Noctua NH-D15, Premium CPU Cooler with 2X NF-A15 PWM 140mm Fans (Brown)

This isnt a pretty cooler, but it will keep your processor temps in check under the hardest use. Its also big; really big. Make sure your motherboard has plenty of space around the cpu slot and that you use lower profile ram modules.

I bought a prebuilt PC a few years ago and my AIO cooler finally stopped performing well er- it never really performed well. I have an AMD ryzen 5 3600 with an nzxt AIO. The AIO would sit at 64 degrees Celsius when idling pretty much from the beginning, a full load would test at 74 degrees. Towards the end a full load would start getting to 80 degrees c sometimes even 85 and that was scaring me. I did a bunch of research and decided to pickup this CPU cooler, and man, i did not know my pc could stay so cool. A FULL LOAD for 20 minutes is now consistently sitting at an average of 44 degrees c, which is TWENTY DEGREES lower than my AIO when my pc was IDLE (2-4% cpu usage) When this cooler is idling it sits at a cooler temp than the room (36-40). I am BEYOND impressed that something so simple could make my pc run so much better.

I also have the NH-D14.... these are fantastic heat sinks for a quiet, powerful core i5/i7 computer. Bulky, but worth the money for cooling and being very quiet.

Nearly inaudible.

At first I was put off by the size of it but that quickly vanished when it came time to install. The installation is easy even for a somewhat novice builder as myself. It does take up a lot of room but that is minor. It comes with a noise reducer adapter but I didnt need it. The fans run so quiet I am not even aware its running. It does its job and keeps the CPU within normal temps. The only bad thing is that I will have to take it off to upgrade my RAM but I can live with that as it is so easy to install. Will consider Noctua again when it comes time for an upgrade.

Quiet and amazing cooling, dont even need to use the fans it f

I was having severe temperature issues with my stock AIO water cooler, which left me about 60C idle at desktop, and 80C-100C under load, depending on the game.

Ive always wanted to try a Noctua air cooler, because Ive read so many excellent reviews about their products. I built a basic budget gaming PC with some spare parts and a few new parts as well (its a terrible time to build a new PC right now). I chose an i5-11400 CPU, ASUS ROG Strix B560-A Gaming WiFi, and Crucial Ballistix CL16 (BL2K8G36C16U4B) for my budget build. I did not want to skimp on the CPU cooler, because I could always transfer it to another build in the future. The Noctua NH-D15 does not disappoint. Everything about it is well thought out and packaged wonderfully. Theres even NT-H1 thermal compound included. I had some NT-H2 laying around, so I decided to use that instead (all the better). The CPU temperature does not exceed 60 degrees Celsius on full load running at 4.2GHz - 4.39GHz. A clear winner for me. The cooler is surprisingly quiet for its massive size, and there are two NF-A15 140mm fans included. I actually prefer the creative color scheme of the Athene Noctua (its so fitting). A true Owl of Athena indeed.

At first i thought it will not fit on my Gigabyte H81M-D2V motherboard but it fits perfectly. The CPU temperature has gone from 70 degrees in games to 40 and I am pleased with the purchase. Noctua website was useful and their customer service too who ensured the cooler will fit and it did.

Keeps my i7-7700K nice and cool. Although the processor itself does jump around temperature wise but thats a known thing. Make sure to read the manual when you install and watch your RAM modules because you may have trouble with the second fan as it may not clear the RAM in some configurations.