Performance
Tests were performed on the same platform as all other Noctua AM4 coolers so on R7 1700X processor and ASUS Prime X370-Pro with 0502 BIOS.
Idle state is of course showing temperature without any special load. There are services running in the background which can’t be disabled and that’s all.
Mixed tests are based on PCMark 8 which is using popular applications to perform typical home/office environment.
High CPU load test is based on AIDA64 stability test while maximum load is based on the latest version of Prime95 torture test.
The NH-D15 SE-AM4 performs really good. Fans are starting to be heard under full CPU load but I guess it will be fixed in new BIOS releases. Right now motherboard is setting a bit too high fan speed what is of course affecting generated noise. As you can see minimum fan speed is 500 RPM while in specification is 300 RPM. Actually all Noctua coolers were running at a bit too high fan speed just because of BIOS calibration issues. AMD Ryzen is still new platform and motherboard manufacturers have promissed updates soon.
In our tests the NH-D15 is performing great and even though BIOS isn’t perfect then fans are quiet and shouldn’t cause any additional noise. In a closed PC case you won’t really hear it even when CPU will be under full load.
During mixed load tests all was really quiet. It’s about what you can expect while playing games. I guess that more problems with noise will cause higher performance graphics card.
Comparing to AMD Bulldozer generation, Ryzen is really cool and quiet and you can easily show its max potential using cooling like Noctua NH-D15.
At the end simple graph showing fan scalling under load. As we see the NH-D15 SE-AM4 is providing low fan speed so at the same low noise even at full CPU load. More advanced users can adjust fan speed depends on CPU temperature in BIOS with even better effects.
