This Air Cooler was much BETTER than Expected!!

More Information about Hetzners AX102 Server:
htznr.li/der8auer/AX102_en
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Support me on Patreon:
/ der8auer
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Music / Credits:
Outro:
Dylan Sitts feat. HDBeenDope - For The Record (Dylan Sitts Remix)
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Paid content in this video:
- Hetzner Spot
Samples used in this video:
- A115 Cooler
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:02 Hetzner (Advertising)
1:57 Corsair A115 CPU cooler
2:31 Fan mounting & fans
4:26 Noctua NHD-15 for comparison
5:44 TG Upgrade Heatspreader
6:10 Mounting system of the A115
6:42 Test of the A115 & marketing fairy tale
7:48 A115 test results
8:21 Summary/conclusion
10:11 Price update
10:37 Outro

[@IQDESTRUCTOR]

if the phantom spirit, ak620, and a ton of other current dual-tower air coolers didn't exist right now, this would be a great product

[@jra9073]

Yep! Currently have an AK620 cooling my 7700X and its been great!

[@TechnoFreak-IN]

almost 50% cheaper, AK620 is an amazing deal!

[@Del_UK]

At time of writing (3pm UK Time 24/01/2024) These are in stock next day delivery on Amazon UK. Corsair A115 CT-9010011-WW is £106.69 Noctua NH-D15 is £99.95 ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420 is £78.52 - Discounted, £121.99 normal price) ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 is £80.61 - Discounted, £107.21 normal price)

[@BillyONeal]

It shows how freaking good the NH-D15 is that it has been the benchmark for like a decade (and longer, if one counts the NH-D14 as the same lineage)

[@Mack_Dingo]

Then there's ThermalRight that shows you don't need to spend $100

[@Y0URGRANDMA]

@@Mack_Dingo True, though noctua has free mounting kit upgrades and is pretty much guaranteed it will be supported for any new socket.

[@kenabi]

@@Mack_Dingo the thermalright is 60k hours for the fan lifespan as rated, vs 150k. i'll spend the extra $50, since i'd just be doing it again anyway after a while. 3 year warranty vs 6. buy once, cry once. if i'm building a throwaway rig for someone else, yeah, i might suggest the cheaper route. for my own systems that i know i'll be running all day every day? i'll spend the extra money for something i know will last, and if it doesn't i can get it replaced with minimal effort. to put this in perspective, the box i'm typing this on was assembled in jan of 2017. i replaced the fans with noctuas. they're still going strong. every other fan i've ever put in one of my boxes that isn't noctua has been replaced, usually at least once, but more often than not, 3 to 4 times over the lifespan of the machine. i've got a couple dozen machines for various tasks. i pretty much refuse to cheap out on cooling for my own stuff, anymore. its just not worth the hassle of having to spend more money later on to replace something i could just spend a bit more on to start with and basically never have to worry about it again. noctua has their reputation for a reason.

[@groenevinger3893]

D15 is a very good cooler for sure, but i think its more about limit for an aircooler that size

[@JJFX-]

​@@groenevinger3893 It's mostly a limit of the technology but improving on this is certainly possible. The problem is even if you developed a practical technological improvement, these modern CPUs pull so much power in a concentrated area that there's only so much you can do. Intel and AMD have work to do on the CPU side. Perhaps some sort of vapor chamber IHS or simply a clever solution to make direct die style mounting practical at scale. The latter is hard to envision these days but I'm not going to say it can't happen.

[@davidepannone6021]

I wish more coolers started to implement this fan mounting system rather than the spring clips, which can be hell to work with especially if your case is on the smaller side or you have fans on top as exhaust. For building they are ok, as you put the cooler before putting the motherboard in the case. But then when you want to go and clean the fans or the heatsink it can be annoying af.

[@PREDATEURLT]

As long as its metal.

[@Boogie_the_cat]

Wouldn't most of us enjoy getting this mounting mechanism as standard instead of something like RGB? Unfortunately (though lights are fun) it is way easier to find useless lights on parts instead of practical, more expensive to implement things.

[@Rayu25Demon]

Nowadays, one cares about quality.

[@PREDATEURLT]

@@Boogie_the_cat To be honest these lights have similar (few cents) price as these simple folded metal parts, but manufacturers give what people ask most, so lgbt+ lights we have.

[@wolf1438]

I like the sliding mechanism. Yes OG noctua or cooler master spring wire attaching is simple but I already spilled too much blood by cutting fingers on fins during installation process.

[@reinulf656]

Get out the anti bear safety gloves 😂

[@haroonmohammed742]

I was hoping to see the AMD testing for this cooler too, as according to the Hardware Canucks review, while the cooler is one of the best for Intel CPU's it's performance dips quite a bit on the AMD platform.

[@krjal3038]

I was also. Without even mentioning the performance difference it's only half a review sadly.

[@jevc900423]

@@krjal3038And without getting into prices, it is just a tech demo. Kinda suspicious, considering how transparent and straight forward derbauer use to be. This video is very close to misleading marketing attempt, just "focusing" in the only strong aspects of the cooler comparing with a shitshow the A500 was, Nvidia levels of mischievousness.

[@Kepe]

@@jevc900423 Pricing info was given at the end of the video. Calling the video "close to a misleading marketing attempt" and "mischievous" is kind of a bold move before watching the video until the end. But yeah he should've tested on AMD as well.

[@The11devans]

Also, testing with a custom IHS instead of the stock one likely changes the result since the surfaces don't mate the same way. That's probably why it performs so much worse on AMD, along with the different chip location vs Intel.

[@Kepe]

@@The11devans Well yeah this test is only valid for comparing the NH-D15 and Corsair A115. Not a "real world test" from which you could get some idea on how the coolers perform in your own system.

[@reggiedixon2]

Thermalright Peerless Assassin is £29 UK on Amazon. Basically all other air coolers are irrelevant right now.

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

Thermalright Phantom Spirit :) id pay up to 10£ more for that

[@finbenton]

In an other test this was REALLY good on intel setup but absolutely terrible on AMD setup, would be nice to see you test AMD too!

[@Fakeman]

nh-d15 came out ages ago, plus they offer free upgrade kits for new platforms, and generally their fans have better noise characteristics (easier to tune out), but we would need further testing on the corsair unit. Plus 1 year extra warranty from noctua. Idk, I would trust Noctua more than Corsair personally. The corsair definitely looks better, and no traditional fan clips is a good thing imo, other than that meh. The "new" NH-D15 is coming out this year apparently, so we will see

[@marsovac]

The pearless asassin beats the nh-d15 at half price.

[@purplegill10]

Wow, I haven't seen that default profile picture in YEARS

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

old is gold huh 😅 you do you, we are talking minimum difference, but you should realize you are heavily biased ;)

[@Fakeman]

@@user-wq9mw2xz3j probably a bit biased yeah, but i dont think it is unwarranted. Corsairs prior air cooler promised a lot but ultimately underdelivered for a relatively high price and questionable design. Kinda lost some "trust" for me at that point. This unit was way better though Also i dont think anyone offers "free" upgrade kits for new platforms other than noctua. There are air coolers that have better cooling performance vs NH-D15, but I still like it overall due to their support, low noise and quality.

[@mcwolfbeast]

Nickel plating can be jet black like that. It's done with electrolysis of nickel sulfamate.

[@cbrdmn]

Thermalright Peerless Assassin is outperfoming NH-D15 in Gamers Nexus testing, while costing 2 times less than A115. I'm glad that Corsair finally managed to create actually good air cooler, but now they need to work on a price a bit.

[@Urist_Mythrilforged]

I will have to keep note of this.

[@volvo09]

For a great price too.

[@Urist_Mythrilforged]

Thermalright has always made good products. I have a hot swap drive bay from them and I have been using it for the past decade. Still works to this day.

[@MoultrieGeek]

Thermalright continues to impress. I have their HR-09 Pro NVMe heatsink on my 980 Pro that offers unbelievable cost/performance and looks cool af.

[@Sniper9773]

FR. Peerless Assassin costs less than half with practically the same performance.

[@25MHzisbest]

UK OCUK price £99.95 awch! Thermalright Frost Tower/ Peerless Assassin, both under £30 delivered.

[@yonson_racing]

DGAF about the cooler, definitely looking forward to the new heat spreader OTOH!

[@rulik006]

And this Corsair's "innovation" for $100 will be beaten by a legend $34 Thermalright FS140 v3

[@milescarter7803]

Or Thermalright Phantom Spirit 7-pipe $35

[@christophervanzetta]

Or any other air cooler…. Noctua WAS good but it quickly got beaten

[@Acc3l3ratoR]

Test it on the am5 .... against the D15 and it will be a big diference..

[@WarkWarbly]

The things on the middle fan are rails, and on the cooler its a rail guide. A rail and rail guide locking system. A good rail guide should have a bit looser tolerance so long as the rails lock in place. If the fan falls out by tipping the unit upsidedown or shakes loose for any reason then its probably garbage. The looser tolerances allow for mods or after market items. Such as a 3D printed L bracket you can strap the rails to along with a smaller fan and display or readout (I think a smaller fan with a VFD would badass.) Great video!!! Awesome work!

[@volvo09]

That is a really cool heatspreader / CPU mount.

[@burnsyd17]

Looks decent, but for same or even better performance as the Noctua you can buy 2 or 3 ID Cooling or Thermalright if you go by Hardware Canucks tests. IMO this Corsair won't sell much unless it's about half the reported price.

[@PainterVierax]

I agree. At this price point, I think it's very important to have the same compatibility and warranty as Noctua otherwise there is little to no incentive for consumers.

[@earthtaurus5515]

Not bad, liking the fan mounting mechanisms as it's alot better than then damn flimsy metal clips as they always come off and on many powder coated coolers... you do end up scratching the cooler. Case in point, the Arctic Freezer 33 esports one series for example, which are really good coolers for the price but are pain when it comes to maintenance in a very small case and that is due to the metal clips. The clips mount via small holes in the cooler itself and then insert into the fans screw holes to hold them in place. I hope other OEMs follow suit with similiar mounting mechanisms for the fan used by Corsair.

[@dvxAznxvb]

i read this as "This was much cooler than expected!!!"

[@hovant6666]

The price needs to be competitive because of how many other good dual tower coolers have come out that all beat the NH-D15 at a lower price

[@bumblebeebat-te5xv]

At 1:00 when the camera zooms into the Hetzners server I see a Formular 1 car coming towards me in a sort of temporary optical illusion.

[@ferenclippai1059]

I love how the heatsink looks.

[@Duo26]

The wiggle on the bracket maybe so you can use other fans that aren’t as accurate as Corsair.

[@PaulLemars01]

I use a Scythe Fuma 2 on my 12700 based system and it does a great job of cooling that particular CPU. One of the reasons I went with the Scythe cooler is that they fold back the heat pipes of the Fuma2/Fuma3 so that the whole dual stack cooler is pushed back and clears all of the RAM slots. Admittedly the front fan is a 15mm thick unit but I wonder why no other cooler manufacturer uses this design since it deals with the issue of the front fan resting on the tops of RAM.

[@Dino01__]

I know Alpenföhn uses an asymmetrical design for their dual-tower air cooler: the Brocken 4 Max, but the more I look at it it seems both Scythe and Alpenföhn use the same OEM to make their coolers. The Brocken 4 and Brocken 4 Max look suspiciously close to the Fuma 2 and the Mugen 5.

[@PaulLemars01]

@@Dino01__ , I took a look at them and they certainly appear so. I just don't understand why more manufacturers don't do it. People would use more large air coolers if they were easier to get on with.

[@Dino01__]

@@PaulLemars01 I definitely agree that "compact" dual tower coolers should be more common.

[@markcollins6578]

I prefer how corsairs tolerances as shown for the fan mounting brackets. Some of the fan holes I have come across in the past are not always spot on and having that little play does help

[@clynesnowtail1257]

Yeah the fan rails is awesome. The NH-D15 fan clips are a royal PITA with a RX 6700XT back plate right up against it.

[@makiwa]

Hi. Maybe, and just an idea, they left the tolerances a bit lose in case you used different Fans...??? 🤔

[@Stewy-]

ooh that heatspreader has my interest

[@abdulhkeem.alhadhrami]

I wish Noctua released the D15's successor already really want their next gen for my CPU/MB upgrade!

[@Dezmond2inbox]

I use Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280mm with liquid metal =)

[@abdulhkeem.alhadhrami]

@@Dezmond2inbox i want an air cooler for the one failure point and ease of cleaning!

[@metap0Pe]

I need that LGA1700 heatspreader! Was literally looking for exactly that a while back but only the AM5 was available :( I had to resort to only use a contact frame and a normally delidded 14900K like some pleb

[@Constantin314]

hope you'll test the cooler master v8 (or something can't rmbr the full name), the one with vapor chamber

[@dwahnaslowdown8887]

The cooling fins on many of these twin tower coolers look very nice without a fan. I've wondered how well any of them would cool using only the center fan. I think that the designs that have side plates, like Deep Cool Assassin IV, would have an advantage in that scenari. Maybe not. Eliminating the front fan might also help with RAM clearance.

[@stephenwakeman3074]

NH-D15S has just the fan in the middle by default and is generally only a few degrees warmer than the D15.

[@LoLxD-ze4wq]

can you test deepcool products more?

[@JohnMuz1]

thnx

[@grapsorz]

hmm it look as you mounted the fans wrong. pushing in to the same fin stack? so canceling out etchother?

[@freaky425]

Nothing can beat Deepcool's air coolers with the most affordable pricetag!

[@Matty-rn5gt]

I’m hanging out waiting for the next gen NH-D15 as you know it’ll be engineered to be an improvement over the OG in many ways.

[@FPSkillerPC]

Any ETA on the TG Heatpspreader? 5:44

[@twinjuke]

After several years, they finally caught up to the top of the line... though in the meantime the AK620 did the same... with a 120mm build... muhahaha. :D

[@nannnanaa]

we need an evolution for air coolers. I want to see that vapor chamber cooler from CES tested

[@MO-ue4mu]

Can you make a review for the thermalright peerless assassin?

[@gypsy6211]

Here's what I'd like to see. This cooler, an NH-D15, any other big name popular max air cooler, vs 280mm/360mm/420mm Aios in a popular case, with standardish fan setups, the side panels on, with the most monster cpu such as the 13900ks cut loose to run all out and then see what happens. It's nice to see the D15 and A115 are extremely similar, at 40db, but could they do more? By how much? The sacrifice?

[@eckostream3541]

Its gonna be a pricing thing I guess... and the fact that Noctua after market is amazing. New socket on 10 years old cooler, no problem, send for free...

[@cemsengul16]

The moral of the story is that AIO is recommended for an i9 and you should stick with the 253 watt PL2 limit on an air cooler.

[@XX-121]

custom loop or go home. aio's are for pansies or you could just stick with amd and noctua and not have to worry about it?

[@SwordQuake2]

115 Euros from their official site... fuck that

[@MMOPC78]

As AM5 seems to be a different beast go cool: it would be nice to see how it handles something like the Ryzen 7 7700X. Also, it has been noted that some coolers also struggle with cooling the CPU if the GPU exhausts into the case. While I haven't had any issues like this with my O11D Evo and the PS120 cooling the system: other reviewers have notice that it along with a couple of other struggle a bit in that area.

[@STEELFOX2000]

So you need to bench ThermalRight Phantom Spirit 120 SE , its smaller cheaper and a litlle better , I still have my Noctua D14 BTW whit a great collection of cpu mounts , love them!

[@leftcoastfunk]

0:48 i can't think of a single Corsair product that has ever been worth its price. A small yet very large sample-size example is that the majority of their fans very consistently underperform while being louder and pricier than many other options This cooler is perhaps a step in the right direction, but the fact you can get a cooler that performs as well or better, for less than half the price (almost 1/3) shows something

[@bogosbinted896]

i wish you tested the messed up stock intel IHS. they apparently made the corsair one to mount with better pressure on 1700 intel cpus

[@betag24cn]

with coolers like this and others i cant recommend watercooling almost any pc barely specific workstations, and that is still a option, not a requirement

[@brunomoraldelgado5202]

Best part of the video: 6:31

[@ChielScape]

Its a large format dual tower cooler. It does large format dual tower cooler things. Not surprising.

[@davidepannone6021]

You'd be surprise. The first double tower cooler from corsair was complete and utter shite. I think steve from GN had a review on it. Go check it. Absolutely abysmal (i think it was getting beaten by single tower coolers at normalized dbA lol).

[@HazewinDog]

@@davidepannone6021 that's why I'm even less surprised that this does well. Corsair must have made immense losses with the A500. It was supposed to be €100, but etailers couldn't even get rid of them for €25 due to its bad reputation. I bought a bunch at that price though... mediocre performance or not, for the right price even the A500 can be a good purchase.

[@davidepannone6021]

@@HazewinDog absolutely

[@jamesbowen6144]

I Will stay with Noctua Quality , i have Noctua fans in my server still running 24/7 for just over 12 years now ....

[@richardfarmer6570]

I saw another review on this cooler and while it performed extremely well on Intel it was only mid pack on AMD so would like to see you do some testing on Ryzen.

[@antoineeduardopozogonzalez1486]

👌

[@cardboardsnail]

If it's priced so closely to the Noctua NH-D15, I'd rather get the Noctua cooler. Noctua is known for good support and providing mounting kits for coolers many years down the line. I don't believe Corsair will do the same.

[@qT_p13]

Other review found it was really bad on AM5, like Corsair only focused on intel performance. But the design is stellar in my opinion.

[@nick-ti8on]

I'm surprised to see that you didn't test it on an AMD platform too because this 'air-cooler' only has good performance under the Intel platform, and that surprises me even more coming from you. .' Under AMD ' it's like night and day,...very bad...

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

its msrp got down to $100 before launch supposedly. Its a decently good alternative to dh15 and darkrock 5/elite, but then again more than 2x as expensive compared to thermalright

[@thedeegee1601]

NH-D15 Chromax looks better with the heatsink covers, AND if you have a case with limited cooler height you can always fit a 120MM in front if you have tall memory.

[@MainelyElectrons]

All of these cooler reviews make me not want to spend the $ on a new cooler. I moved my Noctua U-14S from my old gaming PC's AMD FX 4350 over to a 5900x, and am able to run at 4.5Ghz all cores with a max of 85C (in a 77F room). Pretty sure there is headroom for more, but am unsure about running at the thermal limit for extended periods of time.

[@Meatsweats_o_O]

oh. a black NDH15. neat.

[@mattiasgostasson6010]

We have black nickelplating where i work :) its very cool :)

[@lidorori]

I ordered a product through thermal grizzly site and paid with PayPal. I did not get any confirmation email nor tracking data. Is that normal? Even sent a support ticket and got no reply...

[@anasevi9456]

Looks like an impressive cooler, but seems Peerless Assassin and it's recent, well; value dualtower peers like the Phantom spirit; pretty much made premium dual towers over 3 figures obsolete.

[@InsaneFirebat]

That's still a lot of money for air cooling, but at least it's competitive.

[@B3TR0Z]

Roman should have tested both coolers at max rpm aswell.

[@devonmoreau]

I've heard it performs much worse on AMD 7000 generation CPUs, you have to test both.

[@lrmcatspaw1]

The fact that you cannot cool a stock cpu with that monster is kinda scary. (I know its running slow, but still).

[@HDJess]

I was expecting you to test it both fanless and at max RPM too. This only tells half of the story, maybe not many users will keep the fans at a set RMP for lower noise.

[@FanPhys]

Puzzled as to why Corsair think that making a copy of the NH-D15 will work for them - there's virtually zero innovation here. Thanks for the review and tests, as always.

[@frankwong9486]

It remind me the crappy A500 , finally they make something okay I wonder how they mess up the A500 and put at that price tag

[@Ron-sp7lw]

Heat pipe coolers are never 100% Straight.. but they have come a long way

[@randomity655]

Looks like a radiator from a '57 Chevy

[@neocyke]

Review is brief which is good but maybe a bit too brief Roman. We don't live in intel-only or amd-only cooler era anymore. And then there's the fact that Deepcool and Thermalright exists, it's not just noctualand only when you talk about air coolers.

[@G_man_]

Looks like corsair is charging more for lesser product. In GamersNexus' 2023 cooler roundup a 50€ Thermalright cooler is beating dh15 (both in noise normalised and 100% fan tests) which beat this ~120€ corsair cooler here. Corsair is the EA of PC parts.

[@editmanjaw619]

his cat looks unimpressed by this cooler and so r we

[@jwfpeters85]

I am going to Phantom Spirit with 2 BeQuit Silent Wings 4 Pro

[@itsdeonlol]

The cooler looks good, but the price is crazy...

[@HandicappedMind]

i recently took the water cooling out of my build when i jumped from am4 to am5... just got sick of every 6-12 months needing to flush drain fill loop.. and having to rebend tubes.. probably time to update my pump/res and hardware ive been using for years now but its gotten way too expensive.. like 50$ for 6 fittings? a gpu block new fittings..ect.. reusing my am4 block and rads ive accumulated over the years in the end would still probably 500 dollars or more just to update. basically just a bunch of reasons why i said f it ima just get a d15 for the time being... think i paid around 100-120 usd... cant see this selling over the d15 at the same price point.. needs to be 100 or less imo... nactua and the d15 has been on the top of charts for ages.. cant see anyone knowingly buying a copy cat corsair version over the Original.. unless its 20% cheaper or they are going for a all corsair build...

[@dyslectische]

Nothing wrong with the last corsair a500. The cpu plate is adjust and just fine . Noth like the day it come out and dit repair the problem. I have one here and just is fine. For the rest i like the a500 more than this model for the looks. The new one really loke like the rest . For the cooler like this models are almost all the same performance really.

[@datapro007]

Great review, thanks. While I prefer air coolers over AIOs, it seems to me that with this much money, bulk, noise and performance constraints, why air cool? Of course I could say, why air cool with an overweight and overpriced unit like the Corsair to be more accurate.

[@agoogleuser7899]

They didn't even use fins that match the height of the fan. Looks odd with the fan height. I would have designed one center fan to cool the heatsink. Where has being original gone? Patent?

[@silverwerewolf975]

Put a freaking chart bro

[@fu1r4]

Something i never hear when testing coolers is if the fans smells of flame retardant. I know that some of the well known brands do have a smell of flame retardant. I do have a box full of all kinds of computer fans and when i open it i can really smell this nasty smell of flame retardant.

[@CIRMOSOFT]

Én azt mondom Zalman CNPS 7600RGB külső hő detektorok 45-65C* min-max stabilan.

[@davefroman4700]

For $140 Canadian peso's? They can pound sand. For less than half that cost I can get a peerless Assassin.

[@stephenxs8354]

Test Thermalright equivalent.

[@alexc5564]

It looks 100 times better than the Noctua, I wish that engineers at Noctua wake up to the fact that product are chosen by customers by looks firstly then price and lastly performance 😉 but hey what do I know

[@adilazimdegilx]

Too bad it sucks on AMD. Great review though. Thanks as always.

[@jamesfox2857]

Dark Rock Pro is Still A Daum godd cooller and @ Only $80 ish to $ 90 ish usd = I Will Stick with it .

[@arionflorin4257]

99 $ on their site

[@fotmheki]

So corsair can copy Noctua cooler. nice to know 😄

[@username8644]

Should be important to note that is the D15S, not the D15. The D15 performs better.

[@agoogleuser7899]

I am guessing the nickel is blackened.

[@tofu_golem]

Please test with AMD. According to Hardware Canucks, this is another air cooler that is good with Intel but bad with AMD. I was hoping you would have insights about why that happens.

[@sL1NK]

Corsair should stick to AIOs. The D15 has enough competition for much less $.

[@jamesg8246]

Yeah I don't understand why they are trying to compete in a space that's already crowded as far as price and performance. You can spend anywhere from $30 to $100+ and get pretty much equal to AIO performance. So either Corsair needed to beat a $30 Thermalright on price and performance or get out of the way. I'm sure they will sell a few just on brand name recognition alone, but not enough seems to me.

[@XX-121]

@@jamesg8246 because noob's like wasting money on things that have a corsair logo

[@essentialone1]

Overall, you can say Corsair needs to spend more time on development on their Corsair A115 Be_Quiet Shadow rock 4 looking cooler and ""Noctua NH-D15"" cooler is still the "KING"! of air coolers, Yaaah?

[@Rocman76]

But not on AM5 apparently