Computex 2019: Noctua shows off next-gen prototypes and all-black air coolers

Noctua is well known for its stellar fans and air coolers at this point. Nowadays, you don't even have to accept the old brown and beige colour scheme, as we've seen many different colour options made available in the last couple of years. This year at Computex, Noctua had some interesting new hardware to show off, including a new and improved dual-tower heatsink and an all new fanless cooler.

Noctua's new fanless CPU cooler has a completely custom-designed heatsink targeting up to 120W in cooling performance in a fanless case but can handle up to 180W CPUs in a case with quiet fans or with a fan directly attached to the cooler. It has an asymmetric design to ensure plenty of clearance for PCIe slots and is designed to be compatible with all current RAM options available on Intel LGA115x or AMD AM4 socket motherboards. We don't have a release date yet but expect this to be available next year.

For fans of the popular Noctua NH-D15 & NH-D15S coolers, there is a next generation version on the way. This one still features a 140mm dual-tower heatsink but has seven heat pipes and improves surface area by 10 percent. Increased maximum heat dissipation also means that this new version will be good for Threadripper, in addition to other CPUs. Right now, we are looking at a Q1 2020 launch window for this. When this cooler does eventually arrive, it will ship with tried and true NF-A15 PWN fans.

Of course if you want Noctua-level performance but in a more sleek and stylish form, then the all-black Chromax line of CPU coolers is the way to go. These will be available in Q4 2019 and similarly to be quiet!'s own coolers, feature an all-black heatsink and fan. Right now, it looks like there is a standard single-tower version, a dual-tower version and a low-profile version all planned.

Noctua also has some next-gen 140mm A-series fans in the works with fine tuned airflow and air pressure in addition to design changes made to reduce noise. These won't be available until 2021 though, so this is looking far into the future.

KitGuru Says: Air cooling might not be as popular nowadays but Noctua still shines as one of the best cooler makers on the market. We'll be looking forward to what the future holds. 

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