Isn't Noctua's entire philosophy that improved performance shouldn't come at the expense of higher noise?

While the review is excellent, it neglects Noctua's strength: silence.

Cool !

Hey, is the SI-128 comparable to Big Typhoon, within 1-2 degrees Celsius if the same fan is used? thanks

I disagree on the naming front. I hate it when companies name their products with a different fancy buzzword for every new model. I mean, what about Scythe? Mugen, Ninja, Infinity, etc. All great trendy product names but they don't tell me anything about the cooler I'm buying. I mean at least Noctua's naming makes it clear what size fan the cooler uses!

Lots of information in a product name is a good thing for. It gets a little ridiculous when you name your products like delta does though. I think noctua strikes a reasonable balance with names to info.

Besides, when you're aiming at the crowd noctua is aiming at, the most important thing is performance above all else. Average joe looking for a CPU cooler isn't going to be looking at six different 120MM tower monsters, he's gonna be buying a budget solution because he needs it and won't use the extra headroom of a noctua style cooler.

Nocuna stuff is junk - there fans are supposed to be engineered to be better. The fact is this cooler is like their fans, over prices hyp, or what i call junk. Remember this is si-128 not a thermalright ultra120 but itself as a similar downfiring unit.

The new Xig put these all the shame when price is factored in. Just as the Xig 12cm unit is great product the Noctura is junk. Slow and low works with any fan and these are only slightly noisy for 4 times the price. The cooler does even match the Si-128 which has been out for 2 years or so.