When it comes to heatsinks little changes but just when you think that it's all been done someone comes along and says they can do better. Sometimes it's with a new design or shape, other times it's using TEC cooling, and then sometimes it's just plain ol' size. Noctua has recently introduced the NH-D14 and D14 apparently means "monster". This has to be the largest heatsink I have ever seen and now it's sitting on our workbench today begging to be tested, let's jump in.

Available at Acoustic PC

Product Name: Noctua NH-D14

Review Sample Provided by: Noctua

Review by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Specifications

Packaging

With the size of the NH-D14 it's not like Noctua could just use their normal packaging, they obviously had to start fresh with a new design. Surprisingly the new packaging didn't stick with the typical look, instead Noctua went with a lighter white background design. The front of the box has a window in the middle to give you a sneak peak to the goodies inside with a few of the main features are listed right next to it. All of the specifications are up on top of the package and easy to read. The back has a larger version of the feature listing from the front along with detailed descriptions.

Installation

Installing the NH-D14 can be a little tricky in smaller cases or on motherboards with limited clearance. A good example of this would be my EVGA Classified motherboard, even after struggling for a while I wasn't able to get the heatsink to fit. When installing the NH-D14 on our test rig I was impressed with Noctua's latest bracket design. The Intel brackets are designed to fit 775, 1156, and 1366 sockets with just one back-plate. Every time I work with a Noctua heatsink they amaze me with the improvements to their brackets. Tightening the heatsink down only required removing just one fan (not both fans like we have had to do in the past). As always, Noctua included easy to read instructions along with all of the parts bagged and easily labeled. Inside the common bag Noctua included thermal paste and their metal case badge. Lastly, they also redesigned the fan brackets to keep them secured to the fans at all times. This design made taking them on and off amazingly easy!

Our Test Rig

i7 920 CPU at stock voltages and clock speed

Gigabyte GA-EXS8-UD4P Motherboard

Corsair 620 Power supply

1gb x 3 Triple channel A-Data Ram

Western Digital Velociraptor

EVGA 8800GTS

Cooler Master Storm Sniper Case (with the fans turned onto the high setting)

Windows 7

*Room tempature at a steady 69 degrees Fahrenheit during all testing

Performance

Once installed in our test rig I put the NH-D14 through our normal testing to compare it to all of the heatsinks we have tested in the past. Our testing consists of running Prime95 for an hour to get load temperatures and then letting the heatsink idle for an hour for idle temperatures. Real Temp 2.5 is used to watch the temperatures during all of our testing. All of the tests are done with the room temperature at a steady 69 degree’s. Here are the results.

Running on stock clocks the difference between some of the top heatsinks is almost un-noticeable. But tt is clear to see that the NH-D14 matched the performance of the all mighty CM V10. This is even more impressive when considering the V10 includes a TEC cooler among its arsenal. All the while the NH-D14 does all of this with a noise level that’s almost inaudible. This of course is typical of any of Noctua’s coolers, but not typical with most other coolers.

Overall

With Noctua’s history it wasn’t a surprise that the NH-D14 was quiet neither was its good performance. But the super-sized NH-D14 did outperform the TEC cooled Cooler Master V10, which is nothing short of amazing. That also means that Noctua once again leads our heatsink performance listing. Of course, the NH-D14 is  pretty large and I had trouble fitting it into the Classified. You may also have problems getting the large heatsink to fit in tight spaces. However, if you can, you will be rewarded with top of the line performance.

Author Bio

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.