Performance
I’ve marked the Noctua D15S (the old version of this cooler) in light green, the one we’re reviewing today, the G2 in dark green, and what I think is one of the best air coolers to rival it, the DeepCool Assassin IV in orange to make for an easier comparison. Right off the bat, it’s simple, this is one of the best performing coolers I’ve tested at stock settings, beating out just about everything bar two enormously powerful and expensive AIO coolers.
It is exceptional with our optimised settings too, keeping the mighty i9 at just 70c under full load. That’s enough to make it the best air cooler we’ve tested. It matched the Corsair A115 in terms of load cooling performance, but as you’ll see on the next few charts, the Corsair made a lot more noise in the process, while the Noctua G2 remained pretty quiet.
At just 35 dBa, it’s safe to say this is very quiet, ranking among the very best coolers we’ve tested to date, and virtually inaudible when sitting at idle. Even when you can hear fan noise, it’s different to most fans. I cannot hear the fan or motor at all, there’s no “wrrr” but just a warmer sounding breeze noise, rather than any high-pitched wooshing sounds, even at higher RPM.
Again, it just continued to be quiet throughout, and as I said, in this test the 70c load was matched by Corsair, but at 42.54 dBA it’s a lot louder than Noctua’s 34 dBa, obviously.
