INTRODUCTION

   CPU air cooling vs AIO Liquid CPU cooling is something most PC users think of when building a brand new system or just want to update their old one. Personally, i've always felt that the answer is very easy so leaving out space constraints (mATX/mITX cases which may not have enough room for an large CPU air cooler or an AIO cooler) if you own or plan on getting a case/tower with very good airflow levels grabbing a large CPU air cooler is the way to go. Likewise, if your case/tower doesn't do well in that area an AIO should be a far better choice especially since you can mount its fans as intake ones to cool the radiator far more effectively (instead of the typical exhaust configuration). Of course, not all CPU air coolers can compete with large 240/280/360mm AIO liquid CPU coolers and this is where models by Noctua have always proven themselves. Still one thing many people didn't quite like was their color theme which Noctua fixed with their chromax.black line and after testing the very popular NH-U12S and NH-L9i today I’ll be testing the perhaps even more popular NH-D15S and NH-U9S models.

   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.

   As with all chromax.black CPU air coolers both the NH-D15S and the NH-U9S are basically black color versions (black powder coating) of the normal models and so once again the NH-D15S is a dual-tower type that ships with a single NF-A15 150mm HS-PWM fan (1500RPM/82.51CFM/24.6dBA) mounted between the two heatsinks (sandwich design) whereas the NH-U9S is a single tower type which gets shipped with a single 95mm NF-A9 PWM fan (2000RPM/46.43CFM/22.8dBA). Of course, these two coolers couldn't be more different so on one hand we have a massive 160mm tall, 150mm wide and 135mm long model with a total of six 6mm copper heatpipes (NH-DF15) while on the other we have a compact 125mm tall, 95mm wide and 95mm long model with five 6mm copper heatpipes (NH-U9S). Now as with prior reviews i don't really expect much different results compared to the "regular" non-black models but I’ll check them out and see for myself.