Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 120mm U-Type Tower Heatsink Review

I would assume that most everyone is familiar with the Noctua NH-D15 heatsink and the Noctua NH-D14 that was released over seven years ago.  These coolers offer the best of both worlds given the excellent thermal performance of the dual tower design and even better acoustical performance due to fan efficiencies and oversized design.

As always the installation hardware is extremely good and features a universal mounting system that is both easy to install and works on almost every Noctua cooler.  Keep in mind that while the AMD backplate and risers are completely universal the rails are often tweaked slightly to accommodate different coolers.  Some might bow outwards while others may be relatively straight.  In this review we tested on the X370 AM4 and unlike other AMD CPUs it uses a slightly different mounting pattern and needed a special set of mounting brackets.

Overall performance was really good.  The heat tests showed that the Noctua NH-D15 SE AM4 could handle a very healthy overclock and responded well despite only having a single fan installed.  This is due to the increased surface area and in all honestly having the fan located in the center is the best place for it.  What surprised me the most was looking at the change in C/W showing that system started to lose efficiency even at 115w.  I can assure you that the NH-D15 can handle a highly overclocked Core i7 3960X pushing out nearly 240w so, why the numbers are different here is a bit of a mystery.  I attribute this to a less aggressive fan curve but am not ruling out an inaccurate thermal reading due to how Ryzen reports CPU temperatures as being hotter than they actually are.

Small Form Factor
Excellent Performance
Noctua Mounting System
Six Heatpipe Configuration
Dual Tower Design
Dual Fan Options
Tall Memory Access

Would have expected better overclocking performance (blame Ryzen)