5820K (Haswell-E) CPU in my rig, and due to a more narrow Computer case, I started out with a Noctua NH-C14S for cooling. The NH-C14S is excellent, but I wanted to go a step beyond, and so I purchased this NH-D15S to try and to run some new benchmarks. While the NH-D15S truly is a monster size cooler, the installation is quite easy, especially on an X99 Motherboard. As I had already installed the Noctua mounting system for my NH-C14S, it was simple to take out the NH-C14S and literally slap in the NH-D15S. The brackets are exactly the same. The fan is kind of a pain to install, but more on that later.I decided to test the CPU overclocking at 4.5 GHZ, at 1.31 Volts CPU, and I had my 16 Gb of Corsair Platinum memory at 3200. I ran the AIDA64 stress test, (I think Prime small FFT is too brutal) and I came out with temperatures averaging in the high 60s, (Centigrade) with an occasional individual core spike to 80 degrees. I ran the test for about an hour, surfed the Internet at the same time, and in a closed Case at around 22 degrees Centigrade ambient temperature. This result is about 6 or 7 degrees cooler (better) than the NH-C14S, and I found that I was using a lot less Watts of power, (AIDA64 reading), despite the same input voltage and CPU frequency. My system was stable, with no crashes or bluescreens. It would seem that there is more headroom to take the overclock up further, but that will be for another day. In short, I do not think you can get a better air cooler period. This kind of performance exceeds a lot of AIO Water systems, and I have no leaks, loud fans, or bad noisy pumps to deal with. Only "custom" water cooling is going to take you much further.As different CPUs have different thermal characteristics, (Skylake, Broadwell-E, etc.) your own results may vary. This was excellent for Haswell-E. There are also a great many other professional reviews on-line that will attest to this cooler's capabilities.Due to the size and cost of this particular cooler, while it is quite excellent, it is massive overkill if you are not overclocking your CPU. If you are not overclocking, get the Cooler Master 212 Evo or even the Noctua NH-U12S.Last but not least, as we have such great engineering in this cooler's mounting system being so easy and straightforward, and we have such wonderful cooling capabilities, how is it that we are stuck with mounting the fans on with spring wire clips? Really? There is something to be said for effective simplicity and light weight, but I think Noctua can do better. Getting the fan mounted with the clips in between the two cooling towers was kind of a pain, and it resulted in some frustration and some bent fins. Oh, the fins got bent back, and the fan was attached, but the clips were almost sent to the trashcan. Noctua needs to come up with something better. Also, I changed out the Noctua fan for a Phanteks 140mm CPU Cooler fan (PH-F140HP_BK2) that fit perfectly, and looks absolutely killer. The Noctua fan is great, but it looks awful. The Phanteks fan performs as well, and it looks like it was made for the heatsink and for my particular rig, in porcelain white frame and matte black fan. Man, does it look good.For sheer performance, this CPU Cooling Monster gets 5 Stars, but there is room for improvement. The competition is not standing still. I hope Noctua is not standing still.