Closer Look / Product Photos
The same as all new, chromax.black products, the NH-D15 comes in a black box. Inside are a well-protected cooler and additional accessories.
In the box is a cooler, a sticker with Noctua logo, thermal grease, low-noise adaptor, two fans, mounting kits for all popular desktop platforms, and a screwdriver. Pretty much everything we may need to install our new cooler.
Installation isn’t hard and shouldn’t cause any problems, especially if we stick to the user’s manual, which describes well every step.
Because of the size, the NH-D15 requires a PC case with space for at least 160mm tall cooler and better if there will be 165mm because then we can use tall memory modules and install one of the fans a bit higher.
I’ve heard mixed opinions about the paint which covers the cooler. Some users said it’s easy to scratch. I can’t agree with that as there were no problems with coolers that I was testing. On one of the coolers, I made a scratch with a screwdriver that didn’t go through the paint, and without a closer look, it was hard to notice it was even scratched. Of course, there are limits, but during normal usage and multiple installations, the paint should look good for a long time.
Even though the cooler is large then is designed to work with various components and nearly all motherboards on the market. There are, of course, exceptions, but not many. There are no problems to install the NH-D15 on even mini ITX motherboards, as long as there are no tall VRM/NB heatsinks.
Tall memory modules like the Ballistix Elite (on the photos below) can be installed with fans at their standard height. If we use anything taller, then we can install the fan higher, but then the total height of the cooler will also rise. These are things we have to consider while building a PC.
The cooler itself looks excellent, but I won’t hide that I’m more of a fan of single tower coolers like NH-U12A or NH-U12S.
For most users, the most important is the performance, so let’s move to the next page to check how the NH-D15 chromax.black performs on the latest AMD platform.
