Noctua NH-D15 or Noctua NH-D14?

[lb_felipe]

Here in Brazil both are for the same price.

I'll use an ASUS PRIME X370-PRO, therefore will be able to control properly the NF-P14 FLX.

I think the only reason to get the old boy is because that 140mm fan, which has the best acoustics on the SPCR standards. The 120mm fan shall be removed.

If I end up getting up the newer, that is, the NH-D15, I'll remove the front fan, leaving it like the NH-D15S (that is just with the middle fan). Therefore the choice is between NF-P14 FLX with old one and NF-A15 with new version.

[lodestar]

From the SPCR review of the Noctua NH-D15 "...Replacing the NF-A15's with our reference NF-P14's produced nearly identical results, except in the one fan configuration, which greatly favored the NF-A15, especially at higher speeds...". So if you want to run a single fan the NH-D15 would be a better choice. As you are planning to use an AM4 motherboard presumably it would also make sense to buy the NH-D15 SE-AM4 version if it is available.

[yakuman]

At single fan configuration the NH-U14S is even better: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1395-page6.html . It's lighter and less expensive too.

[lodestar]

The NH-U14S will need the NM-AM4-UxS fitting kit which is free on application to Noctua, but is also available through the normal retail channels.

[lb_felipe]

From the SPCR review of the Noctua NH-D15 "...Replacing the NF-A15's with our reference NF-P14's produced nearly identical results, except in the one fan configuration, which greatly favored the NF-A15, especially at higher speeds...". So if you want to run a single fan the NH-D15 would be a better choice. As you are planning to use an AM4 motherboard presumably it would also make sense to buy the NH-D15 SE-AM4 version if it is available.

Thanks for reply.

Here I am not able to get the SE-AM4 version.

The optons (in terms of dual tower) are NH-D14, NH-D15 and NH-D15S.

My case is an NZXT S340 Elite (also because missig of alternatives). If I purchase an NH-D15 (non-S), remove the front fan keeping the middle one, and push that fan to down, will it be 160mm of height like the S version?

At single fan configuration the NH-U14S is even better: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1395-page6.html . It's lighter and less expensive too.

Thanks.

The problem is the heigth. My case is an S340 Elite, and NZXT states it has just 161mm clearance for CPU cooler.

[lb_felipe]

I ended up replacing the NZXT S340 Elite with the Corsair 400Q. Also, I replaced the NH-D15 with NH-U14S plus three fans (all to be delivered): 1 x Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200 (single redux 120mm available on the Brazilian market) plus 2 x Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM (slowest 140mm redux here).

NF-S12B redux-1200 will be installed on back as exhaust and the two NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM, on front as intake.

My system:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (YD1700BBAEBOX)
ASUS PRIME X370-PRO
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING 8G
Crucial MX300 525GB (CT525MX300SSD1)
Corsair Carbide 400Q (CC-9011100-WW)
Corsair RM550x (CP-9020090-NA)
Noctua NH-U14S
Noctua NM-AM4-UxS
Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM
Dell UltraSharp U2515H

Did I do well?

[Abula]

I ended up replacing the NZXT S340 Elite with the Corsair 400Q. Also, I replaced the NH-D15 with NH-U14S plus three fans (all to be delivered): 1 x Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200 (single redux 120mm available on the Brazilian market) plus 2 x Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM (slowest 140mm redux here).

NF-S12B redux-1200 will be installed on back as exhaust and the two NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM, on front as intake.

My system:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (YD1700BBAEBOX)
ASUS PRIME X370-PRO
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING 8G
Crucial MX300 525GB (CT525MX300SSD1)
Corsair Carbide 400Q (CC-9011100-WW)
Corsair RM550x (CP-9020090-NA)
Noctua NH-U14S
Noctua NM-AM4-UxS
Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM
Dell UltraSharp U2515H

Did I do well?

I think you going to have a wonderful setup, Asus should take care of your fans, and all fans you chosen can be driven to inaudible levels, its a matter of setting them up correctly and you should have a very nice setup, probably the noisiest will be the GPU.

Hope you share some pics of the build.

[lb_felipe]

I ended up replacing the NZXT S340 Elite with the Corsair 400Q. Also, I replaced the NH-D15 with NH-U14S plus three fans (all to be delivered): 1 x Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200 (single redux 120mm available on the Brazilian market) plus 2 x Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM (slowest 140mm redux here).

NF-S12B redux-1200 will be installed on back as exhaust and the two NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM, on front as intake.

My system:
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (YD1700BBAEBOX)
ASUS PRIME X370-PRO
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING 8G
Crucial MX300 525GB (CT525MX300SSD1)
Corsair Carbide 400Q (CC-9011100-WW)
Corsair RM550x (CP-9020090-NA)
Noctua NH-U14S
Noctua NM-AM4-UxS
Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM
Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM
Dell UltraSharp U2515H

Did I do well?

I think you going to have a wonderful setup, Asus should take care of your fans, and all fans you chosen can be driven to inaudible levels, its a matter of setting them up correctly and you should have a very nice setup, probably the noisiest will be the GPU.

Hope you share some pics of the build.

One of my complaints about this motherboard lies in the fact that it only has two true chassis fan headers. Right now I have just three fans connected on de motherboard (Wraith Spire's fan and two NZXT FN V2), but, soon, I will have four fans for motherboard's fan headers, and the other three headers are CPU OPT, AIO Pump and W_PUMP+. I should open my case and connect at least one of my fans to see how it works on one of those headers, but I just will do that (opening case) when I will swap my system to the 400Q. I believe I will have none of the feautures of Fan Xpert 4 on those headers.

I was thinking of plug one of those fans directly on the 400Qs fan header. That way, at least so the stupid fan control switch on the panel of the new revision of 400Q would have an use. What do you think out?

About pictures, of course. Notify me in order to I remeber to post them.

[Abula]

One of my complaints about this motherboard lies in the fact that it only has two true chassis fan headers. Right now I have just three fans connected on de motherboard (Wraith Spire's fan and two NZXT FN V2), but, soon, I will have four fans for motherboard's fan headers, and the other three headers are CPU OPT, AIO Pump and W_PUMP+. I should open my case and connect at least one of my fans to see how it works on one of those headers, but I just will do that (opening case) when I will swap my system to the 400Q. I believe I will have none of the feautures of Fan Xpert 4 on those headers.

Well i count CPU_FAN, CHA_FAN1 and CHA_FAN2, all of those should be controllable by fanXpert. CPU_OPT usually its just a mirror of CPU_FAN, has never been controllable in all my Asus mobos, so its very likely to be like this here, this was more i think for dual fan setups, but personally never really understood why. The other two, AIO Pump and W_Pump, are new headers to me in, at least on Asus ambit, my guess is they will be controllable my FanXpert, as there are pwm and dc pumps, so i dont see why they shouldnt be controllable, but new stuff you never know what to expect.

I was thinking of plug one of those fans directly on the 400Qs fan header. That way, at least so the stupid fan control switch on the panel of the new revision of 400Q would have an use. What do you think out?

Im guessing you will run 3 case (2xNF-P14S and 1x NF-S12B) fans and 1 cpu (NF-A15 pwm) fan right? I would run the NF-A15 PWM on the CPU_FAN header, the back NF-S12B on the CHA_FAN1 and get a PWM splitter (noctua has some, some coolers and fans come with them, but not the redux line), i would run with CHA_FAN2 and PWM splitter the two frontal NF-P14S.

About pictures, of course. Notify me in order to I remeber to post them.

Sure, ill remind you later on.

[lodestar]

CPU_OPT usually its just a mirror of CPU_FAN, has never been controllable in all my Asus mobos, so its very likely to be like this here, this was more i think for dual fan setups, but personally never really understood why.

I would recommend that you plug the NF-S12B exhaust fan into CPU_OPT so that it runs in sync with the CPU fan (same PWM duty cycle). This practice of linking a PWM exhaust fan to the CPU fan goes back years, a very common practice amongst UK gamers and elsewhere. This will then leave CHA_FAN1 and CHA_FAN2 for the two frontal NF-P14S without the need to use a PWM splitter.

I built and still build systems for my gamer family members and this CPU/exhaust fan linking was found to be the most effective way of limiting CPU temperatures and CPU/exhaust fan speeds. Before the CPU_OPT header appeared a PWM splitter cable was used, so the Asus CPU_OPT fan header is essentially a PWM splitter built into the motherboard. This is why CPU_OPT simply mirrors the CPU PWM header settings and is not separately configurable.

At one time the Asus BIOS fan setting would be simply set to the Silent Profile, which would run the CPU/CPU_OPT fan from around the 20% duty cycle under idle conditions. On current Asus motherboards the Silent Profile tends to be somewhat more aggressive in terms of fan speeds than it used to be. For that reason I would now suggest running the BIOS fan optimization in manual mode to yield the lowest possible PWM duty cycle, and set the profile to hold this until the CPU temperature reaches at least 50C. This will give the quietest fan speeds under all conditions apart from gaming, where it will automatically ramp up fan speeds as the system is stressed. Normally I don't use the Asus Fan Xpert software as the BIOS gives all the control needed.

[lb_felipe]

Abula, thanks you for advice. I will consider eerthing. Now i'm having trouble with Fax Xpert (or BIOS 0805). I'm getting black screen freeze crashes due the monitoring softwares, and sudden the motherboard stops controlling the ChaFan2, forcing me power down the PSU and restart to restore the normal condition. I can see the same fail on the AIDA64, which brings me to conclude that it is a BIOS (or whatever) issue. I'd like QFan had the same power of controlling of Fan Xpert for, in case of being the AI Suite the responsable for crashes, me to give up it.

lodestar, it happens the NF-S12B redux-1200 I will have is not the PWM version. Do you still recommend me linking it with CPU fan (will be a NF-A15 PWM that comes with NH-U14S, that is, the 1500 rpm version)? Thank you for your post.

[Abula]

Abula, thanks you for advice. I will consider eerthing. Now i'm having trouble with Fax Xpert (or BIOS 0805). I'm getting black screen freeze crashes due the monitoring softwares, and sudden the motherboard stops controlling the ChaFan2, forcing me power down the PSU and restart to restore the normal condition. I can see the same fail on the AIDA64, which brings me to conclude that it is a BIOS (or whatever) issue. I'd like QFan had the same power of controlling of Fan Xpert for, in case of being the AI Suite the responsable for crashes, me to give up it.

Personally i dislike Asus AI suite, while its good, i don't need all the things it does, i personally wish that FanXpert would be a stand alone app, but Asus has never listen about it, although they have done with some other stuff, like for example the Auras on the RGBs on the GPUs and Motherboards, now have a stand alone app.

My suggestion is give a shot to pure bios fan control, i had issues with my Asus H170 Pro Gaming, mostly it was that Q-Fan Tuning option on the bios was not reading correctly the min rpms of certain fans, and this happen with some fans one run and change to others on other runs, and this is a limiting factor, as you cant set up the graph below what Q-Fan tuning reads on the run. I also had some restarts on moving the graphs on the bios, specially getting close to the limits that q-fan tuning establish. That said, i think its a work in progress, like Asus engineers seem to be on the right track, they want to do a semi fanxpert on pure bios, which is very good, just don't work fully yet, but its more bugs that i feel they will fix over time or in newer motherboards, and yours is newer, so it might be better than mine. So my suggestion is uninstall AI Suite and give a shot to pure bios fan control, see how it works.

1) Enter the bios
2) Go to the monitor setup and search for each header, make sure they are PWM or DC, depending on each fan you plug into each header. I believe the option is Q-Fan.
3) Run Q Fan tuning, this will establish the min max of each fan
4) Enter each fan and change the graph as you feel its better for your setup and test it, see how it does.

Good luck,

[lodestar]

...it happens the NF-S12B redux-1200 I will have is not the PWM version. Do you still recommend me linking it with CPU fan (will be a NF-A15 PWM that comes with NH-U14S, that is, the 1500 rpm version)?

Edited:

Having checked my BIOS settings, it shows the CPU_OPT fan and its speed. However the fan setting page does not show CPU_OPT. So a voltage controlled fan run in the CPU_OPT position with a PWM CPU fan would simply run at full speed. This would mean that this fan could only be run from one of the chassis fan headers. As your fan headers are dual PWM/voltage you can run the optimization under manual mode to reduce the speed to the lowest possible under idle conditions. Without optimization you should expect to see a minimum speed of around 800 rpm, with optimization this should fall to about 600 rpm.

Plan B would be to set the A15 to run in voltage mode rather than PWM. Then you could simply plug the S12B into CPU_OPT and it would run in sync. With fan optimization of the A15 this would result in a minimum speed at idle of around 650 rpm. Both fans would still be relatively inaudible given their position in the case. If both were PWM and running in PWM mode the idle speeds would be much lower, around 250 to 350 rpm depending on ambient temperature. But the Asus fan headers at least give the flexibility to run either of the fan modes, which is very useful if you have existing voltage fans or want to use any voltage fans that came with the case.

[lb_felipe]

Abula, it is true. AURA is standalone. I think Fan Xpert should be too, although I guess it is Fax Xpert which is crashing my system. By the way, I regret have bought that motherboard because it is very buggy.

I will give a shot for QFAN (pure BIOS). I was able to down the speed of the three fans using it, and I believe the AIO Pump e water pump+ are controlable too. I will test and let you know. If so, I will not need the Y-splitter that Noctua gently is sending me.

lodestar, I will test the other two headers beyond CPU opt, CPU fan and the pair of Cha fan. They are AIO pump and water pump+. It seems they can be controllable too. Do you also have them?

Guys, I am going to receive a pair of clips for square framed 140mm fans from Noctua (beside the Y-splitter and AM4 mounting kit brackets [NM-AM4-UxS]). What do you think whether I use the S12B on back, as exhaust, on the chafan1 header, a P14s as CPU fan and the other P14s as the only intake fan?

What would I earn with that? A fan to less (less noise), the elimination of a less acoustic pleasant fan (according Lawrence Lee and Lucca), which is the A15 (albeit seven blade helice seems to me a better static pressure for heatsink rather than 9 blades and geometry used by the stock fan I guess), and (not so relevant though) a color scheme match.

Also I have a spare NZXT FN V2 120mm Black (limited edition) spare. Lucca and SPCR say it is one of the best acoustic tonallity etc around. I do not know what kind of use it would have. Maybe I will use it in other system I will build with a NZXT S340 black, who knows.

[lb_felipe]

I tested the fan header Water Pump+ under BIOS and under Fan Xpert 4. Sadly, under BIOS, the minimum fan speed possible is 60% since the Fan tunning just tunes CPU Fan (and mirror CPU Opt), Cha Fan 1 and Cha Fan 2. Under Fan Xpert 4, I was abble to set 0 to 100%, but my PC reboots by itself when I am using that software.

By the way, suddenly, the all fans (when I have dropped whole AI Suit modules from my PC to certificate myself it there is not that to bring issue) rise to 100% speed. Would be a BIOS issue or has this board any hardware defect? Anyway, this bord is very bad.

[Abula]

I tested the fan header Water Pump+ under BIOS and under Fan Xpert 4. Sadly, under BIOS, the minimum fan speed possible is 60% since the Fan tunning just tunes CPU Fan (and mirror CPU Opt), Cha Fan 1 and Cha Fan 2. Under Fan Xpert 4, I was abble to set 0 to 100%, but my PC reboots by itself when I am using that software.

By the way, suddenly, the all fans (when I have dropped whole AI Suit modules from my PC to certificate myself it there is not that to bring issue) rise to 100% speed. Would be a BIOS issue or has this board any hardware defect? Anyway, this bord is very bad.

Now you know why i dont use asus on my setups anymore, its not that their are bad, they are probably the most advanced of the big 4, but simply to many glitches on bios, and software is not my liking, in the past AI Suite had very wierd way to measure temps, and thus the reaction of the fans to that (not so standard) temp, ending up with higher rpms when i didnt want and lower rpms when i wanted....asus says its more accurate algoritgh to measure the CPU temp, to me backwards, makes it less accurate.... thus making me go into bios, where i had issues, like resets, incorrect reading of the fans range of operation, etc. To me, AsRock is miles away and seems MSI is back on the right track with the Z270 (probably X370).

I would still try to make it work out with the 3 fans that can be tuned with the bios or sofware, CPU_FAN, CHA_FAN1 and CHA_FAN2. Either bios or software, try it both ways and see if you can make it work to your liking. Else sell the mobo, and go into MSI X370 KRAIT or AsRock Taichi X370

[lb_felipe]

lodester, I tested not the NF-S12B redux-1200 (DC) on the CPUOPT header, but the NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM (upper front intake since I have two of them, and the other one in on the lower]) but with AMD Wraith cooler as its mirror is not a fair test. I ended putting it on the WATERPUMPPLUS header and setting it manually. This way I was able to set PWM and to slide from 20% to 100% stuck only in the CPU sensor.

When the NM-AM4-UxS arrives, I can do some tests else. Then I will use the CPUOPT header, etc.

Abula, you said everything. ASUS looks good, but for us is not that great thing. My main concern is on the unstability that AI Suite and other monitoring apps cause with that motherboard. So much so that the HWINFO app warns for we don't use ASUS chip sensor because its stability issue. I don't know why, but AIDA seems not using that, and even so the fans begin to ramp to the 100% suddenly. I say that because the WATERPUMPLUS is not listed by AIDA but by HWINFO so. It is because of that I think AIDA don't use ASUS chip to monitoring. Who knows?

Well, while I am with no mounting kit for my NH-U14S, I can conclude nothing yet. Just I can say I f... bend the NSXT S340 Elite side panel (opposite to the glass panel) what I believe will avoid my refund roughly 180 dollars and broke twu plastic craws of Corsair 400Q front panel during the bulding process. I'm dumb.

[lb_felipe]

I am testing the NH-U14S and, initially, the NF-A15 seems to me to be excellent. I'm finding it much better than the Noctua NF-P14s redux-1200 PWM noise wise.

By the way, building a rig using the 400Q is a pain in the ass. Mainly in the cable management area. There is very little spacing behind the motherboard plate etc.

Also, the RM550x's cables have capacitors, and the connectors are too hard to pluging. One more pain.

[lb_felipe]

I did some testes and I changed my mind.

NH-A15 PWM s not ans good as I thought. It is good, but the noise is not that pleasant above certain speed.