Noctua D15 Fan Swap?

[GrassyUK]

Long story short.
Big cooler, small fractal case, can't get ram small enough. can't raise cooler fan as no sidepanel clearance.

Swap the 140 noctua with a 120 fractal from the front = more ram clearance. Not sure how it will affect performance though.

Opinions?

 

[NeverBackDown]

Well I think the biggest difference will be noise. Other than that it's really hard to judge thermal performance. It's not like there's any data on it.
Although I suspect it might lose some, Noctua having the best fans and all. Shouldn't be drastic, probably a degree or two at load. Idle most likely won't change

 

[GrassyUK]

Well I think the biggest difference will be noise. Other than that it's really hard to judge thermal performance. It's not like there's any data on it.
Although I suspect it might lose some, Noctua having the best fans and all. Shouldn't be drastic, probably a degree or two at load. Idle most likely won't change

Yeah It feels kinda bad buying this cooler then stripping an amazing fan off it. I could and probably will replace the fractal with a 120mm Noctua.

This is my first time holding a Noctua fan and I can understand now why they cost so much. Pure quality.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Yeah. A Noctua cooler without a Noctua fan. Seems really odd. Almost like.. frowned upon

 

[AlienALX]

When I fitted mine years ago it went into a MATX case that wasn't very wide. So I could literally only fit the middle fan. It made barely any difference and the reduction in noise was more than worth the sacrifice of a few degrees.

 

[GrassyUK]

When I fitted mine years ago it went into a MATX case that wasn't very wide. So I could literally only fit the middle fan. It made barely any difference and the reduction in noise was more than worth the sacrifice of a few degrees.

Nice! Reassuring.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

Completely remove the front fan. That's what a NH-D15S is, and it performs only marginally behind the dual fan brother. Second fans on good heatsinks don't usually add very much.

 

[AlienALX]

Completely remove the front fan. That's what a NH-D15S is, and it performs only marginally behind the dual fan brother. Second fans on good heatsinks don't usually add very much.

Yeah I would do that. It only cost me 3-5'C.



I could not mount it the correct way around but still the temps were fantastic. Great cooler, just very cumbersome and prone to getting in the way. Still, if you're not a fiddler it's still one of the best coolers ever made

Just remembered why I could only mount it that way.. The board I had had a *massive* NB cooler.



As it was designed for AIO. I had to cut the Noctua up !



Yet it still performed amazingly well