Firstly I would like to say thank you to Noctua Distributor Malaysia because i went Singapore and they says their distributor give up noctua products.
The AIO goes very cheap these days, and they provides good perfomance at low price, and, they attaches the radiator to the chassis which decreases stress to motherboard and easier access to RAM, CPU 8Pin, and the most important is they don't block the first PCIE slots. Honestly, those expensive air coolers hard to competite with them, thats why Singapore distributor gives up. But why do people (me) still choose the huge Noctua NH-D15?

Unboxing


This is the box appeared in my living room table when i got back to home


I couldn't describe how happy am i when i see the "NH-D15".I've asked everywhere, lowyat plaza, goes to singapore and they have no stock for this. I had to use stock cooler for few weeks, almost few month, or they aren't going to carry noctua products.


So this is the packaging of NH-D15


The cooler's specifications are listed here


The other side is the technologies used in the NH-D15


The description of the product in serveral language. Only english is perfect and the chinese and japanese(heard from others) translate is horrible from the default meaning, the only save cost thing Noctua did, else its a 100% perfect product.


The top of the box. Going to reveal the insight!


I guess this is the best packaging i've ever seen. Those components are well recognized and packed, perfectly fitted into the box.


There are a extra foam, not paper box, below those box protected components.


There is a cut-edge for user to place their finger in to remove the foam to access to components below.


The main character is appeared! As you can see, the NH-D15 heatsink and the secondary fan is packed in a box, with additional protection foam surrounded them.

Let's take a look around its components first.


The secondary fan. I prefer this packaging than the retail ones


These are the components that I'm going to use so the AMD mounting isn't here.


The mounting kit includes a paper box that acts like motherboard and a plastic bag of screws. 4 screws is required and another 4 screw is for LGA2011 mounting.


The backplate is metal now instead of arcylic in NH-D14 and it's much more beautiful


The accesseries box contains all kind of wire like low noise adapter, which limits the Max RPM, PWM of fans from 1500RPM to 1200RPM, clips for secondary fan, Noctua famous thermal compound, and a very high quality L shape screw driver. The screw driver is the best screw driver in my house, true stainless steel and extremely durable.


The paper box of NH-D15, as you can see, it is more than one layer.


Have a sneak peak at Noctua's famous ultra flat cooler base.


Unbox the heatsink!


The fins!!


Even the empty spaces inside the paper box are well-filled. The design is to make user to take out the cooler easier without damaging the fins. (Actually those fins could damage your skin). To open the box, open it up from the top from 4 sides, so the top actually have 4 layers.


Every empty spaces is filled, even the space between the radiators.


Remove the box


The NH D15's fin now hooks each other for durability and seals the airflow.


The heatpipes is widened to pair with bigger fan.


I personally don't like this design. I prefer maximum cooling perfomance than doing compability with those pointless (don't kill me) tall, high perfomance rams. Without those complains to Noctua, they wouldn't do this design, that should increase the cooling perfomance.


The heatpipe height is adjusted, because the outer heatpipe should be the longest which decreases the efficiency of heatpipe, so they shorten it. Another reason is the fan doesn't cover the outer heatpipes.


The Noctua Logo and the perfect soldering quality between heatpipe and aluminium fins.


The NH-D15 is ready to be installed


The bottom copper base is covered with a hard plastics, the plastic is solid and thick


The photoes is taken with different focus point so you can see every detail of the bottom copper base. It is very flat and isn't mirror finished. According to the website, the base with this kind of finish is designed to pair with high end thermal compound because they have very high density, would fill into the surface.


The front view of the copper base, its extremely flat


After the removal of intel stock cooler and thermal greese


This is wrong installation method for the backplate, the backplate should be turned 90 degree left for the holes to match the intel backplate. will upload the correct ones when next disassembly of my pc.


The installation of the SecurFirm 2 mounting kit


The installation "legs" are installed and ready to put thermal paste

For the installation it take me some times and I couldnt figure out how to screw the screw from the NH-D15 heatsink to the mounting kit. I aimed accurately the bolt and screw it, but it always don't lock into it, even with a lot of strength. For the second installation, i find that I must screw all mounting kit screws tightly, and don't worry it will damage your motherboard, then it should be easy to secure the heatsink to the mounting kit easily. I was faustrated so i didn't took any photo during the installation.


The finished looks. I need to clarify that those noctua fans aren't that ugly, but they do look ugly in photoes due to the color difference The color actually same, even better than the colors you see on the noctua website.


I'm a Noctua Fan!!


Close the case and ready to do the benchmark


This is how the cooler looks when the pc is running.

Benchmark : RealTemp & Prime95
Setup : i7 2600k HT Enabled, NZXT H440, Leadtek GTX760 (reference cooler so no affect to cpu temperature), Corsair value RAM (so I don't test RAM's clearance)
The highest core temperature will be shown. If you want to see averange, minus them by 5.
The stock cooler hits 98c and i don't know why, checked the fan and contact, thermal greese and there is no problem. Don't take the stock cooler load temperature as reference.



For the smooth PWM feature, lets say I set PWM settings to 50C/Full Speed, once the processor reaches 50C, the RPM will increases by 36RPM/s, until 1500RPM. Same goes to the processor temperature decreases below 50C.