Saturday May 26, 2012 6:41 PM AEST

Atomic MPC > User Reviews > Contortion > User review - Noctua's NH-D14 CPU Cooler impresses

Noctua's NH-D14 CPU Cooler impresses

By Contortion
17:19 Sep 20, 2011

Extremely good cooling, can compete with Antec Kuhlers and Corsair Hydros
Quite quiet
Give huge headroom for overclocking
Very good design
140mm fan in the centre cools other essential parts
SecuFirm 2 makes life easy

Huge and bulky
Not "silent", especially the 140mm fan in the centre
Expensive
Heavy
No Copper base
Won't be able to use high clearance RAM modules such as the Corsair Dominator/Vengeance
If you don't like cream and maroon in your case, you're going to need new fans

Noctua is definitely renowned for making good coolers. The U12 and U9 are both examples of that. Noctua is also infamous for their ghastly cream and maroon fans. But the NH-D14 doesn't care that it's fans are ugly or that it's extremely big. It does what it knows best, to cool that CPU.

And the Noctua is definitely up to the job. It keeps everything underneath it cool. At stock, my i7 2600K under full load will only reach a chilly 27 degrees. Overclocked to 4.8GHz with 1.5V on the Vcore, it will only hit 67 degrees under load. Impressive. The 12 heatpipe design definitely helps to keep it cool and the two fans pulling in cold air through an expansive set of aluminium fins moves the heat out of the heatsink quickly. However, this performance does come at a cost. It is HUGE! It weighs over 1.2KG with fans attached and that's a pretty big chunk of metal to be put on your CPU. Because it is so big, it means that it covers over some RAM slots. So no Dominator RAM for you.

The fans are clipped on using two metal clips and they do feel slightly flimsy when pulling on them when trying to remove the fans. They are also a little fiddly, but the concept behind them are better than other implementations such as the plastic clips on the Thermalright Silver Arrow.

Needless to say, the time-tested SecuFirm 2 mounting system makes installing the NH-D14 a breeze. Instructions are set out well, and everything is clearly labelled on the parts so you won't get it wrong. The thermal paste they give you, the NT-H1, is also of high quality and is one of the thermal pastes that are not electrically conductive. This means that if it gets into your CPU socket, it won't be affected, unlike thermal pastes such as the Artic Silver.

The Fans are definitely quiet compared to others, however it isn't exactly silent when attached directly to the motherboard. However, when the Ultra Low Noise Adapters (ULNA) are fitted, it is much more quiet, however the 140mm fan is still not silent.

So what else can you expect from a cooler? It offers you exceptional performance with nice quiet computing, as long as your case can fit it and you can fork out $100 for this piece of metal.

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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 137 | June, 2012

Atomic is a magazine aimed squarely at computer enthusiasts, gamers, and serious PC upgraders.

Every month we bring you the latest reviews of new technology and PC components, in depth features on everything from overclocking to console hacking, and gaming previews and interviews.

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