Noctua NH-D15 Black or original?

[Dogo]

Hey,

Been buying parts for my first build in about 20 years, and still to get a cooler and think I've settled on this Noctua model.

Low stock of the black model so thinking of just getting the original. Does anyone have either? Or did you want the black one but settle for the original?

[MrJim]

I don't think there's any difference in objective performance between the 'Chromax' black versions of their coolers & the original versions...the Chromax black ones just cost more. Which is a bit cheeky imo. Personally I'd just put up with the silver coloured cooler & baby-poo coloured fans, & put the difference in cost towards another component of the system!

[iEimis]

The performance is pretty much identical, I would say go for what you like the most, if aesthetics are important to you, wait for chromax. Personally, I would.

[ik9000]

I don't think there's any difference in objective performance between the 'Chromax' black versions of their coolers & the original versions...the Chromax black ones just cost more. Which is a bit cheeky imo. Personally I'd just put up with the silver coloured cooler & baby-poo coloured fans, & put the difference in cost towards another component of the system!

this ^. Performance of the cooler is about the same.

If buying fans by themselves then a watch-it: The chromax fans run faster than the pink ones when bought as singles, but not when bought as part of a kit. eg the NH-U14S ships with a 140mm NF-A15 PWM (on 120mm mount) which is 1500rpm or thereabouts. If you buy the retail solo fan it is only 1200rpm, but the chromax retail version is the full 1500rpm model so I paired the kit fan with that. You can get dual fan kits too, from what I can tell on ebay both are 1500rpm. I've no idea if the 2nd fan there is the 1500rpm version now though as Noctua said the following when asked directly:

Question:
Where can i get the 1500rpm nf-a15 pwm fan like the one that ships with the nh-u14s cooler? this seems to be a lower rpm (and lower airflow) version.
Answer By NOCTUA:
The NF-A15 PWM (1500rpm) fan is not available for sale.

The 1200rpm retail model is ideal for setting up push/pull configurations in combination with the coolers’ 1500rpm stock fan because the combination of the 1500 and 1200rpm models provides a better balance of performance and noise than the combination of two 1500rpm versions. On dual-tower coolers such as the NH-D15S, we recommend to run the 1500rpm version in the center and the 1200rpm version on the front. On single-tower coolers such as the NH-U14S, we recommend to run the 1500rpm version on the front and the 1200rpm version on the back of the cooler.

The other watch-it is the chromax fans DON'T ship with the noise reduction cable that comes with the pink ones, and the fan cable lengths are different too. Seriously no idea wtf is the reason for that, but there you go!

ps why is this listed in the corsair section? Does it need moving to the relevant tech forum area?

[Terbinator]

The other watch-it is the chromax fans DON'T ship with the noise reduction cable that comes with the pink ones, and the fan cable lengths are different too. Seriously no idea wtf is the reason for that, but there you go!

Unless that is a recent change, my DH15 Chromax did come with 2x noise reduction cables included - NA-RC7 which I bought around August last year.

[ik9000]

Unless that is a recent change, my DH15 Chromax did come with 2x noise reduction cables included - NA-RC7 which I bought around August last year.

Interesting, so the cooler kits might include them. The single fans do not though, or at least my NF-A15 HS PWM (chromax) did not whereas the NF-A14 PWM (Standard) did.

[Dogo]

thanks for the info guys.

Went ahead and ordered a black one when it was in stock, then disappeared. Now waiting on stock.

Kinda wish I ordered the original but that too is now oos. So many thinks oos at the moment, other thing I'm waiting on is a case, again oos.