Noctua Chromax Coolers Review – No More Brown!

Noctua move with consumer trends at a rate only geologists could record. However, that’s somehow always worked to their advantage. They don’t leap on what’s hot, they don’t add RGB just because everyone else did. They don’t release black coolers for years a decade, until now. Their black coolers are finally here, but why did it take so long? Noctua said the unique way they build their coolers meant that getting a perfect black coating was not easy, and it’s Noctua, so it had to be perfect. Plus, Noctua would never do anything to their cooler unless its performance was the same or better. Now they’ve cracked the formula with Chromax.

Noctua Chromax

They have launched three new models, well, old models. We have the Noctua NH-D15, which is still the king of air coolers even after all these years! We used them on all our test benches, and they’re in many of my own systems too. We also have the NH-U12S a slimmer single tower cooler with better RAM clearance and case compatibility than the D15. Finally, we have their fantastic low-profile cooler, the NH-L9i.

Want to add more chromax to the rest of your system? Check out our review of the chromax.black.swap fans here!

chromax.black

“Our customers have been asking us for all-black coolers for a long time, but we’re soldering the fins to the heatpipes in order to guarantee optimal performance over many years of usage and this production process is difficult to combine with coatings,” explains Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). “It took a lot of time and engineering work to find an appropriate coating material and production process that gave us satisfactory thermal performance and consistent visual appearance. Now, we’re proud with the end result and confident that the new chromax.black coolers will meet the high standards Noctua users have come to expect.” – Noctua

Features & Specifications

All three of the coolers we have actually have the same features and specifications as their original non-chromax counterparts! However, for in-depth specifications and further information, please check out the official Noctua Chromax product page here.