Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 vs. Silence! Dark Rock Pro 4 CPU-Köler - Computer - 2023 (2023)

FAQs

Which is better Dark Rock TF 2 or Noctua D15? ›

Dark Rock TF 2 and Noctua NH-D15 see large bias, but for different reasons. The Dark Rock TF 2 sees very low noise levels and good cooling capacity, while the NH-D15 posts the best air cooling results we've seen and also is nearly silent.

Considering the mid-range pricing for a high-end CPU air cooler coupled with the impressive thermal performance, we would say the Noctua NH-D15 is definitely worth it. Arguably, the NH-D15 is one of the best coolers on the market.

Dark Rock Pro 4 is a fantastic CPU cooler built for pure performance, with impressive silent fans even at full load, and recommended from our side for your clean stealthy builds.

The key difference is the necessary modifications for TR4 support. Compared to the otherwise-identical regular Pro 4 cooler, this TR4's upper section of the base is now completely filled in. The reason for this is in the way the TR4 mounting mechanism works.

The Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Black is considered by many to be the best air cooler on the market.

The Noctua NH-D15 is one of the company's best-performing air coolers. It can handle high-performance CPUs like the Ryzen 9 5950X, thanks to its high cooling capacity due to its size, and has whisper-quiet fans. Noctua's NH-D15 is one of the highest-performing CPU fan coolers available.

Noctua NH D-15 is one of the best if not the best air cooler on the market. It is easily enough to cool i7 12700k, provided that the airflow in the case is sufficient.

Noctua's gigantic, coffee-colored NH-D15 is the best cooler for the Intel Core i7-12700K. Two 140mm PWM-controlled fans spin up to 1500 RPM, with the whole unit standing at 165mm tall, so you must check your case and motherboard for clearance.

Every Noctua fan I've tried has good circuitry and bearings. That means there's no clicking or whirring of motors and bearings when the fan is at low speed, so the only noise the fan makes is really through air movement. Every Noctua fan also has a 6 year warranty...

What is the most powerful CPU cooling? ›

Engineered for quiet operation, the Dark Rock Pro 4 Air Cooler operates at just 12.8, 17.9, or 24.3 dBA of noise under 50, 75, and 100% loads, yet offers a cooling capacity of 250W TDP. This air cooler is compatible with select Intel and AMD sockets.

If your temps are fine, then you're all good. It's not going to break or something like that just because you have 1 fan instead of two or anything. It's going to simply have one less fan. You could increase your fan speeds to make up for the lack of 2nd fan if the bump in temps bothers you.

The fan has a minimum speed of 500 RPM and a maximum speed of 1400 RPM.

Is the Noctua NHD15 or BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 good enough for Intel 10700k? It should be. Intel claims that the 10700K has a TDP of 95W. My NHD15 is cooling an R9–3950X with a claimed TDP of 105W inside a sub-13 litre mini-ITX case with zero intake fans.

DeepCool Assassin III CPU cooler

The DeepCool Assassin III is a great alternative to the Noctua NH-D15 in the big-size CPU cooler category. It also has a fantastic dual-tone design, huge fin-stacks and a pair of high-performance fans. Massive size!

Yeti Tundra 65

The Tundra 65 boasts the most impressive all-around performance out of any cooler we tested. Through numerous rounds of our intensive insulation testing, the Tundra 65 continued to outlast the rest in keeping contents at safe temperatures for consumption.

Phanteks' T30-120 merrily beats the Noctua NF-A12x25 with the highest airflow for each noise level. When restricted by a radiator, the difference isn't quite as drastic as in open air, but the T30-120 still wins by a healthy margin.

The NH-D15 and the AIOs are better for X model Ryzens and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D and 7950X3D. For Ryzen 9 CPUs, it's especially recommended to get a 360mm or 420mm cooler like Cooler Master's MasterLiquid ML360 Illusion or Corsair's iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT.

As a result, the CPU throttles, and the performance is reduced. When it comes to gaming, the performance of the stock cooler is acceptable. The peak CPU temperature is 50°C ~86°C for Core i5-12600 and Core i7-12700.

How much RAM do I need for i7-12700K? ›

With 12th-generation CPUs Intel focused on the ultimate performance of its processors, whether for gaming or other uses. Most prominent in this category are the i7 12700KF and 12700K. These processors are packed with performance and are ideal for a good gaming experience.

The Core i7-12700K can perfectly handle gaming and at high quality settings. The Core i7-12700K is bottlenecking RTX 3060 Ti by 4.6% at 1080p using ultra quality settings in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Noctua is an Austrian computer hardware manufacturer of CPU-coolers and computer fans which is primarily aimed at the enthusiast market.

As far as the thermal paste is concerned, the Noctua NT-H2 was 1c better than its predecessor, which is consistent with my colleague Aaron Lai's review in 2019. Meanwhile, there was no measurable difference between the ARCTIC MX-5 and the Noctua NT-H2, which is an excellent result.

Designed in Austria, Noctua's premium cooling components are internationally renowned for their superb quietness, exceptional performance and thoroughgoing quality.

No Compromise Silence and Performance

Dark Rock 4 offers an extreme cooling performance of 200W TDP and virtually inaudible operation. Perfect for overclocked systems and demanding workstations.

And a plastic bag with mounting brackets and screws for AMD and Intel platforms. Also you get some thermal paste.

The cooler has a clearance of 46.8mm for the RAM from the heatsink without the front fan. With a fan this clearance is 40mm.

What is the hottest CPU in the world? ›

1. Intel Itanium 2—Intel's Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) architecture gives the Itanium 2 an unmatched degree of parallelism.

According to Mark Gallina, liquid cooling more “efficiently distributes heat over more convection surface area (radiator) than pure conduction, allowing for reduced fan speeds (better acoustics) or higher total power.” In other words, it's more efficient, and often quieter.

At the highest loads, your average CPU temps can go up to 80–85°C, but consider this the absolute limit. Sustained CPU temps above 80°C can do long-term damage to the CPU and its silicon. If your CPU goes higher than 90°C for several hours, it will likely reduce the lifespan of your processor.

The Be Quiet! Dark Rock 4 is an excellent CPU cooler if you value a great balance between acoustic attenuation and thermal performance. At $74.90 USD, its strengths wholly outweighs its weaknesses.

However, a rock concert can be very loud no matter the space. On average, rock concert decibel levels are between 90 and 120 dB. This decibel level is concerning as it can threaten your hearing health. Sounds above 85 dB are considered harmful to human hearing.

Dark Rock 4 would be well suited for an efficient and performance air cooler for your thermally energetic Ryzen 9 5900X.

Setting it to “silent” means the fans are limited to a certain speed, so to prevent the CPU from burning out performance must be lowered to match - which is perfectly fine for CPU non-intensive tasks such as reading web pages, working on a document or spreadsheet, etc.

1-2 exhaust fans and 2-3 intake fans should be enough for most systems. If you are constantly demanding a high work rate from your PC, then you will likely want more than that. 2 or 3 exhaust fans and 4-5 intake fans will probably be enough to keep your GPU cool and your systems up and running, but this will vary.

Dark Rock Pro TR4 offers a cooling performance of 250W TDP and virtually inaudible operation. Excellent for high-end systems and demanding workstations. The dual-tower design for the Pro TR4 (and Pro 4) increased the cooling TPD to 250W without losing the silence aspect.

The ideal RPM for any vehicle is 1500 RPM to 3000 RPM. In this range, you can save up on a lot of fuel by driving efficiently. The ideal RPM for any vehicle is 1500 RPM to 3000 RPM. In this range, you can save up on a lot of fuel by driving efficiently.

Is Dark Rock 4 enough for 5600X? ›

Dark Rock Pro 4 is compatible with a huge range of both Intel and AMD CPUs. I finally landed a Ryzen 5600X (at a reasonable price too!), so my installation experience is based around the AM4 mounting. Based on what I could see, it should be a similarly easy experience with other mounts.

The i7-10700K contains a 16 MB smart cache which is overkill even for a high-end processor resulting in massively improved performance, efficiency, and faster data retrieval.

This leaves the Core i7-10700K as a good choice for high-end gaming machines, and it definitely takes the shine off Intel's Core i9-10900K (and its egregious power consumption) for overclocking enthusiasts and the frame-rate obsessed.

DeepCool Assassin III CPU cooler

The DeepCool Assassin III is a great alternative to the Noctua NH-D15 in the big-size CPU cooler category. It also has a fantastic dual-tone design, huge fin-stacks and a pair of high-performance fans.

Either the AK620 or Scythe Fuma 2 Rev B are great alternatives.

Overall the NH-D15 is a fantastic cooler. However, compared to the Coolermaster AIO cooler mentioned earlier, it's only at a 30w TDP deficit, with a maximum TDP of around 220w, whereas the AIO cooler comes with 250w.

Noctua fans are just a safe choice in regards ot noise and perofrmance. They are well known to be quiet, high quality, and high performance. They do come in black, and black & grey variations. In some case configurations the color of the fans is a non issue as you cant see them.

Performance: While the base performance of the NH-D15 and NH-D15S heatsinks are identical, the dual fan configuration of the NH-D15 can provide 1-3°C better performance.

Noctua NH-D15 Dual Radiator Quiet CPU Cooler with Two NH-A15 Fans. Built on the basis of the legendary NH-D14 and carrying on its quest for ultimate quiet cooling performance, Noctua's flagship model NH-D15 is an elite-class dual tower cooler for the highest demands.

Thanks to its recessed lower fins, the NH-D15 provides 64mm clearance for tall memory heatsinks in single fan mode, making it compatible with most high end RAM modules on the market. In dual fan mode, the NH-D15 should be used with standard height RAM (up to 32mm).

Does Noctua NH-D15 have plastic? ›

Noctua CPU coolers are shipped with a plastic protection cover at the bottom side of the cooler, which protects the contact surface against scratches and other damage. The plastic protection cover is clearly visible and there is no plastic film underneath.

These are very quiet and work great for radiator fans. Quiet but not as quiet as people say it is. anything over 1000 rpm is audible and over 1500 rpm is loud. 2000 rpm is like a jet engine.

AIOs are prone to wear and tear, and Air Coolers can last decades. AIOs can be noisier at idle (pump-noise), so they might not be your go-to-choice for low-noise builds, but they can be less noisy when under full load, thanks to their potentially higher radiator mass, the number of fans, and fan sizes.

Sound. Liquid cooling, especially when using an All-in-One (AIO), tends to be quieter than the fan on a CPU heatsink. Again, this can vary, in that there are air coolers with fans specifically designed to reduce noise, and fan settings or fan selection can impact the amount of noise generated.

Custom water cooling loops offer the best cooling performance, hands down. Not only do they handle higher temperatures than AIOs and air coolers, but they can be necessary for overclocking powerful, high-end CPUs.