Page 4 - Conclusion
Here at APH Networks, we are always excited to get our hands on products from Noctua. It is exciting in a sense that, they are kind of company where you can always depend on to deliver consistently excellent products year after year; never ceasing to improve upon previous iterations, with just enough innovation to convince you their engineers are, indeed, hard at work. Of course, one may argue that, like a perfectly technical football match (Or for us North Americans, soccer match) that delivers consistent results every time, it lacks a bit of the spontaneous excitement with a degree of unpredictability a more ruthless team is able to provide. But whatever your opinion may be, at the end of the day, it all boils down to one question: Is the Noctua NH-D15 more of a Brazil, or a Germany? Being made by an Austrian company, I think the answer is clear -- both literally and figuratively. With many years of experience in high performance, noise optimized cooling solutions hailed by many around the world, Noctua has yet another winner in their hands. The NH-D15 is built upon the successful NH-D14, a mega sized heatsink that represents the epitome of cutting edge air cooling technology. Now with improved aerodynamics first seen in the NH-U14S and NH-U12S, combined with the latest NF-A15 fan, it is easy to see why the NH-D15 is such a successful performer on our charts once again. With all the praises in the books, I do have one complaint about its bundle. They have spent time to ensure the NH-D15's fins will clear high profile memory, but included the largest secondary fan they could, where, when mounted in its default position in front, will interfere with anything taller than a centimeter. You can mount it higher, but that may cause the NH-D15 to not clear some chassis side panels. Using the NF-A15 as the primary fan is a logical choice, but it simply does not make sense why Noctua did not include an NF-F12 as the secondary fan instead. Obviously, using the secondary fan is optional, but that is not the point. Keeping that duly noted, here's the bottom line: For about $100 at press time, the Noctua NH-D15 does not come cheap, but it is still one of the best air coolers in the market today for overclockers and silent PC enthusiasts alike.
Noctua provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH:Renewal Award | APH Review Focus Summary:
8/10 means Definitely a very good product with drawbacks that aren't likely going to matter to the end user.
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks; but should be considered before purchasing.
-- Final APH Numeric Rating is 7.8/10
Please note that the APH Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other sites.
The Noctua NH-D15 is a brilliant combination of the NH-D14's form factor along with all the latest technical improvements first seen in the NH-U14S last year.
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Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware; Installation
3. Test Results
4. Conclusion
