Noctua NH-D15S Chromax.Black Dual-Tower CPU Cooler

Let me start out by saying this cooler was going into an existing build, not a new build. I had a two year old Thermaltake AIO that was failing miserably and making a lot of noise. You could hear the pump whining and the line into the radiator was burning hot and clearly not cooling correctly. Luckily I had some RGB set up in my case and I always keep it set to monitor the temperature of the CPU. Green=good, Red=bad. I noticed when I was playing games like Red Dead Redemption 2 it was turning Red and eventually it just stayed there as the AIO got worse. Eventually my PC did shut down because of the CPU overheating. That was enough for me to start the research and I settled on this air cooler after hearing the pump whine on my AIO.

I wanted the NH-D15 but because of my motherboard I could only fit one fan so I had to settle for the NH-D15S. I highly recommend you head over to Noctua’s website and make sure your MB is compatible before ordering anything. After tons of research I choose this guy over the BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4. I read nightmares from people installing the BeQuiet cooler because their mounting brackets were just horrible.

As far as install it kind of stunk, but that was because of my case (Thermaltake Core V21). I love my cube case, it’s the best case I ever worked in, but once my original cooler was installed I had to pull everything out to get to the new base plate for the NH-D15S on the back of my MB. My power supply was blocking access to the back of the MB, so I took all the sides of the V21 off (I love this case you can pull any side off except for the very front/back) and removed the PS to get to the base plate without removing my MB. I also took out my Graphics card, RAM and network card as well simply because if you slip with a screwdriver you don’t have to worry about hitting anything.

From there make sure to READ the directions and pick the correct alignment and spacers for your MB. They do supply the hardware for the LGA1700 MB’s. I would also recommend before you attach anything to dry fit the cooler into place to make sure you align the mounting plates in the correct direction (there are two ways you can choose to mount this, front to back or side to side and the mounting plates HAVE to be in the correct direction. Check all your clearances and have at it! It took me about 30 minutes to do by myself.

I have a Z490M MB with a i9-10900K Intel CPU. I run it at stock with no over clocking. My 280 Super MSI card always ran super quiet, even under load and this cooler does as well.

After installing it I immediately tried RDR2 the game that was killing my old cooler. I played for about an hour to stress it and it never went above 60 degrees and ran smoothly. Most of the time when the CPU isn’t busy it runs at 40 degrees. I could buy a few more 120mm fans for my case but don’t see a need at this point since it is SUPER quiet and staying very cool.

I’ll come back an update this review if anything changes but the system is whisper quiet. When I built my original PC I made it so it was quiet and it was for two years until the pump in the AIO went kaput!

Now it’s back to library quiet in my office!

UPDATE: 3/4/2023: I just got Hogwarts’s Legacy and have been playing it for hours and the temperatures have stayed below 65 with no issues. I’m running a 2080 Super card with LGA 1200 i9-9900k CPU. My fan speed in the Noctua runs at about 800 during the game but it is still very quiet. You can feel the heat being pumped out of the case with no issue. This cooler is a beast and it isn’t even the two fan model, just buy it!

This thing is huge! Build quality is top notch, nothing less from Noctus.

LGA1700 is supported right out of the box, so follow the instructions carefully!
And there are extra fan clips for the 2nd fan!

This CPU cooler is keeping the i7-14700F cool during gaming.

This NH-D15S cpu cooler is great and has better compatibility than the regular NH-D15 due to the offset design that allows better clearances between the cooler and the nearest M.2 slot to your cpu and first pcie slot/gpu on the motherboard. The unboxing and the packaging experience is top tier. This product already comes with a tube of thermal paste, mounting hardware for every platform including AM4 and Intel’s new LGA 1700.

I would say the only thing you would have to be mindful of is the height of this cooler. It is 160mm tall which is 5mm less than the regular D15. It should be compatible in most cases excluding most ITX chassis, so double check the clearances of your case before buying to be safe.

The installation of this beast of a cooler is the best I have experienced in terms of air coolers with Scythe air coolers being a very close 2nd. I’ve heard Noctua had the best mounting system on the market and that holds true. The secu – firm mounting system is the best I’ve worked with by far. The whole process of installing this cooler on my AM4 platform took 3 – 5min. Even with beginner pc builders, you should not have any issue at all with the installation process of this cooler.

As for the performance, it’s great! If you are one that enjoys a cool and quiet running pc, this is the cooler for you. The included NF-A15 140mm fan is rated for 150,000 hours of constant operation, has a 4-pin pwm cable, and Noctua’s in-house SSO2 bearing design is top tier. The 140mm fan has great static pressure and runs quiet depending on how you adjust your fan curves via the motherboard bios. It’s rated speeds are 300rpm – 1500rpm. There are extra fan clips that are included for an extra NF-A15 140mm fan as well. The included NT – H1 thermal paste is easy to work with and there is enough in the tube for multiple applications.

Overall, I highly recommend this cooler for those of you with 8 – 12 core cpu’s and who plan on doing overclocking as well as this cooler will give you plenty of thermal headroom for it. This is my first Noctua product and I always been hesitant in the pass on trying their coolers due to the price and the brown and beige color scheme. But now with their chromax black series, I highly recommend, you do get what you pay for when it comes to Noctua.

I got this cpu cooler for my first pc build and couldn’t be happier. This was ridiculously easy to install for a first time builder, and it fits perfectly in my phanteks g500a. There is plenty of clearance for the glass door, a 3070, and ram (however I did pick Corsair’s vengeance rgb pro sl ram just to be on the cautious side for size, which that gives me more than enough clearance). The cooler is pretty compatible with most builds. It keeps my 5800x cpu in a stable mid-high 30 degrees just idling or doing some casual browsing, and is essentially dead quiet. When it’s put under a fairly solid load, temperatures reach around 65-ish degrees and is hardly audible. The performance and stability of this exceed my expectations, and comes with a great 6 year warranty, free thermal compound, and has the option to install a second fan if you so desire. Definitely a 10/10 given how well this works and how low noise it is for the cost!

I had AIO in the past and they all eventually failed. This one has better performance and is reliable. Looks better in black!