Noctua Shows Off Updated 'D Series' 140mm CPU Coolers: NH-D15 Gets A Successor
by Gavin Bonshor on June 25, 2019 9:00 AM EST
During Computex 2019, Noctua announced its plans to update its fabled D series of CPU coolers with a new design. The new, currently-unnamed coolers incorporate an extra heat pipe as compared to the current NH-D15 and NH-D15S, as well as increase performance and utilize an asymmetrical design for improved PCIe slot clearance.
Noctua of course is well known in the air cooling market for its high quality fans and coolers, which are aimed at the premium end of the market and deliver some of the best performance on the on the market today. Not hurting the company's visibility either is their highly distinctive beige and brown color scheme, which make their products easy to tell apart from more commodity products.
At Computex in addition to its fanless concept CPU cooler design, Noctua also had its next generation of D series CPU cooler on display. The new cooler features seven heat pipes – up from the traditional six of the previous NH-D15 models – and the heatsink itself has been tweaked to offer 10% more surface area for heat dissipation than previous models. One of the most interesting aspects is that Noctua revealed that the new D series coolers are designed to dissipate up to 400 W of heat, which makes them highly suitable for beefier sockets such as AMD's TR4 and SP3.
Showing off one of the prototypes in action, the company had one of the new coolers setup against one of its current NH-D15 models in a custom designed test chamber, using the two otherwise-identical test systems to show the differences in performance between the two models. And since this was designed to be a test of the heatsink and not the fans, only the heatsink itself was swapped here; both systems used the same NF-A15 PWM cooling fans.
The new D series cooler is on the left, the pre-existing NH-D15 is on the right
Overall we didn't see a massive difference – and to be fair, it was very hot (ed: Taipei in June), so ambient temperatures were running high – but none the less, the prototype cooler did come out consistently ahead of the NH-D15. In its custom chamber, the new D series cooler had one degree advantage over its predecessor.
Shifting gears to retail matters, Noctua is planning on releasing two versions of the new D series coolers, rolling out both a single fan model and a dual fan model. The new coolers will include a traditional multi-socket mounting kit, which will support AM4, LGA20xx, and LGA115x. Meanwhile there will be separate dedicated TR4 models due to the larger base plate needed to properly match the large IHS used on AMD's Threadripper processors. Each cooler will also be bundled with a tube of its new NT-H2 thermal compound.
At this point the company hasn't announced an official release date, but it's likely that the next generation of D-type coolers will be available by the end of the year, with a pricing structure similar to that of the current NH-D15 and NH-D15S models.
| Want to keep up to date with all of our Computex 2019 Coverage? | ||||||
 Laptops |
 Hardware |
 Chips |
||||
| Follow AnandTech's breaking news here! | ||||||
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
38 Comments
View All Comments
Exodite - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
*yourXyler94 - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
That 70C was under a Cinebench run, the CPU hovers around 60C under normal use. Sometimes a bit higher, but eh. The GPU is what made the whole deal worth it. dropping that noisy fan setup (2000 RPM on 3 GPU fans was noisy), and dropping 25C on temps, that's awesome. the 4790k is also a normally hot running chip, due to using TIM and not solder. I could get better cooling if I wanted to up the speed of my fans, but where they are now, it's a perfect solutionExodite - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
*nod* Roger on the GPU!I've used a couple AMD graphics cards with reference coolers, the 4870 and 6950 to be precise, so I understand the pain of a noisy GPU all too well. :)
These days I know to wait for better cooling solutions. :P
Regarding the 4790K... well, ouch! I didn't know it was such a hot chip, you learn something new every day.
Showtime - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
I got similar performance with my d14 and a delidded 4770k at 4.5ghz with a stock 1080 ti. That cooler is going on 10 years/3 builds now, and is "silent" in an ITX HTPC. I could get several builds more builds out of it too. Not sure what happens to heatpipes after a decade though.Exodite - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
I have no idea, I suppose you'd see it on the temps when/if anything starts to degrade.I'm going to stick to the C14 for my next build as well, assuming I can get my hands on an AM4 mounting bracket. :)
Death666Angel - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Well, I had a custom WC setup for years. Once set it worked great for between one and two years without maintenance. The real draw is getting the GPU under water and getting a few degrees off the CPU for some better overclocks. I could clock about 100 MHz more on the GPU core and memory clock as well as 200 MHz on the CPU. If you don't care about that and the hassle, WC ain't for you. It's also not that widespread, it's just that a lot of people who talk online about hardware also have a WC setup. Decreasing noise while increasing performance is very possible though, just need to invest money and time into it. The best air cooling will never rival the best watercooling, that's just a fact. But you have to set the line somewhere and for many people it's not for them. With the advent of dual tower air coolers, water cooling lost a lot of steam for the casual enthusiasts.edzieba - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
It depends on if you need to move the PC around. Several hundred grams / 1+ kilo of aluminium/copper mounted to the motherboard via the PCB with a 120mm/140mm lever arm is bad news for travel. An AIO or custom loop mounts the heavy stuff to the chassis directly, and just a small block sat down low on the board is much gentler. Plus for compact cases liquid loops allow folded designs that are near-impossible with COTS heatsinks (without custom-bent heatpipes).Chaitanya - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Noctua has been showing off replacement for Nh-D15 for quite sometime without actually releasing it.GreenReaper - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Probably looking to get that extra 0.1C so they can announce a whole degree difference.AngryCoffeeTable - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Yeah. I'd be more interested in the BLACK D15s and 14s they were talking about at computex or ces about a year ago that have still yet to surface let alone any update from Noctua regarding what's happening with them.I ended up gettin a Dark Rock Pro 4 instead