In recent times, we have seen new induction of flagship air coolers from different vendors including be quiet! Dark Rock Elite, Dark Rock Pro 5, Corsair A115, DeepCool Assassin 4/4S, Thermalright Peerless Assassin 140, ID-Cooling A720, etc. All these coolers raised the tab and after like 10 years or so the competition has finally managed to beat the Noctua NH-D15.
It was about time that Noctua needed a new cooler to take its position back and finally, we have seen the next generation of highly praised NH-D15 named NH-D15 G2. Here G2 refers to the second generation or next generation of the predecessor.
Since Noctua has managed a basic footprint of NH-D15 with critical refinements and new fans, they are using the same naming convention with G2 being a part of the name. There is another major change over the NH-D15 that is now we have three variants of the new NH-D15:
- NH-D15 G2 [Regular or Standard]
- NH-D15 G2 LBC
- NH-D15 G2 HBC
I will cover the differences in the article later. These models are priced at USD $149.62 which is quite a steep price. This is the highest price tag for flagship air coolers that I have tested so far. So, is Noctua back? Do we have our next king of the ring? Let’s find out. I am testing standard and HBC versions in this content. These coolers are compatible with Intel LGA115x/1200/1700/1851 and AMD AM4/AM5 sockets.
Specifications
Packing and Unboxing
The overall packaging is the same as we have seen on other Noctua coolers but this time Noctua has used different colors on the packing box. Noctua is providing the same mounting kit in all three variants hence I am showing the HBC version in the picture.
The following are provided in the box:
- 1x Heatsink
- 2x NF-A14x25r G2 PWM Fans
- 2x AMD Mounting Brackets [Offset/Normal]
- 4x AMD Spacers
- 4x AMD Screws
- 1x Intel Backplate
- 4x Intel Screws for backplate
- 4x Intel Lockers for backplate
- 2x Intel Mounting Brackets
- 4x Blue Spacers for Intel LGA1700 Socket
- 4x Black Spacers for Intel other sockets
- 4x Thumb Nuts
- 1x Screw Driver
- 1x NT-H2 Thermal Paste
- 1x User Guide
- 1x AMD Thermal Paste Guard
- 1x NA-CW1 Cleaning Wipe
- 1x PWM Y Cable
- 2x Low Noise Adapter Cables
- 4x NM-ISW1 Shim Washers for Intel LGA1700 socket
- 1x Noctua Badge
NH-D15 G2 Closer Look
Let’s take a look at the cooler and see its design and layout.
The dimension of this cooler is 168x150x152mm (HxWxD). The dimension without fans is 168x150x127mm (HxWxD). The weight of the cooler is 1525 grams. Noctua has managed to keep the same height and width on the new generation as on the NH-D15 but they have reduced the depth by 9mm compared to the original NH-D15. This is coming from new fans which have a bit reduced size compared to NF-A15 PWM fans on the original NH-D15. These coolers don’t have a mounting kit for Intel LGA20xx so keep that in mind.
Looking at the top of the heatsink, you can see the terminating tips of the 8x copper heat pipes. These heat pipes are integrated in a curved pattern facing each other on both towers. The front tower does not have any branding over top and it is 5mm less thicker. There is Noctua branding on the second tower which is thicker than the front tower. According to Noctua, this is done to provide balanced loading between two fans.
Since both towers have a similar layout, I am showing the front tower in the picture. You will notice many changes in the fin stacking of this cooler compared to the original NH-D15. Noctua has managed to add more fins by reducing the gap between the fins from 1.9mm to 1.6mm. By doing so, they can add 23 extra fins and provide 20% more surface area.
How they have achieved that? If you are still thinking in terms of heatsink design, stop right there. The fans play an equally important role in the total package. The new NF-A14x25r PWM fans have a reduced size compared to the NF-A15 fans on the original NH-D15 and these new fans have high pressure and airflow with improved P/Q performance. This is the rationale behind the fin stacking.
The overall pattern is almost the same as on the original NH-D15. The main are fin plates are in a straight line with an inset in the middle. There are triangular-shaped fins on both sides of the tower. These help in reducing the vibrational noise or humming. By my count, there are 51+8 fins on each tower. The 8 fins are on the offset portion.
This cooler uses an offset design not only from the RAM clearance point of view but also from the PCIe slot clearance on modern motherboards. You can see that heat pipes are particularly designed to be consolidated towards the right side of the tower with more space on the left side. This side faces the PCIe slot on the motherboard.
Both the left and right sides of the towers are identical. The fins joint assembly is on these ends. You can see a neat and clean job by the Noctua. There is no broken or pressed fin on the heatsink. There are insets on the borders where the hands of the fan clips are inserted to install the fan. In this price range, I was expecting Noctua to come up with a better fan mounting like the rail mounting on the Corsair A115. Noctua has stuck with the traditional way of fan installation and there is nothing wrong about it except that installing or removing the fans with the installed graphics card is somewhat inconvenient.
If you are wondering how to tell all three variants apart, Noctua has got you covered. HBC and LBC are engraved over the top of the base to help identify which variant it is. The mounting plate NM-SFB4 is pre-installed. There are two spring-loaded screws with Torx head. Noctua has provided a screwdriver with a Torx-based tip for this purpose in the SecuFirm2+ Torx-Based Multi-Socket mounting kit.
Noctua has increased the nickel-plated copper heat pipes from 6 on the original NH-D15 to 8 on NH-D15 G2 coolers. This will allow a better and faster heat transfer overall. These pipes are installed in an offset manner as mentioned above. The complete assembly is soldered (fins and heat pipes). This provides better durability.
NH-D15 G2 Base and Variants
There is a nickel-plated copper base measuring 44x50mm. The base is the key difference between all three variants of the new cooler.
The NH-D15 G2 regular or standard variant has a medium convexity on the base which makes it an ideal candidate for any type of socket and using the NA-ISW1 Shim Washers you can get more performance over the Intel LGA1700 socket.
The NH-D15 G2 LBC has a low convexity making this variant good for flat CPUs like AMD AM4/AM5 and Intel LGA20xx though this socket is not listed in the compatibility list.
The NH-D15 G2 HBC has a high convex base which is an idea for Intel 12th/13th/14th gen CPUs that are de-shaped due to high ILM pressure. This high convex base provides optimal contact between the CPU and the base.
The above picture is taken from Noctua website and it illustrates clearly which variant is suitable for which socket type. If you are still not sure, just get the standard version and call it a day.
The new NF-A14x25r PWM Fans
Noctua has taken quite some time and part of this time was focused on new and improved fans. Say hello to NF-A14x25r PWM fans. These fans have retained the basic footprint of the NF-A14 fans but they are based on Noctua’s trendsetter NF-A12x25 PWM fans where Noctua introduced several new designs and technologies.
The users have been waiting for a 140mm version of NF-A12x25 PWM fans. Noctua has finally made that happen. Here are the specifications of the Fans:
| Dimension | 130x150x25mm |
| Speed | 1500 RPM (Max) |
| Air Flow | 155.6 m³/h |
| Noise | 24.8 dB Max |
| Rated Voltage | 12VDC |
| Input Power | 2.28W |
| Fan Power Connector | 4-pin PWM |
| Bearing | SSO2 |
| MTTF | > 150,000 |
These fans are round in shape and have a small size compared to the NF-A15 round frame fans. These fans are made from Sterrox® LCP and feature a highly optimized Progressive-Bend impeller with winglets, Flow Acceleration Channels, and Centrifugal Turbulator hub. Another salient feature is 0.7mm tip clearance from the frame for better acoustics and performance. Noctua uses ultra low-loss etaPERF™ motor with Smooth Commutation Drive 2 technology for better energy efficiency. These fans run smoothly due to SupraTorque™ feature. This feature also helps ensure the desired fan speed with back pressure by keeping extra torque headroom. This reminds me of Silent Wings 3 from be quiet!.
Noctua uses SS02 bearings, AAO frame, flow acceleration channels, Stepped Inlet design, Inner Surface Microstructures, Integrated anti-vibration pads, Metal Bearing Shell, and advanced protection features. I am not going into detail as we will be doing a dedicated review these fans soon.
There are arrow markers on the frame showing the direction of airflow through the fan and the direction in which blades spin.
The opposite frame of the fan has Noctua branding.
Each fan is PWM regulated and these fans feature 0 RPM meaning they can come to a halt if the motherboard or fan controller provides the fan stop function under no thermal load. In this way, the new coolers can also act as semi-passive coolers.
Installation
We are not covering the installation of the coolers. Please refer to the user guide for this purpose. The installation of NH-D15 G2 is same as on the other Noctua coolers. I did not observe anything in this regard. The SecuFirm2+ Torx-Based Multi-Socket mounting kit serves its purpose quite well. You don’t need any tool as Noctua has provided everything including a screwdriver.
Clearance
It is time to take a look at the clearance of NH-D15 G2 coolers. I cover four aspects with respect to the motherboard clearance followed by a clearance for PC Case:
- RAM Clearance
- GPU Clearance
- Motherboard Clearance
- PC Case Clearance
The heatsink with a single fan provides a 59mm clearance which is 4mm less compared to Dark Rock Elite cooler. However, with front fan, the RAM clearance is roughly 32mm. You can adjust the height of the front fan though it would increase the overall height of the cooler.
There is no clearance issue for the first PCIe x16 slot on the GIGABYTE X670E AORUS MASTER and MSI MEG Z790 ACE MAX motherboards.
There is no clearance issue towards the Rear and top portions of the above mentioned motherboards either.
This cooler has a height of 168mm. You would need at-least 170mm clearance for the PC Case.
Testing
The following test configuration is used for NH-D15 G2 HBC:
- Intel core i7 13700k
- MSI MEG Z790 ACE MAX
- XPG Lancer RG 32GB @ 7200MHz, CAS34 [XMP Enabled]
- GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3060 VISION OC [For Display]
- Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB NVMe SSD [For OS and Data]
- Be quiet! Straight Power 11 1000W Platinum PSU
- Praxis WetBench
Test table is:
| All Cores | 5.4GHz on P-Cores 4.2GHz on E-Cores |
| VCore (V) | Auto |
| Power Limits | Intel Default |
| Thermal Paste | Noctua NT-H1 |
| Test Run Time | 30 minutes CINEBENCH R23.2 |
| Idle Time | 10 minutes |
| Fans Speed | 100% PWM Duty Cycle |
| Monitoring Software | HWInfo64 |
The following test configuration is used for NH-D15 G2 Standard/Regular:
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
- GIGABYTE AORUS MASTER X670E
- Kingston 32GB 6400MHz CAS32 [XMP Enabled]
- ASRock Radeon RX 7600 Phantom Gaming OC [For Display]
- Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB NVMe SSD [For OS and Data]
- Be quiet! Straight Power 11 1000W Platinum PSU
- Praxis WetBench
| Clocks | Auto |
| Voltage | Auto |
| PBO | Advanced |
| Package Power | 210W |
| Core Efficiency Curve | -20mV All Cores |
| Rest of settings | Stock, Auto |
| Thermal Paste | Noctua NT-H2 |
| Thermal Paste Application | Five Dots Method |
| Headers | CPU_FAN, CPU_OPT |
| Stress Software | CINEBENCH R23.2 |
| Stress Run Time | 30 minutes |
| PC Idle Time | 5 minutes |
| Monitoring Software | HWInfo64 |
| Fans Speed |
Test Result
I have used HBC version on Intel platform and result shows that NH-D15 G2 HBC has a 2°C lead over the other air coolers. Surprisingly the ID-Cooling Frozn A720 which has a superb performance on AMD platform is lackluster on Intel.
The NH-D15 G2 standard version has shown a good performance on the AMD platform though the ID-Cooling Frozn A720 has actually performed a bit better than this cooler while costing less than half the price of the Noctua cooler.
One thing that is superb about new Noctua coolers is the noise to performance ratio. This category is still unbeaten even A720 was way loud to deliver this level of performance which Noctua has silently provided.
Conclusion
Noctua has released their next flagship air cooler named NH-D15 G2 after like over 10 years. For 10 years the original NH-D15 has shown its dominance thanks to its superior cooling performance with silent operations. By that count, the competition has also taken this much time to actually come out with air coolers that could outperform the original NH-D15 showing a truce class of the original NH-D15. The new coolers are compatible with Intel LGA115x/1200/1700 and AMD AM4/AM5 sockets.
Anyhow, Noctua needed a new flagship cooler and it is out in the market now. This time around, it is a bit confusing as Noctua has actually released three variants; NH-D15 G2, NH-D15 LBC, NH-D15 HBC. All these coolers have same design and measures and they all come with same SecuFrim2+ Torx-based mounting. The difference is on the base where the standard version has medium convex base and is suitable for all platforms and sockets. The LBC has low convex base making it ideal flat CPUs like AM4/AM5 and LGA20xx. The HBC is for the Intel CPUs where the ILM pressure has de-shaped the CPU. The HBC base provides optimal contact between such CPUs and the base.
If you are not sure which one to pick, just grab the standard version and you are good to go. There is not much of a difference anyway among three but there are certain situations where one variant is not recommended. For more details see the Closer Look section of this article or check on Noctua website.
Noctua has refined the heatsink in many ways. The dimension of the cooler is 168x150x152mm (HxWxD). Noctua has managed to reduce the depth by 9mm compared to original NH-D15. The front tower has 5mm less thickness than the second tower. They have increased the fins count by 23 by reducing the inter-fin gap from 1.9mm to 1.6mm. This provides roughly 20% more surface area. The enabler of this change is the new NF-A14x25r PWM fans which have a reduced size compared to the NF-A15 fans on the original NH-D15 and these new fans have higher pressure and airflow enabling them to push the air through dense heatsink efficiently.
The heatsink is designed in an offset manner. The lower 8 fins are cutout from left side and similarly the heat pipes are designed so that they don’t take space on the left side. This would give a better clearance for the PCIe slots on the modern motherboards. At the same time, this would ensure no clearance issue on the motherboard from top and rear ends. The stepped fin stack provides a better RAM clearance from the heatsink with a single fan.
Noctua has increased the heat pipes count from 6 to 8 ensuring no compromise over better heat transfer. From this offset and stepped design, my guess is that there will not be NH-D15S G2 since Noctua has covered that part for good.
The complete assembly is soldered (fins and heat pipes). The nickel-plated copper base measures approximately 44x50mm. The convexity of the base determines the variant of the NH-D15 G2 as mentioned above.
Noctua has provided SecuFirm2+ Torx-based multi-socket mounting kit with all variants and finally I see a Noctua cooler that comes with a high-performance NT-H2. Nicely done! Noctua left no room uncovered. This kit has everything that you would need to install your cooler and overall installation method is same as on the other Noctua coolers. You need 10 items on AMD platform to install the mounting hardware over the socket and 19 items on Intel platform.
Noctua has provided new NF-A14x25r PWM fans with these coolers. The salient features of these fans include:
- Sterrox® LCP
- Progressive-Bend impeller with winglets,
- Flow Acceleration Channels
- Centrifugal Turbulator hub. 0.7mm tip clearance
- Ultra low-loss etaPERF™ motor
- Smooth Commutation Drive 2
- SupraTorque™ feature
- SS02 bearings
- AAO frame
- Flow acceleration channels
- Stepped Inlet design
- Inner Surface Microstructures
- Integrated anti-vibration pads
- Metal Bearing Shell
- Advanced protection features
These fan operate in an offset speed of ±25 RPM to reduce the humming across the heatsink which happens when two fans operate at same speed though I have never seen any cooler with two fans operating at same speed in my testing experience.
These coolers are listed at USD 149.62 (Standard and HBC versions). Noctua offers 6-year warranty on these coolers. These coolers pack a solid performance punch making a strong come back for the Noctua and yet they operate at almost same sound level as before. The only thing making it hard for these coolers is price tag!
Pros:
- Excellent Thermal Performance
- AMD AM5 and Intel LGA1700/1851 Socket Support
- New NF-A14x25r PWM Fans
- Heatsink Offset Design
- Stepped Fins Design
- More Surface Area
- NT-H2
- Better PCIe Clearance
- Noise Performance
- SecuFirm2+ Torx-Based Mounting kit
- NA-ISW1 Shim Washer
- Screwdriver
- Warranty
Cons:
- Price
