How Much Do They Cost?
Noctua has never been a “cheap” brand, but they’ve certainly always been great value for money in my opinion. You pay a bit more, but you get so much quality, a great mounting kit, all of the accessories you could ask for. Of course, their brilliant performance goes a long way to justifying the asking price too.
- NH-D15 chromax.black.swap: £89.99
- NH-U12S chromax.black.swap: £64.99
- NH-L9i chromax.black.swap: £45.99
Overview
It seems then that Noctua can do no wrong. Personally, I love the old colour scheme still, it’s so unique and you know it’s a Noctua at first glance. I’ve got so many Noctua coolers in the office, I guess it just grows on you. That being said, we’ve got a LOT of Chromax in the office now too, and I am steadily moving over to the dark side of the Noctua spectrum.
Black
Blacking out their coolers is the right move for Noctua. At the same time, they still have their brown coolers available. However, for ultra-clean PC builds, black is much easier to work with. Plus, I’ve seen responses on our social media that now that Noctua are in black, they’ll finally buy their products. Personally, I couldn’t care if they were lime green and pink. If the performance is amazing and the price is right, that’s what I’ll buy. Aesthetics be damned!
What’s Next?
Well, Noctua is starting to dip their toes in the waters of colour. They’ve got their black fans, their colourful cables, and their latest colourful fan fittings. Notice that they focus on assent colours rather than full-colour fans and coolers. That’s likely due to the quality they aim for and their relentless use of premium materials that likely don’t come in those colours or don’t hold the paint, etc, etc. Noctua will do something new and exciting when they know it can be done to their extremely high standards. I expect we’ll see an RGB product from them too, but I bet it’ll be many MANY years from now.
Should I Buy Them?
Honestly, it’s subjective. If you have the original versions of these coolers, please keep in mind that they ARE the same coolers. They look different, but the performance is identical. That being said, the performance being identical means the performance is still bloody amazing. Aesthetics are on point here, still the same great products, just no more brown. I stand by our original reviews of these products, but I want to give one more award to the whole Chromax range from Noctua!
