Noctua NH-D15 Review

[minus47]

I seem to be in the minority here, but I buy computers to use them, not to look at them. If I wanted to look at something, I would get a painting or pornography, not a computer. To withhold an award from an otherwise deserving product based entirely on something so meaningless (not to mention completely subjective) as appearance is ridiculous. Is this hardware review or art critique? Good review otherwise.

I think the D15 should be able to handle 4.6ghz with slightly faster fans. It seems to be at least as good as the best AIOs in cooling:noise ratio.

Pretty much all Noctua products are luxury items. Most mainstream PC users do not splurge on a separate CPU cooler. It is only those who are overclockers and tweakers and who actually take the time to get the highest performance or get the most efficient performance out of their systems that are its potential customers.

So for some people, when they pay this much money for a luxury item, performing well is not enough. It has to look good. These people who don't like the Noctua look but like the performance, may feel that they have(or would be) overspent(or overspending) on the product especially because bequiet Dark Rock Pro 3 "looks better" for a significantly lesser price, and also performance delta between the two might not be enough for these people to tolerate the "bad looks" and the price.
There are some who value only performance, and like to feel that all the money they spent went into getting the maximum performance and they are happy.
And then there are some(few) who like the performance and the looks who are the happiest of them all.

Like you said, aesthetics is subjective. The 'majority' like the way their components look. I too am in the 'minority' in that my priority is performance over looks. Always. So for those of us, the performance award is just as good as the gold. I don't care how a CPU cooler looks as long as it does the job well. But I can appreciate good artwork on a case or well made cable sleeving and stuff like that.

Some people save their money and spend it on an art piece. And some would rather spend that money on their computer and make it a functional art piece.

 

[Wraith]

Slight colour change and Noctua could be onto a sure fire winner. Amazing performance and price but please Noctua give us options.

 

[RizeAllard]

Its again a bigboy from noctua. I really like them, but the colortheme is outstand from almost every colortheme i using when i'm build a computer. But there will be one I can use all of my spare noctua goodies...

 

[Nous Défions]

Although the Noctua cooling solutions & fans have great performance, I just cannot bring myself to like the color of the fans.

About the only mobo they may match, somewhat, is the later ASUS Sabertooth-TUF series with the military/subdued colors...and even then, it may be a stretch.