Noctua launches all-black HSF models

Noctua, the company behind an iconic for a colour scheme known as coffee-and-cream or grannies-undies depending on whether it tickles your fancy or not, has announced the launch of its first all-black CPU cooler models: The NH-D15, NH-U12S, and NH-L9i Chromax.Black.

Noctua's cooling products are well-regarded for their performance, though not always for their iconic coffee-and-cream colour scheme. Back in June the company confirmed plans to release all-black variants of some of its most popular designs, and now it has confirmed they are available under the Chromax.Black moniker.

'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 Noctua chief executive Roland Mossig over the delay in launching the parts. '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.'

The new heatsinks are identical to their predecessors, bar the coating on the metal and the inclusion of all-black fans. The company claims that the coating makes no difference to the performance, and has carried the colour scheme through the entirety of the product: Each heatsink comes with black anti-vibration pads for the fans, black fan clips or screws, and black mounts for all recent Intel and AMD socket types.

More information on the fans, which will be available for a temporary time with the option of orange anti-vibration pads as part of a sponsorship with popular YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, can be found on the official website; UK pricing, meanwhile, has been set at £45.99 for the low-profile NH-L9i, £64.99 for the 120mm single-stack NH-U12S, and £89.99 for the 140mm dual-stack NH-D15 (all inc. VAT.)