Custom Waterloop vs Noctua NH-D15 AIR COOLING FTW?!
Custom Waterloop vs Noctua NH-D15 AIR COOLING FTW?!
2018-06-25
okay so here's the mission if I choose
to accept it but I probably will because
I'm the one that wrote the mission what
happens when you take somebody who's
really into water-cooling like myself
and even has a water cold test bench
what happens when I take what is touted
as the world's best water cooler
I mean air cooler see I can't even say
air cooling what happens when we take
this and test it will it change my mind
will it make me recommend air cooling
probably but we're still gonna do it
anyway
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below now before I can determine whether
or not the NHD 15 is actually worthy of
that title this I mean let's just get
this out of the way this is not a new
cooler it's been out for quite a few
years it's based on the award-winning D
14 but we're not - it asked me if I
wanted to check it out I was like heck
yeah I want you also send me a low
profile one I'm sure I could find a
small form-factor build use for that but
we first have to do our base tests
it's not edit editing fill baseline ba
se not be a SS cheese i clarify next
time but it is a d-type premium cooler
because you know oh wow it says based on
the award-winning HD 14 I didn't realize
that she said that right there now for
this test I'm using my Intel 8700 K and
this is always hard for me to figure out
what CP you all want to use I want to
use something that's kind of like maybe
in line with what the average consumer
would use and I could pump more heat
into these coolers to truly test them by
doing something like a high core account
CPU like a 70 900 X all the way up to
the 70 80 79 80 XE but the problem is I
don't think that many people are running
that and I think an 80 700 K is more
reminiscent of what people have plus it
has a known cooling issue before you
delete delete them delete them so it it
makes the transfer of heat on what's
actually making out of the IHS on the
Intel's heat spreader that much more
important so that is where our
limitation is going to be the amount of
cooling given to the CPU based on what's
actually being transferred to the cooler
so the cooler has a huge responsibility
we're also going to be using our all
stock settings for this and then maybe
we'll do a little over clocking the only
setting I have changed is it's set to
sync all cores they now default at 2 per
core because remember last year when
Coffey Lake launched it was this big
scandal about various motherboard
manufacturers shipping with this turned
on by default to sync all cores but
we're doing that because that actually
is an overclock which means our turbo
clock is going to apply to all cores and
not just the one or two threads that are
being tasked with all of that work so it
also means we're leaving this at stock
voltage and we'll monitor that will let
the watercooler run for about 15 minutes
to let it get up to temp and then we
will monitor our temperatures and go
from there and then we'll see whether or
not I'm even smart enough to install
this thing hopefully it's not hard but
you know I kind of make things that are
easy seem hard sometimes so there's that
so it's been running for 16 minutes now
and the temperatures are pretty decent
actually so this is the current value
this is the minimum who cares about that
honestly and this is the max so our
averages here which I'm going to call
value is sitting typically in the 60s
and 70s on the very right hand side
right here these are the spikes
like this spike right here you'll
probably see one come up here in a
second because it's doing mathematical
equations and what will happen here is
it will like eventually come up across
something that just spikes it and it has
to do like a hard calculation and then
the temp goes up suddenly but you could
say here's one right there I just came
up now that came back down so that's
what these spikes are so what we care
about obviously are these two columns we
want to see if we stay roughly in the
60s and 70s and what if our spikes get
any worse with air now remember this is
stuck this is all cores running at 4.7
gigahertz stock voltage and all that
stuff that one setting is all that was
changed I didn't go in here and do any
manual overclocking any manual turbo
clock or voltage or any of that so as
you can see the 8700 K definitely still
can can spike pretty high but in terms
of our max temperature though this is
still roughly 20 degrees away from 20
degrees Celsius away from t.j.maxx
no it's not just a story that stands for
thermal Junction although you can get
some great deals at t.j.maxx but you can
see right here with the exception of
these spikes this is pretty steady and
that's exactly what I was thinking was
going to happen
one other thing worth pointing out too
is the radiator fans were running at
about 1200 rpm these are actually 2200
rpm fans I believe they're the EK var
DARS but I'm running them at half speed
because Triple R add 360 rad not that
big of a the CPU can handle it or it can
handle the CPU whatever yeah so let's go
and put the air cooler on and compare
because that's kind of the point of
today's video remember it was a mission
and we accepted it I decided maybe you
didn't I don't know if you're still
watching that means you did okay it's
all installed it seems like it's working
the system's booted up I haven't looked
at temperatures yet the downside is I
can't really see the little readout oh
there it is we're idling at 24 C we are
plugged into PWM so where you're gonna
be using the fan curve from the
motherboard to control the fans they're
very quiet essentially you have two
independent towers but they are shared
vapor chamber cooler so you have six
heat pipes running to each one of these
towers that's the same heat pipe that
goes across and then we have a fan
that's actually bigger than the cooler
and at first you'd look at that and be
like why would they do that why would
they do it well a couple of reasons one
there's actually air flow coming off the
top of this so which helps actually move
air across the case two it hangs down
off the bottom here so that you're
actually gonna be moving air across
things like vrm memory I've had beside
this side of the memory on this modulus
Chile because it's blowing air directly
at it and so it's got a very very nice
design as you would expect from Noctua
the only thing that really kind of
stinks about it my opinion is still the
tan and brown they are so proud of that
tannin Brown so proud in fact I think
they actually limit their sales for no
the truth I think if they just made them
all black my prediction is they'd sell
35% more units in that first month you
guys can send me the profit if that
turns out to be true
so ribs are gonna do we're gonna go and
test this we're gonna run it's all the
same BIOS settings we're gonna run OC CT
for the same amount of time and we're
gonna see if the temperatures really
changed all that much now I'm pretty
excited because I know the NHD 14 is the
cooler that everyone was obsessed with
that was the cooler that everyone was
like no don't go AI o get in an HD 14
this is supposed to be the successor to
that that is that much better huh we'll
let this go but do I dare say this
already seems slightly better than the
harder cooling stuff
that can't be
they just want to mentor
so there was a little bit of heat soaked
because if we look at the spikes here we
went much higher on the spikes we did on
water but again a couple of degree is
not too bad I mean 87 was our max score
Oh 88 88 was our max score 83 81 but if
you look at our averages though this is
so much better than I was expecting it
to be remember we are technically
running a twenty seven point six percent
overclock over our base running at four
point seven two two gigahertz on all six
cores now why these temperatures so
close I can tell you why they're so
close because the IHS Tim on this the
thermal interface material is still crap
now the water cooler is a little bit
better at being able to handle those
spikes because it has a more efficient
transfer of heat but the true transfer
of heat efficiency is lost with the
terrible Intel application of thermal
paste which is why everyone dee lids
these CPUs and eighth gens and the
seventh gen extreme like the you know
obviously the seven 100x is known to be
really hot as you go up it gets worse so
this I need to just buckle down and
actually do the deal inning on some of
these CPUs if I want to be serious about
the temperatures I was a little
concerned though I mean I was getting
really sad because I was like crap this
is gonna I'm literally handing the water
cooling haters the ammunition they need
to tell me about how everything I do the
water cooling stuff is just a waste of
time but you know what else is a waste
of time
trying to put a man on the moon but we
did it anyway the other reality here is
the fact that both coolers obviously are
360 by 40 millimeter radiator and are
Noctua NHD 15 exceed the amount of
thermal capacity that we need to keep
the chip cool based on the amount of
heat making it through that crap beat
their thermal interface material does
that make sense you have you have this
between the cooler and the CPU die this
this thing so you have to get heat from
here to here and then from there to
there what's being handled from the top
of the IHS to the cooler is doing a
really good job because again both of
these coolers exceed the amount of heat
that is being in making it through that
what sucks is again the dye and the
material between the heat spreader and
the dye is where a lot of heat is
getting trapped and not making it
through so I could put the best cooler
in the world on this I could build I
could take that 480 times 4
radiator that we built and stick it on
this right now and it probably wouldn't
be any cooler than the 360 rat is simply
because of the fact that the heat isn't
making it out and thermal capacity is
not what's holding us back so when a
really long roundabout way I'm saying if
you're not comfortable with water
cooling you obviously have options out
there they're gonna give you great
performance without being too concerned
with whether or not you're gonna keep
your stuff cool enough now obviously we
need to address this was done in an open
air testbed because we wanted the only
factor in cooling to be the cooler
itself there's no case I could have
possibly put this in that would have
basically matched everyone's use case
scenario back home so as long as you
have proper air flow in your case your
results should be similar anyway guys
we're gonna go I've had a lot of
requests lately to do some air cooling
stuff and as we move into the summer
months except for Australia we know you
guys are upside-down and you guys are in
the upside down and you're dealing with
winter right now so obviously you guys
are having cooling issues but for the
rest of us when we're dealing with
temperature problems and heat and all
this stuff in the summertime which
obviously brings out cooling issues I
like to cover a lot of cooling topics in
the summer months so if you have a
suggestion please put it in the comments
down below or hit me up on Twitter at
Jays two cents and give me your
suggestions this was one of them and I
reached out to Noctua
asked for this cooler because it was
requested and we did it anyway guys
we're gonna go thanks for watching I
have a couple of videos they're gonna
pop up right here you might find them
interesting please feel free to check
those outs and as always we will see you
in the next one stupid cooler doing some
goods water cooling this stuff people
mad
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