Noctua NH-D9 DX-3647 4U: A High-End Xeon Scalable Heatsink

[schmidtbag]

Something crude and basic is cheaper? Who would've thought? Sometimes you pay for the design because, you know, you don't want something "crude and basic". You find it overpriced because you don't care if it's "crude and basic", but not everyone does.

Again... context. People who are spending money on a 4U server shoved in a closet or a mainframe don't give a crap about the aesthetics of the CPU heatsink. If you happen to use one of these scalable Xeon platforms for a workstation, even then, there's a good chance you aren't going to have some gamer-centric chassis with clear side panels and RGB LEDs everywhere. But if that's what you really want, go ahead and pay for it...

[starshipeleven]

I'm well aware of all of this. But like I said later in my post, despite all of the design efforts, the relatively cheap Supermicro with it's crude and basic design still ends up being very competitive.

Which is somewhat expected considering that on a server you don't want to see the CPU overheat.

As for the $20 price tag for fans, that's largely artificial.

Quality fans cost like that (usually more) even if not brown. Most fans under the 15$ range aren't that good on average (noise and lifespan, mostly). And note that I'm not talking of the RGB fans, which are in a category of their own.

No, they really don't.

Stop comparing apples with bananas, you are missing the elephant in the room as always.

Supermicro's heatsink is not high-end, it's server-grade. Different thing alltogether, on a server you don't give a shit about noise and you MUST keep the smallest footprint you can, so they can get away with a small but high-CFM server fan. That thing will double as meat grinder too, it's powerful stuff.

Just the noise it puts out even when the CPU is on idle makes the 50$ more for the Noctua seem a very good investment, if you plan to use it in a workstation.

Note this sentence from the article

Even at full-speed, the NF-A9 fans were barely audible outside of the steel Rosewill 4U chassis, especially if you are running multiple systems in the room.

That's a very big thing right there.

$90 for a heatsink is objectively overpriced.

That's something I can agree with, but as I said all high-end ones cost around that.

Also, being normal is a moot adjective

Normal in this case means that it has a price that is aligned with the market average for its segment.

We can say that Ferrari cars are objectively overpriced cars if we compare them with normal cars, but if we actually look at the prices of cars in their same category, it's not particularly higher or lower than their competitors.

In this context, these Xeons aren't going to be overclocked in real-world environments.

The main selling point of this cooler on Xeons is the noise factor, and the lack of water (so it can't destroy your expensive workstation with a leak, which is very rare but can theoretically happen). Supermicro's cooler will sound like a drill even on idle, you don't want that in a workstation.

But to give you the benefit of the doubt, let's look at something a little less extreme (like an i5 or i7). It's important to consider that many people (but not all) overclock with air coolers because they can't afford a good liquid cooling system or a higher-performance CPU.

Depends from what is a "good" liquid cooling.
Afaik AIO watercoolers are more or less in line with air coolers in their same price range, unless you go with the very high end ones that have a massive heatsink with 3-4 fans or with "true" watercooling (aka you assemble the pipes, pumps and stuff on your own like a man)

[starshipeleven]

Something crude and basic is cheaper? Who would've thought? Sometimes you pay for the design because, you know, you don't want something "crude and basic". You find it overpriced because you don't care if it's "crude and basic", but not everyone does.

It's not design and esthetics, it's that they don't have the luxury of using a pocket hurricane generator like the Supermicro fan. Really, if you don't care about noise you can make fans that move so much more air.

If you design a cooler around normal PC fans (that are designed to not sound like drills), there is no way in hell that you can make it as compact.

[schmidtbag]

Stop comparing apples with bananas, you are missing the elephant in the room as always.

It's not apples to bananas. It's more like comparing plantains to bananas:
* Both products are heatsinks for the same socket
* Both products have the same fundamental functionality
* Both products are targeted for the same type of workload
* Both products have a similar performance output.
Y'know what's different? Appearance (which doesn't matter in this context), noise (which usually doesn't matter in this context), and price (which is arbitrary).
As usual, you are reacting based on your emotions, and you are treating personal preference as fact.

Supermicro's heatsink is not high-end, it's server-grade. Different thing alltogether, on a server you don't give a shit about noise and you MUST keep the smallest footprint you can, so they can get away with a small but high-CFM server fan. That thing will double as meat grinder too, it's powerful stuff.

Server grade is just a more specific type of high-end... Keep in mind, this platform is primarily targeted toward server grade and specialized workstations; this isn't your everyday high-end.

Just the noise it puts out even when the CPU is on idle makes the 50$ more for the Noctua seem a very good investment, if you plan to use it in a workstation.

No it doesn't - because if noise reduction is important to you, an AIO cooler is a better investment.

Normal in this case means that it has a price that is aligned with the market average for its segment.

We can say that Ferrari cars are objectively overpriced cars if we compare them with normal cars, but if we actually look at the prices of cars in their same category, it's not particularly higher or lower than their competitors.

I'm willing to agree with your definition of normal, however, Ferrari is still overpriced even among its own competitors. McLaren and Audi are very competitive without the same level of reliability issues, and McLarens are a lot cheaper. Depending on your definition of competitors, the modern Corvette (ZR1) is also a superior competitor.
Note: I'm not comparing Noctua to Ferrari in the sense of reliability - I'm well aware Noctua has stellar reliability.

Depends from what is a "good" liquid cooling.
Afaik AIO watercoolers are more or less in line with air coolers in their same price range, unless you go with the very high end ones that have a massive heatsink with 3-4 fans or with "true" watercooling (aka you assemble the pipes, pumps and stuff on your own like a man)

AIO coolers tend to have the same thermal capacity as a high-end air cooler, they're just quieter and tend to take up less space. Generally, I'm not all that fond of them, but the point remains the same: if you're going to spend around $100 on cooling, you don't want to worry about leaks or maintenance, and noise is worth concerning over, AIOs are a better choice. AIOs are also better if physical space is a limitation, but generally that's not the case in this context.

EDIT:
So you can look at it like this:
* If you want something relatively small, relatively cheap, and don't care about noise, a "generic" Supermicro heatsink is the best choice.
* If you're willing to spend a little extra, get quieter fans.
* If you want a small and quiet system, an AIO cooler is the best choice.
So what does this Noctua offer? A large and expensive heatsink that isn't the quietest choice. All of these options have roughly the same cooling capacity, so that's not a factor to consider.

[trifud]

With the reduced price of water coolers these days I don't see much reason to buy traditional heatsink coolers other than lowest cost. No idea if they exist for Xeon scalable since I'm not in the market for one.

I have an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 2700X ticking at 4.2 GHz. My Noctua NH-D15 SE-AM4 always keeps it less than 60 degrees hot even after running at 100% for hours (actually days). I don't see the point with risking water in a workstation or server. Plus, in server chassis you can't mount the water cooler.