Review: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black

Conclusion

The cooling requirements of today's best many-core processors have placed renewed focus on high-quality solutions tasked with keeping temperatures and noise levels under control, while potentially prolonging the lifespan of a typically expensive component.

Our initial round of testing on AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 3950X has served up some interesting results, with Noctua's revered NH-D15 besting a 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler with relative ease. The performance gap at stock levels is pronounced, and when overclocking at higher voltage, it is eye-opening to discover that a sub-£100 air cooler can do what a £160 liquid cooler cannot.

There's a sense that traditional air cooling has fallen out of fashion, but Noctua's sleek chromax.black makeover does a fine job of dispelling that misconception. It looks better than ever, performs like a champ, requires no superfluous software and keeps quiet under load. Everything one should look for in a premium cooler, and size permitting, a fine fit for an ultra-high-end rig.

Bottom line: £95 is a princely sum for an air cooler, yet if your build can accommodate such a behemoth, they don't come much better than Noctua's NH-D15 chromax.black.

Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black

HEXUS.where2buy*

The Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black CPU cooler is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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