INTRODUCTION

   For as long as i can remember consumers had but one issue with CPU coolers made by Noctua and that was the somewhat unique brown and beige color theme of their fans. Noctua's original goal of course was for their products to stand out from everything else in the market and aside their excellent build quality and cooling performance the color theme of their fans was a good way to accomplish that. Regardless of worldwide consumer pressure however it actually took Noctua roughly 10 years to also include black fans and accessories (Chromax line) in their product lines and even though that move was a step towards the right direction by that time something else was missing from the mix. Fast forward almost 4 years later and Noctua just recently released their very first all-black CPU coolers starting with their flagship NH-D15 chromax.black model which is here with us today.

   Designed in Austria, Noctua’s premium cooling components are internationally renowned for their superb quietness, exceptional performance and thoroughgoing quality. Having received more than 6000 awards and recommendations from leading hardware websites and magazines, Noctua’s fans and heatsinks are serving hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers around the globe.

   Just like the original NH-D15 released back in 2014 (review here) the brand new chromax.black is a massive dual-tower heatsink model ("sandwich" type/6 all copper heatpipes/160x150x135mm in size with a weight of 980g) which Noctua has paired with two of their latest NF-A15 140mm chromax.black fans (same however as the "regular" NF-A15 in terms of specifications) which can achieve speeds of up to 1500RPM to produce up to 68.98CFM of airflow with 1.51mmH2O of air pressure and up to just 19.2dBA of noise (with both fans installed the cooler measures 165x150x161mm and weighs 1320g). Basically the sole difference between the "original" NH-D15 and the NH-D15 chromax.black is none other than the rather unique black paint used to coat the entire cooler (both heatsinks and all 6 heatpipes/even the fan clips) which according what we hear took a long time for Noctua to develop in order for it to have no negative effect on cooling efficiency. So, let's see exactly what you can expect from the new back to black.