Just a small note to add to this which didn't make it into the edit: none of our three samples from Noctua, nor a Standard version we bought at retail exhibited any of the "rattling" some people have experienced.
Would be interesting to see how a contact frame would alter the results on LGA1700. I wonder if the standard G2 would then work best on that platform? 🙂
I think I'm sticking with my Phantom Spirit SE but it is good to see Noctua doing so well since it costs so much. Noctua quality and sound is very tough to beat. Thumbs up!
Thermalright is just competing with itself at this point. Haven't they released like 5-6 affordable and superbly performing air coolers with similarly wacky names in the last 2 or so years? They're all just blending together at this point.
The thing is, what makes the Noctua better is mostly the fans. If you bought any of the big dual tower Thermalright coolers and added 2 Noctua fans, it would still be cheaper than buying the Noctua cooler with very similar performance.
Running my D15 since my 4790K up uittil my 7800X3D cooling everything like a boss. Even did cool my i9 10900K like a champ. And it is silent as hell most of the time. Fans are being cleaned once in a while and ofc the cooling block. I always cool all my systems with Noctua. Although I also have a water cooled system. Great video!
Same here, got the D15 for my first rig with a 4790k, and built up to a 12600k, but this cooler has been on various different builds in between, and I honestly cleaned it two or three times in this decade, I'm still impressed with the performance since even under heavy load I can barely hear it. It was 90$ when I got it, Noctua also sent me the hardware for AM4 and LGA1200. Although I have to say that 150$ for the G2 is personally too much, but if one wants something reliable, with great quality and support from the company I would say the G2 is a great choice
Not me... Mah NH-D15 was running on the hot stove FX-8350, i got the cooler when it was very new... Great cooler multiple CPUs did pass with it, it did cool them all great, and it is still cooling mah Ryzen 5800x3D... I am kinda disappointed by the gains the D15 G2 have, if it was constant like 6c all the time, it would be amazing, but is only 3c and not always... Tho i did find great deal on the x2 G2 fans, about new with warranty both for 40$, so i did took the shot at them ofc.. Not sure i will prob replace my original D15 fans with these G2 fans, and see if there will be at least minor difference...
I find them a little misleading. When comparing different coolers, graph range should be (from 0 to max) celsius degrees above ambient temperature. This will correctly show difference between premium and average coolers. In this video graph is kinda zoomed in to show small diferences as bigger ones.
Well well.....the King is truly back. I'm shocked at the gap between the G2 and the other air coolers at high heat loads, looking at your graphs. And as far as the price and the brown and beige look goes, I love how the colours look in my current build. It stands out in an all-black build and draws attention to itself as though it's the star of the show. My only regret is that I didn't go with ultra-low profile RAM sticks so the front fan is not on the same level as the centre fan. I like symmetry.
@@satokotsu On the cooler page for Arctic, I only see AM4 and AM5 as options to choose from, nothing for Threadripper. I am thinking about their Liquid Freezer coolers, any of them, not just III.
Not many companies bother with such sockets. Usually they are niche market, and you need to make specialized cooler with big enough coldplate to cover the IHS. best bet for you is custom water-cooling and getting block made for these CPUs (Heatkiller make some), or use exiting coolers like NH-U14S TR5-SP6.
If the case supports it, I will almost always go with Arctic Liquid Freezer III. Non-RGB 360mm version costs a little over half of what NH-D15 G2 costs in Europe, while being the better performer. Even the 240mm performs better. And with 6 years warranty I don't have to worry about it falling apart. You also get offset mount for AM4/AM5 included. One time that I've choose Noctua top tier coolers was when I've build few workstations for the company I've worked for at the time. Price was not an issue, but it had to be very reliable and easy to maintain, since those workstations were running at full load for 2-3 days straight. Those workstations lasted 4 or 5 years without a problem, before being replaced by a better performing ones. In that time they were air cleaned 2 times a year and paste was replaced every 18 months.
I will be interested how Royal Pretor performs against this, 3 times more expensive, chunk of metal called D15 G2. Just can't wait for those new TR coolers. PS: just checked the price of standard G2 here.. 183€ lol (eastern Europe). Long live the PS120!
Great video Mike - as always! But I'm not sure it took the competition 10 years to match the original. 6 years ago I was researching which air cooler to get for my overclocked Ryzen 1800X and I ended up going for the Thermalright Le Grand macho RT (released 9 years ago), as it was trading blows with the original D15, was substantially cheaper than it...and I just thought it looked a little better than it too. It's now happily cooling a 5700X
Great video. I really like air coolers, their reliability. I've been watching/reading your content for very long in this subject, I love it. This review certainly is way up there when it comes to expectations hehe, since the D15 came out and dethroned my beloved D14. Although the breakthroughs Noctua brought are awesome, engineering wise, this time, however, for the vast majority of people is just not worth it $. But the product is top notch and all the Noctua perks that come with it are certainly worth it for some. Awesome review, thanks Mike. PS: The original D15 still looks incredible though, how cool is that wow. I wonder how my OG D14 would look in these graphs heheh, Noctua delivers.
Noctua is a good company. They didnt need to upgrade plain and simple. In a sea of companies that want you to upgrade every years its nice to see Noctua take their time and release products they feel are needed.
Have a 10850k, Noctua NH-D15, big case, temps never go above 80c on full load for an hour even during a heatwave, silent, efficient, l clean it once a year, dependable and a brand that ACTUALLY cares... A lot of comments about the price and how others are cheaper but no one talks about how noctua actually cares to make a good cooler and study it in depth more than others... Thats gotta be worth something, why not support the few companies that offer good service and a good product
I was almost about to spend 90€ for a NH-D15 G1 but luckily found your video on the Phantom Spirit 120 SE. Can't be happier this thing cools down my i5-13500 on 95W PL1/2 to 55 Degrees Celsius at idle rpm.
I'm really glad you mention that this increased cooling capacity won't really get you better gaming performance, just a nicer experience and great quality. Edit: for more reasonable CPUs like i5 and r5 I feel like we've had plenty of more than capable coolers for cheap prices for ages now. I'm still running the heatsink from a 15 year old Scythe Mugen 2 on my i5, and I don't even need to run my fan above 800 rpm. (1x Be quiet shadow wings 2 120mm)
I am still rocking my Noctua NH-U12A Chromax for my 5800x. This is the best single tower air cooler I have ever own, and it performs similar as the NH-D15. The best thing is that it doesn't get in the way of my Corsair Vengeance RGB rams.
Whilst I won't buy this cooler, I have infinite respect for its engineering. It reminds me of Baldur's Gate 3 in an odd way: made by people who love their job (and are extremely good at it).
Last I looked, it still IS one of the best coolers out there. However, between when we first reviewed it and now, there have been very comparable cooler launched.
Does anyone else actually wanna know how Thermalright is doing it!? Like surely they are selling for a loss...? 95% of the performance for $35 is ridiculous 😭
What a review, you built the exact graphs with relevant info we need. The only thing missing that would be cool is noise measurements for a couple full high airflow pc builds AMD/Intel, few fan profiles, and workloads so we wouldn’t have to do any graph math to figure out how much quieter our rooms could be. Like in the real world would that money make our girlfriends happier when they’re sitting next to us when we fire up a game or trying to have a conversation listening to music at idle? What temps can we safely run to reduce noise, does this cooler let us achieve those temps with notably quieter fan speeds, and how do we configure that?
A good coverage and exactly my worry that these optimizations done for specific platforms would work the other way round for next generation of CPUs. IMHO if the development effort could be spent elsewhere such as vapor chamber, that might be better for longevity.
People bashing the price probably are right but cases also come with fans too that are just fine. But sometimes people want something that’s gonna still be working just fine 7 years from now, maybe more when it moves on to the next build or two
For the money I'd rather go with a liquid cooler and replace that once, twice if i'm unlucky for the lifespan of a PC (8-10 years) and meanwhile enjoy 10 degree cooler temps the whole while. For now I'm good with Thermalright 1/5 -1/3 of the price that performs 1 degree worse at best, at least while Thermalrights pricing strategy lasts.
it's pretty obvious what happened during the 253w test, the reason the washers didn't help is because at that point you're clearly at the limits of how much heat the d15 is physically capable of removing
You buy noctua for their support and reliability. I've been running the same cooler for over 15 years. Started from lga 775 and now on am5. Every upgrade was free of charge and shipped via mail. I don't know any other company that will do that kind of customer care.😊
Great review! ..but I still see no reason to buy this cooler at 159euro, when my old TR phantom spirit at 24euro doing same work and in certain situations even better😅 I respect Noctua, but in my opinion they digging in the wrong side..
Gonna be honest I've used the noctua for 4 years and have never head an issue with noise or heat with my cpu not sponsored just being honest. Love my cooler.
Didn't realise until this review they have altered the compatibility to move it away from the GPU that's a definite bonus (can't use the offset on current DH-15 Chromax as it touches my 4090 FE). Sounds like a great cooler but then you have things like the Arctic L Freezer 3, 360 going for £79 its a difficult sell, but as you say you want the ultimate Air cooling Experience Noctua have done it again.
I have the deep cool right above the assassin and it actually did well for 1.5 years at 45c minimum on an i7 cpu. But now unfortunately buying Indiana jones game it’s constantly crashing and I can see it can’t keep up anymore. Going to try this out, thank you for the video.
Why would I pay 4 times as much for a cooler that's only 1% better??? I'd go with Thermalright and Arctic all day or even get a decent AIO instead of the D15G2 and I'd still be saving money.
@@wojtek-33 The price difference is so massive, that even talks of "support" are no longer relavent since if you experience problems with Thermalright, you can literally throw it into the trashcan and order a new one and you will still be saving money compared to Noctua. Unlike a decade ago, there is no longer a reason to buy Noctua at all. Their case fans are the only things still worth buying.
@angrysocialjusticewarrior When looking at total system cost, the price difference isnt that huge, if ur whole PC is 2k well now its 2.1k, thats 5% more for a quieter system.
I was torn between a U12A and a D15 last year, and I thought I'd be swapping to a D15v2, but I'm glad I got the U12A, 1/2c difference between the coolers on AMD, but I can reuse my U12A fans unlike the D15 fans. Might get the Chromax 140mms for my case though. (if they don't take another 2 years)
Quality motors & sound frequencies it makes. Plus satisfies the geek in many who care enough to even watch this video. Supporting a company pushing the ball forward.
So after years of waiting, the next generation of NH-D15 has arrived. I mentioned a few times that this will be a make-or-break moment for Noctua. As the more expensive 100$+ air coolers introduced last year have all bled out to the Thermalright competition, offering almost nothing in performance, and going for fancy looks instead, there was just one more competitor missing in action: Noctua. Now that the new NH-D15 Gen 2 has arrived, it's fair to say that Noctua managed to beat the competition performance-wise, but it feels more like a pyrrhic victory. Mike sums this up very nicely at the end of the video. The difference between Noctua's new cooler and the competition is almost unnoticeable unless you look at the charts. So it's a victory, but there's a price to pay: in this case, literally. For $150 (and if the Chromax version comes out, expect it to cost even more!), you can buy a nice AIO which will perform better, and perhaps even look better. Personally I wouldn't bother with this cooler. Thermalright's cooler achieves 90% of Noctua's Gen 2 performance for fraction of the cost. I would say that if your CPU is not a top-tier one, go for Thermalright, that 10% performance won't hurt you, and you can spend the money elsewhere. However, for a top-tier CPU, an AIO would be a better choice, because an air cooler might not give you the advertised CPU performance regardless of your choice of air cooler. Simply because if the Thermalright Phantom Spirit's performance is not good enough, the Noctua NH-D15 G2 won't save you either.
Thanks for the great synopsis. I think you are right but we also have to understand that the writing is on the wall for Noctua too. They're diversifying before our eyes with their move towards more exotic forms of cooling like their partnership with Calyos' Loop Pipe cooler.
@@HardwareCanucks Exactly. I believe if they don't branch out and try to establish themselves in some other fields, they might start to struggle. That prototype they showed at Computex was very cool, and I hope it won't be just a concept.
I bought a Thermalright PS140 and snapped a screw when trying to fit the AM4 mounting kit. It’s the cheapest and worst fitting I’ve ever worked with. Zero spare screws so basically can’t use a brand new cooler. I drove to the PC store and purchased the Deep cool Assassin IV and I couldn’t be happier. It looks better, runs quietly and was so easy to mount
oh my goodness there are three, this is so confusing. you either recorded this more than a month ago or you're a bodydouble cause you're talking as if you weren't at computex. who are you and what did you do with Fanboy? Peace! keep up the great work, I appreciate all the testing you guys do.
You should test Cooler Master MasterAir MA824 Stealth since it seems to be better than the standard D15 but im wondering how close it can get to the G2 and since its 90€ its definitely cheaper.
"you don't need a high end cooler for gaming" very true but it is much appreciated with open back headphones :P when the cooling block itself is not really up to the job there is 1 solution at lower costs, bump the fanspeed :P 3000 RPM under load isn't that distracting right :P it's why i went custom watercooling....which is still cooled by noctua NF-A 12x25's as they are just the golden balance between actually doing work and not hearing them do any work :P
Nice review! Is it possible to do the test with "orientation 2" per Noctua manual (rotated 90°). With only one fan at top? Meaning more heatpipes are engaged for AMD, but also heat from GPU.
You include a graph of noise vs. CPU frequency for the 13900k, but not the 7950x. Is this because the various coolers don't affect peak frequency, or because you simply didn't test that?
I really wonder about the longevity of this. Noctua kept pushing this thing back because they found the fans to bend with long term use and they had to change materials. Maybe they will themselves find out in a year or so that it's still not sufficient.
For enthousiasts, the LBC is better than the standard because any delidded/modded cpu will need the flatness for increased cooling performance. There you go, a reason for LBC.
The first class vs economy seating analogy was absurd. The better analogy is someone who paid $10,000 for a first class ticket with an additional irreverent perk and another person who paid $3500 for a similar first class seat without that perk.
I’m looking forward to see results for the HBC version with the incoming Intel cpus like Core 9 Ultra 285K
5 месяцев назад
Wow, at 36db! Reality: noise from the street traffic is higher than any of these coolers. In my home office, even my 19 EUR Arctic Freezer 36 is as good as silent and cools my 5700X equally well in any scenario I throw at it.
Noctua was been chasing perfection while other companies were catching up and now there are coolers that perform just as good for much less. Pisses me off that they're still going with that colour scheme and add on a tax for the black version.
Yep the TR Peerless Asassin 120 SE and ID A620 Pro SE both cost 80% less at $30. Even the 33-35% more expensive TR Phantom Spirit 120 EVO that closes the performance gap further is still 73% more affordable than the D15 G2.
@@loomawoe what about ID Cooling? And assuming the average individual consumer (even professionals) don't have their system powered on for more than 100 hours per week it would take just about 7 years to reach that FDM longevity rating. Sure that's not 28 years of rated longevity hence part of what factors into the huge price premium, but I guess $120-$150 is worth it if serves in build-after-build for 20+ years.
@@AquilaeYT And the AIO pump usually have noise.. Also there many cases of broken or straight dead pump, that will result in ur system shutting down, while this will never happen to an air cooler.. Even if one of the 2 fans fail the one remaining will still be able to handle the system fine. Also AIO coolers have the nasty habit of getting some kind of gunk inside the liquid and even fill important holes for the contact plate for the CPU, resulting in garbage high temperatirs, and overheat... Not to mention some of these AIO do leak, and cause destroyed parts, usually the GPU... So AIOs are garbage, and i prefer to get AIO cooler even if is the expensive G2...
@@themobster7284 My EK Nucleus 360 didn't have any noise from the pump. Air cooler can also broken if you install/uninstall the air-cooler for a test bench (a NH-u12A from mine was faulty 4 years later because the contact plate become scratchy and didn't do the proper contact after 5 years) If you buy some crappy AIO like Arctic or Cooler Master or even Be Quiet obviously it will be bad but mine is literally one of the best and didn't have any problems and destroy my old nh-u12a in terms of performance with 3 NF-A12X25 on it. I also have a thermal grizzly contact frame, stop misinforming people's and say that AIO is useless or something, you didn't stay with your air-cooler more than 5/7 years, I had a Corsair aio that last 8 years, i kept less my air cooler than my old aio because it was not be able to keep cool enough all these new CPU's. Never had a problem with leak, stop buying cheap AIO. Wtf ? You prefer take aio over the G15 G2 ? Are you ok ? You try since the beginning to say that you hate AIO to say finally that you prefer AIO because D15 G2 is too expensive wtf Also the G2 is really bad, it have a rattlingate issue, some people's talk about that. I understand that the majority of AIO are bad and ugly but mine is perfect.
I think between all the “good” cooling options out there, for the most part, we’re talking about 1-6 degrees difference. Other than the small minority of people who have the mindset of performance > absolutely everything, I think most people consider a lot of other factors when deciding on their cooling option. Some people might prioritize price, some esthetics, some brand loyalty, some noise etc but when it comes to performance they don’t need it to be the “best” they just don’t want it to be bad. It’s a reviewers job to hyper focus on performance as they provide us with an important data point to help us avoid choosing a bad product but as consumers I think we sometimes put too much weight on that single data point.
@@NGreediaexcept unlike apple and starbucks, the noctua is actually a good product, also the noctua has signifigtantly higher build quality then any thermalright product, the noctua will last forever, you can't say the same about the thermalright
Just a small note to add to this which didn't make it into the edit: none of our three samples from Noctua, nor a Standard version we bought at retail exhibited any of the "rattling" some people have experienced.
@HardwareCanucks noctua put out a response and offered a full refund, and they have been able to duplicate the issue.
The PCGamesHardware Test said - 2,3°C for the Corsair A115 compared to the G2 @ 150 W.
I hope you can test the G2 fans on the old NH-D15. I'm really curious how much performance they got from just the fan upgrade.
Would be interesting to see how a contact frame would alter the results on LGA1700. I wonder if the standard G2 would then work best on that platform? 🙂
I think I'm sticking with my Phantom Spirit SE but it is good to see Noctua doing so well since it costs so much. Noctua quality and sound is very tough to beat. Thumbs up!
I bought mine for £30! Hell yeah brother!
wait till u hear of tr royal preytor ultra
Thermalright is just competing with itself at this point. Haven't they released like 5-6 affordable and superbly performing air coolers with similarly wacky names in the last 2 or so years? They're all just blending together at this point.
It gives other companies something to aim at.
The thing is, what makes the Noctua better is mostly the fans. If you bought any of the big dual tower Thermalright coolers and added 2 Noctua fans, it would still be cheaper than buying the Noctua cooler with very similar performance.
Running my D15 since my 4790K up uittil my 7800X3D cooling everything like a boss. Even did cool my i9 10900K like a champ. And it is silent as hell most of the time. Fans are being cleaned once in a while and ofc the cooling block. I always cool all my systems with Noctua. Although I also have a water cooled system. Great video!
Same here, got the D15 for my first rig with a 4790k, and built up to a 12600k, but this cooler has been on various different builds in between, and I honestly cleaned it two or three times in this decade, I'm still impressed with the performance since even under heavy load I can barely hear it. It was 90$ when I got it, Noctua also sent me the hardware for AM4 and LGA1200.
Although I have to say that 150$ for the G2 is personally too much, but if one wants something reliable, with great quality and support from the company I would say the G2 is a great choice
Same, I got the NH-D14, and put it on the 4770K, then upgraded to the NH-D15 when I got Ryzen 3900X and now it's on a 14700K and works great.
Not me... Mah NH-D15 was running on the hot stove FX-8350, i got the cooler when it was very new... Great cooler multiple CPUs did pass with it, it did cool them all great, and it is still cooling mah Ryzen 5800x3D... I am kinda disappointed by the gains the D15 G2 have, if it was constant like 6c all the time, it would be amazing, but is only 3c and not always... Tho i did find great deal on the x2 G2 fans, about new with warranty both for 40$, so i did took the shot at them ofc.. Not sure i will prob replace my original D15 fans with these G2 fans, and see if there will be at least minor difference...
Your comparative graphs are the easiest to read.
Thanks...I think?
This. So nice. The clock speed graphs are really cool too.
👏
I find them a little misleading. When comparing different coolers, graph range should be (from 0 to max) celsius degrees above ambient temperature. This will correctly show difference between premium and average coolers. In this video graph is kinda zoomed in to show small diferences as bigger ones.
i dont get it why its louder when temperatures are low
Well well.....the King is truly back. I'm shocked at the gap between the G2 and the other air coolers at high heat loads, looking at your graphs. And as far as the price and the brown and beige look goes, I love how the colours look in my current build. It stands out in an all-black build and draws attention to itself as though it's the star of the show. My only regret is that I didn't go with ultra-low profile RAM sticks so the front fan is not on the same level as the centre fan. I like symmetry.
I wish they made a Threadripper version of this. And that Arctic made a Threadripper version of their Liquid Freezer coolers.
there’s already a threadripper version of the freezer iii?
@@satokotsu On the cooler page for Arctic, I only see AM4 and AM5 as options to choose from, nothing for Threadripper. I am thinking about their Liquid Freezer coolers, any of them, not just III.
Not many companies bother with such sockets. Usually they are niche market, and you need to make specialized cooler with big enough coldplate to cover the IHS. best bet for you is custom water-cooling and getting block made for these CPUs (Heatkiller make some), or use exiting coolers like NH-U14S TR5-SP6.
@@eliadbu Yeah. And I have the U14S, but this seems better
Frostgiant??
This is the video I've been waiting for... Thanks, G. You're the man!
If the case supports it, I will almost always go with Arctic Liquid Freezer III. Non-RGB 360mm version costs a little over half of what NH-D15 G2 costs in Europe, while being the better performer. Even the 240mm performs better. And with 6 years warranty I don't have to worry about it falling apart. You also get offset mount for AM4/AM5 included.
One time that I've choose Noctua top tier coolers was when I've build few workstations for the company I've worked for at the time. Price was not an issue, but it had to be very reliable and easy to maintain, since those workstations were running at full load for 2-3 days straight. Those workstations lasted 4 or 5 years without a problem, before being replaced by a better performing ones. In that time they were air cleaned 2 times a year and paste was replaced every 18 months.
Best bit about Noctua, even when the fans are spinning fast, they sound pleasant, its something you can very easily filter out and forget its there
Mike could you test the old heatsink with the G2 fans? And even with just one. For example D15S with one G2 fan. Thanks!!
I think Gamers Nexus may have done this.
Interesting question. I'll get on it.
@@wojtek-33
I don't think they did, I believe Machines and More did it.
@@fatrob88 I went back and looked, GN tested the old fan on the new heatsink. It was about 3 degrees warmer.
@@wojtek-33 They did
I WAITED 10 YEARS FOR YOU TO MAKE THIS VIDEO MIKE 💞🎉
Coolers 1/3 the price offer 98% of the performance...
I would way rather just buy 5 dual tower thermal right coolers
It's not made for price-sensitive buyers. Never was.
corvette vs ferrari moment
Noctua would be more PORSCHE ;-)
Get those then❤
I am soo looking forward to your videos on the TR coolers Mike
Been waiting for this, fab thankyou
I will be interested how Royal Pretor performs against this, 3 times more expensive, chunk of metal called D15 G2. Just can't wait for those new TR coolers. PS: just checked the price of standard G2 here.. 183€ lol (eastern Europe). Long live the PS120!
I've been waiting for your review of this cooler, and you delivered! Great vid
Thanks!
On the topic of the HBC vs Standart G2 variants of the cooler - I'd say get a contact frame (form TR/Thermal Grizzly) and just get the standart one.
Great video Mike - as always! But I'm not sure it took the competition 10 years to match the original. 6 years ago I was researching which air cooler to get for my overclocked Ryzen 1800X and I ended up going for the Thermalright Le Grand macho RT (released 9 years ago), as it was trading blows with the original D15, was substantially cheaper than it...and I just thought it looked a little better than it too. It's now happily cooling a 5700X
Today I learned that Noctua is named after the Athene noctua, which is a small kind of owl. Thats where their logo comes from too!
Great video. I really like air coolers, their reliability. I've been watching/reading your content for very long in this subject, I love it. This review certainly is way up there when it comes to expectations hehe, since the D15 came out and dethroned my beloved D14. Although the breakthroughs Noctua brought are awesome, engineering wise, this time, however, for the vast majority of people is just not worth it $. But the product is top notch and all the Noctua perks that come with it are certainly worth it for some. Awesome review, thanks Mike.
PS: The original D15 still looks incredible though, how cool is that wow. I wonder how my OG D14 would look in these graphs heheh, Noctua delivers.
Noctua is a good company. They didnt need to upgrade plain and simple. In a sea of companies that want you to upgrade every years its nice to see Noctua take their time and release products they feel are needed.
Have a 10850k, Noctua NH-D15, big case, temps never go above 80c on full load for an hour even during a heatwave, silent, efficient, l clean it once a year, dependable and a brand that ACTUALLY cares... A lot of comments about the price and how others are cheaper but no one talks about how noctua actually cares to make a good cooler and study it in depth more than others... Thats gotta be worth something, why not support the few companies that offer good service and a good product
I love the look and feel of a crispy, new Kirkland black Tee. Great choice.
Hey it's pima cotton. I love me some well priced pima.
I was almost about to spend 90€ for a NH-D15 G1 but luckily found your video on the Phantom Spirit 120 SE. Can't be happier this thing cools down my i5-13500 on 95W PL1/2 to 55 Degrees Celsius at idle rpm.
yes but how does it sound when it spins at higher speeds?
@ i never heard or saw it ramp up.
Cannot wait for Peerless Assassin 140 test :D
When the new fans out, I’m gonna build a fully air cooled system with the G2 and new fans
I'm really glad you mention that this increased cooling capacity won't really get you better gaming performance, just a nicer experience and great quality.
Edit: for more reasonable CPUs like i5 and r5 I feel like we've had plenty of more than capable coolers for cheap prices for ages now. I'm still running the heatsink from a 15 year old Scythe Mugen 2 on my i5, and I don't even need to run my fan above 800 rpm. (1x Be quiet shadow wings 2 120mm)
I am still rocking my Noctua NH-U12A Chromax for my 5800x. This is the best single tower air cooler I have ever own, and it performs similar as the NH-D15. The best thing is that it doesn't get in the way of my Corsair Vengeance RGB rams.
Whilst I won't buy this cooler, I have infinite respect for its engineering. It reminds me of Baldur's Gate 3 in an odd way: made by people who love their job (and are extremely good at it).
Man....I feel so old now. I still have a working gen 1 Noctua NH-D14........That thing was built to last
I'm building my first PC and getting this thing. im hype
Your prior graphs show the Frost Spirit as one of the best coolers for the 7950.x Has your testing methodology changed since your last review?
11:20
Last I looked, it still IS one of the best coolers out there. However, between when we first reviewed it and now, there have been very comparable cooler launched.
Return of the King sure, but u gotta sell your own Kingdom to afford it.
how bout 9800x3d mike ? if i'm not mistaken, their dies are in the middle and on top, but some parts on top are flipped towards the middle....
Does anyone else actually wanna know how Thermalright is doing it!? Like surely they are selling for a loss...? 95% of the performance for $35 is ridiculous 😭
Probably, but they claim they make everything themselves, so maybe that helps more than we expect.
Their development and production fees are substantially less. They also make iterative changes until a "jackpot" moment.
Thermalright owns their factories, which can significantly speed up prototyping, and keep costs down once a cooler enters mass production.
I can't wait to cool my i3 with this G2.
brother it worththe money! Mine still working completely fine i didnt even changed the fans i changed 2 cpus but the cooler is still fine
Great video 👍🏼
The free upgrades and longevity is a pretty major selling point, it will to a pretty significant degree offset the high cost in the long run.
Take note kids: ambient temperature referenced on the graph.
I would like to see a challenge between Noctua NH-D15 G2 and the new ThermalRight Peerless Assassin 140. Thanks for the review
I have the old one. I'll upgrade when the Nawktuah NH-D15 G3 releases
What a review, you built the exact graphs with relevant info we need. The only thing missing that would be cool is noise measurements for a couple full high airflow pc builds AMD/Intel, few fan profiles, and workloads so we wouldn’t have to do any graph math to figure out how much quieter our rooms could be. Like in the real world would that money make our girlfriends happier when they’re sitting next to us when we fire up a game or trying to have a conversation listening to music at idle? What temps can we safely run to reduce noise, does this cooler let us achieve those temps with notably quieter fan speeds, and how do we configure that?
A good coverage and exactly my worry that these optimizations done for specific platforms would work the other way round for next generation of CPUs.
IMHO if the development effort could be spent elsewhere such as vapor chamber, that might be better for longevity.
People bashing the price probably are right but cases also come with fans too that are just fine. But sometimes people want something that’s gonna still be working just fine 7 years from now, maybe more when it moves on to the next build or two
I still use my NH-D15 Chromax that I bought it used for like $70, but if I wouldn't buy another, there are many alternatives on the market right now.
Well, I just finished a build with the Nh d9l, For the Mood case, I'll keep this one in mind for a next build.
For the money I'd rather go with a liquid cooler and replace that once, twice if i'm unlucky for the lifespan of a PC (8-10 years) and meanwhile enjoy 10 degree cooler temps the whole while.
For now I'm good with Thermalright 1/5 -1/3 of the price that performs 1 degree worse at best, at least while Thermalrights pricing strategy lasts.
150 usd ... is a lot of money. But my ears will be very happy about not hearing fan noise for the next ~10 years. Totally worth the cost.
🤣
I can't do this color. Have to wait for the black version. Not sure why it's not out at launch.
I still have the G1 of the Noctua NH-D15. Still balling like a boss.
Time to build a brand new DDR5 system.
it's pretty obvious what happened during the 253w test, the reason the washers didn't help is because at that point you're clearly at the limits of how much heat the d15 is physically capable of removing
M still with my artic liquid freezer 2 240 just got the 1700 bracket. Works great
You buy noctua for their support and reliability. I've been running the same cooler for over 15 years. Started from lga 775 and now on am5. Every upgrade was free of charge and shipped via mail. I don't know any other company that will do that kind of customer care.😊
Any chance of some AM4 numbers please? 😅
Great review!
..but I still see no reason to buy this cooler at 159euro, when my old TR phantom spirit at 24euro doing same work and in certain situations even better😅
I respect Noctua, but in my opinion they digging in the wrong side..
You're not a real gamer! Real gamers always overpay for performance they won't even notice.
the old F12 and A14 really were beautiful to look at though, weren’t they
Please do a lower end cooler round up ... Slim single tower coolers chart would be awesome
Good review. Are you gonna make video of Noctua NH-L12Sx77?
Gonna be honest I've used the noctua for 4 years and have never head an issue with noise or heat with my cpu not sponsored just being honest. Love my cooler.
Didn't realise until this review they have altered the compatibility to move it away from the GPU that's a definite bonus (can't use the offset on current DH-15 Chromax as it touches my 4090 FE). Sounds like a great cooler but then you have things like the Arctic L Freezer 3, 360 going for £79 its a difficult sell, but as you say you want the ultimate Air cooling Experience Noctua have done it again.
Great review! Could you do a review on newer Scythe fans, Wonder Snail for example?
I have the deep cool right above the assassin and it actually did well for 1.5 years at 45c minimum on an i7 cpu. But now unfortunately buying Indiana jones game it’s constantly crashing and I can see it can’t keep up anymore. Going to try this out, thank you for the video.
Why would I pay 4 times as much for a cooler that's only 1% better??? I'd go with Thermalright and Arctic all day or even get a decent AIO instead of the D15G2 and I'd still be saving money.
You wouldn't, but someone who wants the best air cooler, plus the support you get, would. I'd personally never use an AIO but that's just me.
I think my plane reference flew over the heads of most people. :P
@@wojtek-33 The price difference is so massive, that even talks of "support" are no longer relavent since if you experience problems with Thermalright, you can literally throw it into the trashcan and order a new one and you will still be saving money compared to Noctua. Unlike a decade ago, there is no longer a reason to buy Noctua at all. Their case fans are the only things still worth buying.
@angrysocialjusticewarrior When looking at total system cost, the price difference isnt that huge, if ur whole PC is 2k well now its 2.1k, thats 5% more for a quieter system.
@@ThunderingRoar We are not talking percentage here. A price increase of 120€ in comparison to something more "reasonable" is real money.
I was torn between a U12A and a D15 last year, and I thought I'd be swapping to a D15v2, but I'm glad I got the U12A, 1/2c difference between the coolers on AMD, but I can reuse my U12A fans unlike the D15 fans.
Might get the Chromax 140mms for my case though. (if they don't take another 2 years)
Quality motors & sound frequencies it makes. Plus satisfies the geek in many who care enough to even watch this video. Supporting a company pushing the ball forward.
Thermalright is doing more to push the ball forward in the price bracket that matters for 99% of the market.
So after years of waiting, the next generation of NH-D15 has arrived. I mentioned a few times that this will be a make-or-break moment for Noctua. As the more expensive 100$+ air coolers introduced last year have all bled out to the Thermalright competition, offering almost nothing in performance, and going for fancy looks instead, there was just one more competitor missing in action: Noctua.
Now that the new NH-D15 Gen 2 has arrived, it's fair to say that Noctua managed to beat the competition performance-wise, but it feels more like a pyrrhic victory. Mike sums this up very nicely at the end of the video. The difference between Noctua's new cooler and the competition is almost unnoticeable unless you look at the charts. So it's a victory, but there's a price to pay: in this case, literally. For $150 (and if the Chromax version comes out, expect it to cost even more!), you can buy a nice AIO which will perform better, and perhaps even look better.
Personally I wouldn't bother with this cooler. Thermalright's cooler achieves 90% of Noctua's Gen 2 performance for fraction of the cost. I would say that if your CPU is not a top-tier one, go for Thermalright, that 10% performance won't hurt you, and you can spend the money elsewhere. However, for a top-tier CPU, an AIO would be a better choice, because an air cooler might not give you the advertised CPU performance regardless of your choice of air cooler. Simply because if the Thermalright Phantom Spirit's performance is not good enough, the Noctua NH-D15 G2 won't save you either.
Thanks for the great synopsis. I think you are right but we also have to understand that the writing is on the wall for Noctua too. They're diversifying before our eyes with their move towards more exotic forms of cooling like their partnership with Calyos' Loop Pipe cooler.
@@HardwareCanucks Exactly. I believe if they don't branch out and try to establish themselves in some other fields, they might start to struggle. That prototype they showed at Computex was very cool, and I hope it won't be just a concept.
I bought a Thermalright PS140 and snapped a screw when trying to fit the AM4 mounting kit. It’s the cheapest and worst fitting I’ve ever worked with. Zero spare screws so basically can’t use a brand new cooler. I drove to the PC store and purchased the Deep cool Assassin IV and I couldn’t be happier. It looks better, runs quietly and was so easy to mount
oh my goodness there are three, this is so confusing. you either recorded this more than a month ago or you're a bodydouble cause you're talking as if you weren't at computex. who are you and what did you do with Fanboy? Peace! keep up the great work, I appreciate all the testing you guys do.
Excellent piece of engineering, worth every penny... but I'm still riding with Thermalright. I get the same performance for less coin.
Thermalright Silver Arrow IB-E Extreme Rev. B needs to be in the test.
Great comprehensive review! Been waiting for this unbiased review. It's definitely a great cooler, but WAY overpriced.
Here I am watching this video who only ever used intel stock cooler for 8+ years :) pretty interesting stuff :D
air cooler are forever still got my hyper 612 from 12 years ago
You should test Cooler Master MasterAir MA824 Stealth since it seems to be better than the standard D15 but im wondering how close it can get to the G2 and since its 90€ its definitely cheaper.
"you don't need a high end cooler for gaming" very true but it is much appreciated with open back headphones :P when the cooling block itself is not really up to the job there is 1 solution at lower costs, bump the fanspeed :P 3000 RPM under load isn't that distracting right :P
it's why i went custom watercooling....which is still cooled by noctua NF-A 12x25's as they are just the golden balance between actually doing work and not hearing them do any work :P
The one perk this cooler has is its clocks speed with no limits when using intel cpu compared to aios. It very close to them.
Nice review! Is it possible to do the test with "orientation 2" per Noctua manual (rotated 90°). With only one fan at top? Meaning more heatpipes are engaged for AMD, but also heat from GPU.
Best 140mm fan with new noctua included in tests when?
bro has every thermalright fan except the thermalright phantom spirit 120
You include a graph of noise vs. CPU frequency for the 13900k, but not the 7950x. Is this because the various coolers don't affect peak frequency, or because you simply didn't test that?
I really wonder about the longevity of this. Noctua kept pushing this thing back because they found the fans to bend with long term use and they had to change materials. Maybe they will themselves find out in a year or so that it's still not sufficient.
For enthousiasts, the LBC is better than the standard because any delidded/modded cpu will need the flatness for increased cooling performance. There you go, a reason for LBC.
Is Noctua selling the G2 fans seperately? Like for us that have a D15 and would like to 'upgrade'?
Yeah, they're available. You can buy one fan, or a pair which have their "offset rpm" thing.
They should be available later in September
It's gonna take a year or less for Thermalright to beat it with a $45 cooler.
Worst prediction of 2024
i ll believe it when i see it
If this thing was $100 it would have been more appealing but even at that price, the current market conditions make it a really hard sell.
I'll wait for the black version of this.
The first class vs economy seating analogy was absurd. The better analogy is someone who paid $10,000 for a first class ticket with an additional irreverent perk and another person who paid $3500 for a similar first class seat without that perk.
I’m looking forward to see results for the HBC version with the incoming Intel cpus like Core 9 Ultra 285K
Wow, at 36db! Reality: noise from the street traffic is higher than any of these coolers. In my home office, even my 19 EUR Arctic Freezer 36 is as good as silent and cools my 5700X equally well in any scenario I throw at it.
So if I use a 1700 CPU bending correction contact frame should I get a Standard or HBC???
How the hell did you solve the RAM problem under first fan of the cooler? :D
Noctua was been chasing perfection while other companies were catching up and now there are coolers that perform just as good for much less. Pisses me off that they're still going with that colour scheme and add on a tax for the black version.
Yep the TR Peerless Asassin 120 SE and ID A620 Pro SE both cost 80% less at $30.
Even the 33-35% more expensive TR Phantom Spirit 120 EVO that closes the performance gap further is still 73% more affordable than the D15 G2.
Perfection is 3 degrees difference ? while AIO get quieter years after years and stay cool everytime.
@@loomawoe what about ID Cooling?
And assuming the average individual consumer (even professionals) don't have their system powered on for more than 100 hours per week it would take just about 7 years to reach that FDM longevity rating.
Sure that's not 28 years of rated longevity hence part of what factors into the huge price premium, but I guess $120-$150 is worth it if serves in build-after-build for 20+ years.
@@AquilaeYT And the AIO pump usually have noise.. Also there many cases of broken or straight dead pump, that will result in ur system shutting down, while this will never happen to an air cooler.. Even if one of the 2 fans fail the one remaining will still be able to handle the system fine. Also AIO coolers have the nasty habit of getting some kind of gunk inside the liquid and even fill important holes for the contact plate for the CPU, resulting in garbage high temperatirs, and overheat... Not to mention some of these AIO do leak, and cause destroyed parts, usually the GPU... So AIOs are garbage, and i prefer to get AIO cooler even if is the expensive G2...
@@themobster7284 My EK Nucleus 360 didn't have any noise from the pump.
Air cooler can also broken if you install/uninstall the air-cooler for a test bench (a NH-u12A from mine was faulty 4 years later because the contact plate become scratchy and didn't do the proper contact after 5 years)
If you buy some crappy AIO like Arctic or Cooler Master or even Be Quiet obviously it will be bad but mine is literally one of the best and didn't have any problems and destroy my old nh-u12a in terms of performance with 3 NF-A12X25 on it.
I also have a thermal grizzly contact frame, stop misinforming people's and say that AIO is useless or something, you didn't stay with your air-cooler more than 5/7 years, I had a Corsair aio that last 8 years, i kept less my air cooler than my old aio because it was not be able to keep cool enough all these new CPU's.
Never had a problem with leak, stop buying cheap AIO.
Wtf ? You prefer take aio over the G15 G2 ? Are you ok ? You try since the beginning to say that you hate AIO to say finally that you prefer AIO because D15 G2 is too expensive wtf
Also the G2 is really bad, it have a rattlingate issue, some people's talk about that.
I understand that the majority of AIO are bad and ugly but mine is perfect.
did you use the 3 fan configuration for the assassin 4 or only the pull configuration?
cant wait to NH-D16
They've done some plausible tests and are reviewing the results, but the SNOWMAN M-T6 is quiet, durable, doesn't break down, and has good performance.
Damn I have the original. Is it still really good?
Yes...
I think between all the “good” cooling options out there, for the most part, we’re talking about 1-6 degrees difference. Other than the small minority of people who have the mindset of performance > absolutely everything, I think most people consider a lot of other factors when deciding on their cooling option. Some people might prioritize price, some esthetics, some brand loyalty, some noise etc but when it comes to performance they don’t need it to be the “best” they just don’t want it to be bad.
It’s a reviewers job to hyper focus on performance as they provide us with an important data point to help us avoid choosing a bad product but as consumers I think we sometimes put too much weight on that single data point.
I love Noctua, but the price is outrageous... I can't justify the NH-D15 G2 for that price when Thermalright exists...
99.9% won't notice a difference in performance in idle, gaming and regular use. It's mainly just for the branding, The Starbucks/Apple of heat sinks
@@NGreediaexcept unlike apple and starbucks, the noctua is actually a good product, also the noctua has signifigtantly higher build quality then any thermalright product, the noctua will last forever, you can't say the same about the thermalright
I would have loved to see the bar diagrams that you usally show
We will bring them back shortly. We were going to publish them here but Excel errors had other plans....