Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 CPU Cooler Overview
The first thing that you’ll notice about the NH-D15 SE-AM4 is that it is a very large cooler, it is actually Noctua’s largest cooler. It has official dimensions of 165 mm x 150 mm x 161 mm (HxWxD) so you are going to want to make sure it will fit inside of your system. The cooler also keeps the same Noctua colors we are used to seeing on their coolers.
This cooler is designed as a dual-tower cooler so you have two aluminum heatsink towers. If we look at the cooler from the side we can see that the heatsink stacks are thinner towards the bottom. This is for better compatibility with memory if you only plan on using a single fan.
This cooler ships with two NF-A15 140mm fans. One is to be mounted in the center of the cooler with the other on either of the sides depending on your setup. This fans make use of an SSO2 bearing and have a max rotational speed of 1500 RPM (+/- 10%), max airflow of 140.2 m³/h, max acoustical noise of 24.6 dB(A). These fans feature the rubber corners which will dampen vibration and they are held on to the cooler using the typical fan clips.
Coming out of the base you’ll find six nickel-plated copper heatpipes. These heatpipes go up into the heatsink in a “U” fashion. These help transfer heat from the base of the cooler up into each heatsink tower for dissipation by the fans. Compared to the NH-D14 the heatpipes on this cooler are spaced further apart, which allows for a more uniform heat distribution over a larger surface area.
If we take a look at one of the heatsink towers we can see how the heatpipes go up into it in uniform fashion.
Taking a closer look at the base one thing that is very interesting is that we do have visible machining marks. This is a little different than the mirror-finish bases we’ve seen from Noctua in the past. From this video you can also see how the heatpipes come in from each side on the cooler.
