Noctua NH-D15 Review

Up Close:  Fin Stack, Contact plate and Heat Pipes

As we had to remove both fans before fitting the cooler we thought we’d show you it in all its naked glory.  Actually, although we say glory, to be honest we think bare Aluminium is starting to look a bit too dated.  That and the unfinished heat pipe terminations.  With the likes of bequiet and even Scythe going the extra mile and adding milled effect caps to theirs there’s really little excuse for just leaving them au natural like this.  Just head over to the review of the bequiet Dark Rock Pro 3 if you want to see just how sexy the top of a cooler can look.

     

 

Where Noctua have been innovative though is their inclusion of a step at either end of the fin stack.  This stepping of the stack allows maximum RAM height to be increased from 32mm to a maximum of 64mm.  This comes with the proviso that only the central fan is used, and as such performance will be affected.  We can also see that in true Noctua form the soldering and forming of the heat pipes are a work of art.

     

 

The Copper contact plate is Nickel coated, but rather than having a mirror finish it is turned to a very fine milled finish.  We have every confidence that it is as flat as it’s possible for a contact plate to be, even if it doesn’t reflect our lens cap very well.