The NH-D15 G2 is a heatsink we’ve been waiting for for so long… It’s true that it took 10 years for the NH-D15 to get a successor. Indeed, the original D15, in its brown/beige color, saw the light of day in 2014. Then, in 2019, it came in black. In short, after all this time, Noctua has finally managed to launch its new model, which is now being tested in its standard version. Is the successor assured?
Presentation:
Noctua’s NH-D family is renowned for its performance, silence and, above all, its imposing stature. With this new generation, the Austrian brand is introducing three different heatsinks with different basic profiles. These are the :
- LBC(Low Base Convexity): for CPUs with flatIHS, such as Ryzen AM5s without offset mounting (more on this later), or Intel LGA-2000s.
- Standard: the all-purpose model.
- HBC (High Base Convexity): a version optimized for LGA-1700 or CPUs whoseIHS has been deformed under socket pressure, giving it a concave shape.
The brand also offers some very interesting documentation on the subject:
The new features of this heatsink include a revised structure. In addition to the base, which offers different profiles depending on the platform on which it will be mounted, the D15 features an improved number of heat pipes. These have been increased from six to eight. As for the dissipation surface, this has been improved by 20%, corresponding to the addition of 23 extra fins. Moreover, the fins are tighter together: 1.6 mm instead of 1.9 mm.
In spite of this, the company has kept the footprint of its cooler in mind. To achieve this, we find an eccentric copper base, the aim being not to cover the first PCIe slot. If you can simply raise the fan for RAM, you can’t cut the heatsink in half for a graphics card!
As far as mounting is concerned, it’s got everything you need for a all scenarios. Noctua supplies washers to reduce the pressure exerted by the LGA-1700 socket locking system. The heatsink can be mounted offset on socket AM5, so that the base is centered on the CCDs, not to mention the easy-to-use SecuFirm2 mechanism and long-term support. Because when you buy Noctua, you get free compatibility updates – you just have to pay the bills.
Last but not least, Noctua is equipping its cooler with its new top-of-the-range 140 mm fans, the NF-A14x25r G2. These fans are designed for high performance without making too much noise. To this end, we’ve made a number of improvements, but we’ll come back to these in a special report dedicated to these fans.
All that’s left is to talk about the sale price, which has seriously increased! On Amazon, via the brand’s official store, the price is €150. In fact, we can only recommend that you go through them, as other stores are more expensive.
[nextpage title=”The NH-D15 G2″]
On the packaging front, Noctua has made a welcome change to its corporate identity. As you can see, the box visual is very much in the spirit of the times, with a beautiful illustration of the product on a brown background. On the sides and back, we have a reminder of the product’s functions and features.
Inside, the protections are of the highest quality. As you can see, the heatsink is surrounded by lined cardboard reinforcements. Not to mention that the accessory part rests on top.
Heatsink:
Weight and dimensions :
The NH-D15 G2 measures 150 (W) x 152 (D) x 168 (H) mm. Note that the height will also depend on the positioning of the front fan, which will need to be raised if you’re using memory with a high heatsink. Compared with the previous generation, this model is just as wide, shallower, but higher.
Weight-wise, it’s also a heavyweight, weighing in at 1.525 kg. But that’s to be expected, as the brand has increased the heat exchange surface and added more copper with the two extra heat pipes.
Base:
As you can see, the copper base benefits from the same treatment as the brand’s other heatsinks. At least in terms of finish. In fact, the base has been finely machined, so that you’ll barely feel the milling cut when you touch it. Otherwise, the base has a large surface area, measuring 44 x 51 mm.
As we can see, a total of eight 6 mm copper heat pipes each run from this base. It is also eccentric to the left, freeing up the motherboard’s first PCIe slot.
Heatsink:
The double-turn heatsink features two stacks of aluminum fins. Here, we count 58 per stack. We also note that they are particularly tightly packed, unlike the first D15 where they were more widely spaced… But also fewer in number.
The cutout is quite unusual, with three sawtooth shapes at the ends and a small chevron at the midpoint. Finally, on the sides, there are notches for steel fan claws.
We also note that the first seven fins have been shortened to leave as much room as possible for memory: up to 59 mm, although the brand recommends RAM no more than 32 mm high. The aim here is to avoid unnecessarily increasing the height of the heatsink by raising the front fan.
Finish:
As usual with Noctua, the finish is very good, although the company could go further. More and more brands are opting for top covers to hide the unsightly end of heat pipes, which is not the case here. While we imagine that Chromax covers are in the pipeline, they are not yet available.
You’ll also have to be careful not to get your fingers all over the radiator, especially on the sides and top. The brand’s aluminum is a real magnet for fingerprints.
Compatibility :
In terms of compatibility, Noctua states that its cooler can be mounted on the following motherboards:
- Intel: LGA-115x – LGA-1200 – LGA-1700 – LGA-1851
- AMD: AM4 – AM5
Since Intel no longer produces an HEDT platform, and AMD’s is… Particular, we find here only compatibility for so-called ” mainstream ” sockets. Furthermore, Noctua has already announced compatibility with Intel’s future LGA-1851, which, as a reminder, offers no change in dimensions compared with the LGA-1700.
Fan :
Ventilation is provided here by two 140 mm fans: NF-A15x25r G2. We’re back to new-generation fans where there are things to say (which will be said in a presentation article).
In the meantime, the fans feature a round frame with rubberized silentblocks. These are identical to those on the NF-A15, making them compatible with the colored NA-SAVP3.
As for the blades, there are nine of them, with a slim profile. The curvature is unusual, to say the least, with a break in the middle. Finally, at the tips of the blades we find the Flow Acceleration Channels found on NF-A fans. Otherwise, like the NF-A12x25, the gap between the blade tips and the frame has been reduced to a minimum, in this case 0.7 mm.
Connections are provided by a single cable terminating in a four-pin PWM-type fan connector. The cable has a thick black sleeve and is 20 cm long.
Let’s finish with the features. Here, we’re dealing with rather slow mills, running at a maximum of 1500 rpm. At full throttle, the airflow announced by the brand is 155.6 m3/h (91.58 CFM), while static pressure reaches 2.56 mmH2O.
However, if you’re sensitive to noise, you can always use an L.N.A. type speed reducer. Once connected, fan speed drops to 1250 rpm, air flow to 127.1 m3/h (74.81 CFM) and pressure to 1.3 mmH2O.
The bundle:
The accessory part, housed in a cardboard box, includes :
- Assembly instructions
- A set of washers for socket LGA-1700
- NA-TPG1 to avoid getting paste all over your Ryzen 7000
- A cleaning cloth
- Noctua Torx screwdriver
- NT-H2 thermal paste syringe
- A splitter for two fans
- LNA adapter
- Noctua badge
- AMD screws and mounting brackets
- Intel screws and mounting brackets
- Intel multi-socket backplate
With this accessory part, Noctua has gone very far, reminding us of Cryorig at the time. Everything is there, you have absolutely everything you need to mount your heatsink, no need for paper towels to remove the old paste from your CPU, nothing! Clearly, it’s great to see accessory parts like this, but let’s not forget that the NH-D15 G2 retails for €150!
Roughly speaking:
In broad terms, the NH-D15 G2 looks very good, but is still imposing, so be careful with the height of your RAM if you don’t want to raise the first fan. Likewise, the aluminum finish will be sensitive to fingerprints, so avoid touching visible parts, or else wear gloves. Finally, be careful with dimensions: not all cases are 168 mm high monsters!
[nextpage title=”Installation”]
For installation, you’ll need to keep your AMD backplate, as Noctua doesn’t supply one. If you don’t have one any more, a quick look on eBay should enable you to find one easily.
NH-D15 G2 assembly:
As with previous Noctua heatsinks (tested here and here), the first thing to do on the Intel side is to prepare the backplate. Once again, there’s nothing tricky about this: simply thread triangular based screws into the backplate , then lock them in place with black plastic nuts. Of course, you’ll need to be careful how you position them:
- Outward: LGA-1700/1851
- Inward: LGA-115x/1200
For AMD sockets, as is often the case, you’ll need to remove the original plastic mounting arms. Nothing difficult either, as they can be removed with a simple Phillips screwdriver.
Next, we can move on to installing the mounting arms. For this, we’ll need to position plastic washers. Watch out for the color:
- Grey: AMD platforms
- Black: AMD platforms LGA-115x/1200
- Blue: LGA-1700/1851
All that remains is to position the mounting arms and screw them in place with the screwdriver supplied.
If you have a Ryzen 3000/5000/7000 on an AMD socket, we can only recommend offset mounting. The aim is to slightly offset the base of the heatsink so that it’s just above the CCDs, for better cooling. This is what we’ve done, as you can see above.
As you can see, the NH-D15 G2 is really imposing, and once installed, the first fan completely covers the memory slots. So be careful with the height of your memory sticks.
Finally, a quick inspection of the CPU contact: it’s perfect. With our two CPUs, we can see that the IHS shape of our CPUs is perfectly reproduced on the base of the cooler. On Intel, we didn’t use Noctua’s washers simply because we already have a Contact Frame.
[nextpage title=”Protocol”]
A small update to our test protocol, where we’ve reintegrated the AMD part. In the process, we’ve made a few profile changes:
- Intel :
- 65W
- 125W
- 170
- AMD :
- 65W
- 105W
- 170W
Here, we now measure the delta between the temperature measured on our CPU and the ambient temperature. Finally, the management of fan speed is now entrusted to our motherboard. In our tests, we run the fans successively at 100%, 66% and 33%.
For test purposes, we’ll be comparing the Dark Rock 5 with other single-tower and double-tower models in 120 mm and 140 mm:
- Assassin IV (DeepCool)
- Dark Rock Elite (be quiet!)
- Dark Rock 5 (be quiet!)
- MA824 Stealth (Cooler Master)
- Noctua NH-D15 G2 (Noctua)
- NH-L12Sx77 (Noctua)
- NH-U12A chromax.black (Noctua)
- T120 RGB (NZXT)
[nextpage title=”Speed and noise”]
Fan speed :
We’re starting from scratch with our series of temperature readings. Let’s specify the fan speeds recorded during our readings (for 12V, 8V, 5V):
We start with the fan speed of this NH-D15 G2, and the least we can say is that the two fans that make it up are the slowest in our comparison. Indeed, with its full 1500 rpm, the D15 is well below a Dark Rock 5, for example. Worst of all, however, are its 500 rpm at low speed. We expect this model to suffer at power consumption levels!
Noise :
Despite the slower fans, it turns out that Noctua’s NH-D15 G2 is not particularly quiet, especially at high rpm. With its 44 dB under these conditions, the heatsink is just behind the Assassin IV, with its faster fan speed.
However, as soon as you reduce its operating speed, it immediately becomes quieter. At half speed, it emits 32 dB, compared with 30 dB at low speed. At the same time, 500 rpm at low speed is not a particularly noisy solution!
[nextpage title=”Intel CPU temperatures”]
65W processor :
We start with the 65W profile, a rather low power consumption, especially when you consider the basic consumption of this 13600K. We’re here to simulate the power consumption of small processors with few cores or low power consumption. In theory, everyone should do well!
Turning now to temperatures, we note that the Austrian brand’s NH-D15 G2 performs very well at its highest speeds. However, as soon as its fans reach 500 rpm, temperatures rise again. With a delta of 32.2°C, this model is on a par with the NH-U12A.
125W processor :
Here, we take our readings on a Core i5 13600K whose power consumption reaches 125W, the baseline for this processor. This corresponds to the processor’s prolonged power consumption.
With a power consumption of 125W, once again the NH-D15 G2 comes out on top when its two NF-A14x25r G2s are running at 100% and 66% speed respectively. Under these conditions, it performs very well, matching the Assassin IV at medium speed. However, with the increase in consumption and heating, it is now slightly ahead of the NH-U12A.
170W processor:
Finally, we end our series of readings with our Core i5 13600K, which consumes 130W. For this, we push the frequencies a little further, as well as the VCore, which now rises to 1.270V!
With a power consumption of 170W, even if the NH-D15 G2 can’t keep up with our processor’s load at low speeds, it still far outstrips its rivals. In these conditions, the Assassin IV is left out in the cold, as are the Dark Rock Elite and the MA824 Stealth, which is in trouble from mid-range!
Summary :
When it comes to temperatures on our Intel platform, Noctua’s NH-D15 G2 performs particularly well at its highest speeds. As we’ve seen, once its fan is running at full speed, nothing stands in its way. The Assassin IV puts up a good fight at mid-range… However, once mounted on our 13600K consuming 170W, it’s left in the dust. On the other hand, the Achilles’ heel of this model remains its high temperatures at low speeds, the fault of slow fans in these conditions.
[nextpage title=”Intel temperature-to-noise ratio”]
On these perf/noise ratio graphs, we remind you that it’s best to be positioned as far to the bottom left of the graph as possible. For ease of reading, the leftmost point symbolizes 100% ventilation, the central one 66% and the rightmost 33%.
On our CPU with a power consumption of 65W, the NH-D15 G2 is among the market leaders. Only the MA824 Stealth does better on this low power consumption. In fact, it’s Cooler Master’s ventirad that dominates here.
With 125W of power consumption, the NH-D15 G2 takes the lead… Although it is affected at low speeds. The curve tends to get seriously longer at low speeds. In these conditions, it’s DeepCool’s Assassin IV that dominates at low rpms.
Clearly, if you have a processor with high power consumption, the NH-D15 G2 is the obvious solution. As you can see, it clearly dominates its competitors… Well, those that remain.
[nextpage title=”AMD CPU temperatures”]
65W processor :
We start with our 65W profile, a fairly low power consumption, especially when you consider today’s monsters. This power consumption is intended to simulate small processors with few cores or low power consumption.
On a 7900X, Noctua’s large heatsink doesn’t fall short of the mark, as it always comes out on top at high speeds. Once again, at 66%, the Assassin IV comes out on top, while the Austrian solution comes in between the Dark Rock Elite and the NH-U12A.
105W processor :
Here, our CPU will run at 2.70 GHz constantly and on all its cores. We apply a VCore of 1,030 to obtain a power consumption of around 100 watts. This corresponds to the TDP of a Ryzen 7 7700X.
It’s a pity that the D15 G2’s fans turn so slowly at low power, as we’d be dealing with a real killer. In the meantime, the heatsink shines in its cooling capacities at high speed, but doesn’t fall short at low revs!
Processor at 170W :
Finally, we end with our 170W profile. Here the heat release is higher, and corresponds to the default TDP of the 7900X. Let’s see how our coolings fare!
Mounted on a processor consuming 170W, once again we’re dealing with a formidable benchmark. Other dual-tower heatsinks have higher temperatures.
Summary :
As with Intel sockets , the NH-D15 G2 shines through its low temperatures at high speeds or in high temperatures. Once again, its low fan speed (33%) has a negative impact on performance.
[nextpage title=”AMD temperature/noise ratio”]
On these perf/noise ratio graphs, we remind you that it’s best to be positioned as far to the bottom left of the graph as possible. For ease of reading, the leftmost point symbolizes 12V ventilation, the central point 8V ventilation and the rightmost 5V.
At low power consumptions, the D15 is particularly comfortable. From the sharp break in the curve, you can tell that the heatsink is overkill for such a low-power processor.
At 105W, the NH-D15 G2 offers the best temperature-to-noise ratio of our selection. However, once again, we feel it could do with a little more speed at low revs.
At 170W, NVIDIA’s new dual-tower heat sink is a clear winner. It’s comfortably ahead of any of its rivals.
[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]
We’ve come to the end of this test of Noctua’s NH-D15 G2. Are we dealing with a successful product? Let’s take a closer look!
After all these years, the next generation is assured!
It’s been a long wait to get our hands on this new heatsink. And for this second-generation heatsink, Noctua has done things right, with a better-equipped heatsink and new-generation fans. However, the dimensions are still imposing, and you’ll need to check compatibility with your case. Fortunately, this model comes with an eccentric base to maximize compatibility with the first PCIe slot, but not the memory.
However, given its size, it’s easy to assemble, making it possible to deal with any situation: AMD offset mounting, too much pressure on the LGA-1700, screwdriver supplied, and so on. Noctua even goes so far as to offer a cleaning wipe to remove the old thermal paste from your processor – how cool is that?
Next to that, we’re treated to a cooler with an impeccable finish, just be careful where you put your fingers. Unfortunately, Noctua continues to use aluminum, which is extremely susceptible to fingerprints.
All in all, very good performance!
In absolute terms, the heatsink is audible at full volume, and that’s a shame. However, it also has an excellent temperature-to-noise ratio in these conditions. It will easily outperform other high-performance models such as DeepCool’s Assassin IV.
On the other hand, this model’s performance is heavily impacted at low rpm, where the fans don’t spin very fast. This tends to have a negative impact on temperatures.
However, at high power consumption levels, this model clearly stands out from its dual-tower rivals, with a much higher level of performance. However, it fails to keep our CPU from heating up at low speeds on an Intel or AMD processor consuming 170W.
The bill explodes:
[affilizz-publication id=”zutdjjb2w”]
Unfortunately, the bad news comes in the form of an exploding price tag. The latter now stands at around €150 on the brand’s official Amazon store. At this price, we’re starting to see some very serious AIO watercooling kits.
Noctua NH-D15 G2:
We like:
- The heatsink’s consistently high level of finish
- The extensive accessories section!
- Simple assembly
- Eccentric base frees up the first slot on the motherboard
- Excellent high- and mid-speed performance
- Controlled noise at mid-range and golden silence at low speed
What we didn’t like :
- The fact that aluminum is so susceptible to fingerprints
- Its imposing size, which means it won’t fit everywhere!
- Noisy at full speed
- Low-speed performance
- The soaring price tag
Despite its very high performance on Intel or AMD CPUs, the NH-D15 G2 is not without its faults. Like many dual-tower cooling systems, it takes up a lot of space. Noise is also very noticeable at full speed, while low-speed operation has a negative impact on performance. It also comes at a high price, while its finish – excellent though it is – will keep fingerprints. In spite of everything, we’ve decided to give it a silver award.
Many thanks to Noctua !
