Noctua @ Computex 2023

Noctua are the masters of PC cooling, not that there was ever any doubt. They had a lot of great stuff at Computex, but again, we wouldn’t have expected anything less. One of the small things was this little offset mounting kit for AMD AM5. It’s only a small detail, but basically, the hot spot of the CPU isn’t in the prime spot for their heatsinks, or in fact, anyone else’s. So Noctua has created a new bracket that moves the CPU cooler over by 7mm, so a fairly significant shift.

By shifting the cooler to the side, you’re going to see temperatures improve by 1-3c under load, which could be the difference between the CPU throttling or needed to increase the RPM of the fan and best of all, it’s widely compatible with their most popular coolers and has different mounting bars for other models.

Brave enough to dismantle your CPU? If you wanted to go direct to die with your Noctua cooler, you can get some truly next-level cooling performance.

You will need this special protective frame to do this, but if you have a Ryzen 7000, and don’t mind risking the dismantle process, or voiding your warranty…

You can reduce the CPU temperatures by around 15C and even more if you also pair that with the offset mounting kit!

The upcoming AMD Threadripper CPU cooler, based on the popular NH-H14S, TR4-SP3, NH-D9 and the DX-4677 4U, comes with a huge 70 x 56mm contact surface, dual fans, and the SecuFirm2 mount.

It even comes with pre-applied NT-H2 thermal compound for rapid deployment.

What about the future? Well, you know Noctua, the future has been in development for about 6 years if not more at this point. The Noctua D15 successor has gone through and continues to go through many iterations. However, the absolute core of the next-gen upgrade isn’t the heatsink, but the fan.

Featuring a new Sterrox LCP frame design, a completely redesigned fan blade, and a manufacturing process and testing regime that quite frankly boggled my mind to listen to… and it’s still not quite ready as Noctua don’t just want a fan that will outlive their warranty (by a lot), but also maintain its factory new level of cooling performance beyond that point too.

They’re in validation phases (again) and if it all goes well, we may even see this cooler later in the year, but most likely next year.

The new fans will be the heart of the next-gen D15, but with revised fins, and more heatpipes, should push things even further.