dark rock pro 4 vs nh-d15: which one?

Zarax

Zarax

Zarax

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Hello everyone,

I'm considering between those two classic air coolers to tame either an i7-13700k or a Ryzen 5800X3D.
My case will most likely be a Corsair 4000D airflow but I'm open to alternatives within certain conditions (unified mic/headphone jack).
Which one would you choose? Please do not discuss other coolers.

Thank you very much!
 
Cyber-Mav said:
maybe we have reached the limits of air cooling? but the NH-U12A is impressive and smaller than the d15 but close in performance so maybe there is a little room for improvement on the d15?
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I suspect material science can still help with cooling capacity improvements but it will likely come at a cost.
 
random_matt said:
Sorry, Assassin IV. Not released yet, the size of it is humongous.

www.techpowerup.com

DeepCool Assassin IV is the "Air Apparent" to the Company's CPU Cooler Lineup

DeepCool brought a wealth of new PC cooling and casing solutions to the 2023 International CES, and one of the new stuff that caught our eye is their new Assassin IV CPU cooler. When installed, this looks like big dark cube inside your case, with a shroud covering all its sheet-metal. A large...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com
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Yes but like I said, the choice is between the two stated coolers.
 
Guess Noctua it is... It's going to be interesting to see differences as I installed a Dark Rock Pro 4 in my wife's 12700.
 
TBH improving on the D15 while keeping a reasonable price is quite the challenge.
Would you pay double the price for +20% cooling?
 
Pulseammo said:
Nope, I'd expect it to supersede the D15 as that did the D14, hopefully at the same price point in order to stay relevant against AIO which seems to be increasingly necessary with the amount of heat the newer CPUs are pumping out.

Certainly wouldn't pay double. I do like my air coolers though. Still running an Alpenfohn K2.
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I agree with you, the thing is that doing better without significantly increasing costs is hard as the easy ways are exhausted:

- They cannot make it significantly larger without severely restricting case compatibility (and many otherwise fine cases can't fit it already even if they can fit slightly smaller coolers like the Dark Rock Pro 4)
- They cannot make extensive use of better performing but exotic materials. For example, an industrial diamond coating or extensive copper layering could help but at what price?
- Improving the design is doable but additional manufacturing complexity increases costs. I would wager that something like a multiple vapour chamber system or something fancier could work but if it takes 3X the time to build it the cost would skyrocket and quality control would be harder.

I do wager that they're going mostly on the 3rd solution but the constant delays suggests unforeseen issues with larger scale production.
Personally I will never use liquid cooling so at the very worst case I will limit my purchases to relatively "energy efficient" CPUs and the recent Intel trend of power at all costs is seriously making me consider switching for the first time to AMD and I say that as someone who used Intel since 1988...

I wouldn't pay double either, especially as PC gaming is becoming a very expensive hobby and especially GPUs are forcing me to go lower and lower down the ladder to keep costs down.
 
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