titleIt’s been a while since our last review of a Noctua heatsink. Part of that has to do with their patients and dedication to make their products perfect before introducing anything. The other reason it’s been so long is just plain delay on our part. We have actually had one of their heatsinks here in the office for quite a while. In fact, some of our more dedicated readers may recognize this one from our test rig. Noctua’s NH-C14 is a top flow cooler design that both helps cool your ram and motherboard while also being shorter than most high end traditional tower designs. How does that effect cooling? Let’s jump in and take a look.

Product Name: Noctua NH-C14

Review Sample Provided by: Noctua

Review by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

 

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Specifications

Socket compatibility

Intel LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA775,LGA2011 on request & AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, FM1 (backplate required)

Height (without fan)

105 mm

Width (without fan)

140 mm

Depth (without fan)

166 mm

Height (with fan)

130 mm

Width (with fan)

140 mm

Depth (with fan)

166 mm

Weight (without fan)

700 g

Weight (with fan)

850/1000* g

Material

Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminum (cooling fins), soldered joints & nickel plating

Fan compatibility

140x140x25mm / 120x120x25mm

Scope of Delivery

2x NF-P14 premium fan

Low-Noise Adaptor (L.N.A.)

Ultra-Low-Noise Adaptor (U.L.N.A.)

NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound

SecuFirm2™ Mounting Kits

Noctua Metal Case-Badge

Warranty


6 Years

Fan specifications

Model

Noctua NF-P14

Bearing

SSO-Bearing

Rotational Speed (+/- 10%)

1200 RPM

Rotational Speed with L.N.A. (+/- 10%)

900 RPM

Rotational Speed with U.L.N.A. (+/- 10%)

750 RPM

Airflow

110,3 m³/h

Airflow with L.N.A.


83,7 m³/h

Airflow with U.L.N.A.

71,2 m³/h

Acoustical Noise

19,6 dB(A)

Acoustical Noise with L.N.A.

13,2 dB(A)

Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A.

10,1 dB(A)

Input Power

1,2 W

Voltage Range

12 V

MTBF

> 150.000 h



Packaging

The NH-C14’s packaging is very similar to the NH-D14’s that we tested last from Noctua, but still world apart from what we are used to seeing from Noctua. With an almost all white design the packaging is bright and catches your eye easily. Along the front there is a small photo that gives you a little bit of an idea of what to of the heatsink inside. Up on the top Noctua was nice enough to include a full specification listing. This is great to help you compare if you’re in the store. Around on the side they have a nice diagram showing the different fan configurations and how it effects the NH-C14’s height. Along with that each of the diagrams show all of the dimensions to make sure you won’t have any clearance issues when you get it home.

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Inside the heatsink is tucked away in cardboard box along with another white box containing all of the NH-C14’s accessories. Inside we see Noctua’s attention to detail. Everything is divided up in different plastic bags that are labeled. The instruction book is similar with AMD and Intel instructions divided and placed on different sides. They even include a screwdriver to help with the installation, something that I have come to use a lot using the NH-C14 on our test bench. Noctua’s attention to detail is especially apparent in the “Common Parts” bag. Their case badge alone is a world above anything else you will find from any other manufacture. You also get different adapters to adjust the speed on the fans, always a nice touch.

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Installation

We have always preferred Noctua’s mounting brackets over most of the competition; installation is always easy and quick. There is a reason we have been using this on our test bench obviously. Installing the NH-C14 onto our 1155 socket bench requires sliding the four studs through the baseplate. Next you Slide the baseplate with studs through the push pin holes on your motherboard.

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Next you are going to drop the plastic spacers on the studs. On top of the spacers you mount two small brackets to the studs with thumbscrews. Tightening everything down gives you a base to mount and unmounts the NH-C14 quickly.

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After adding thermal paste we are ready to mount the NH-C14 to our motherboard. To make things as easy as possible Noctua has clipped the mounting screws directly to the heatsink mount. This means you don’t have to try to hold them in place or make sure they are lined up. This is especially important on a design like this where you can’t reach the screws other than through the small access holes in the heatsink. To tighten everything down we use the included screwdriver down through each of the two holes and tighten the screws to the mounting base. All in all this is much easier than a lot of other designs. The design also has the added benefit of easy removal and reinstallation when you aren’t changing motherboards because of the two simple mounting points between the bracket and the heatsink. This design is the best we have seen on any heatsink, but it’s not without its faults. I found the last two screws hard to line up at times.

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Performance

It almost feels repetitive when we go to talk about the performance of Noctua heatsinks. They always fall near the top in cooling power and noise output is top notch. The NH-C14 is no exception, although its performance is a little less than its BIG brother the NH-D14. Whats more impressive than anything is the NH-C14 actually out performed most of the top heatsinks on the market, not bad for something other than a tower design. The push pull layout helped considerably with these numbers I’m sure.

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Beyond the numbers, where Noctua always impresses us is with their noise output. By using high quality fans and implementing small touches like the rubber in between the fans and the heatsink they keep noise close to in audible.

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Overall

Noctua always manages to amaze me. Every single one of their products performs on par with the best on the market while still being one of the quietest on the market. The level of detail they go into on every aspect of the design is obvious and the end result is a quality product that anyone can recognize as a “Noctua”, something that most heatsink manufactures don’t come close to doing. The NH-C14 has been on our LGA 1155 test bench for the better part of a year and we don’t have any intention of removing it. Now we just need to get one for our LGA 2011 test bench and we will be set, and the office will be reasonably quiet.

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #21080 25 Nov 2011 18:58
Something to consider picking up on Black Friday

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