Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler Review

Andy Ruffell / 14 years ago

The first thing that has to be said about the NH-C14 is that it’s stupidly huge, but i’m not saying that as a bad thing as it carries a heavy duty industrial feel to it, and we like that as it takes away any essence of the cooler being cheap or having a rough build quality. In actual fact it’s one of the most robust items we’ve ever had the pleasure of looking at, and in our books that is a fantastic acomplishment. Sure the testing process was a bit sloppy, but that’s down to the various combinations of this cooler, and us trying to keep everyone happy, and as some viewers may now be screaming at the screen that we didn’t test the cooler upside down with a 34ft fan extension cable whilst strapping both fans to our feet, we can only apologise. Let’s talk noise, or the lack of. This cooler was surprisingly quiet in all combinations including dual fan mode, and using the different fan connectors. It was so quiet in fact that it was over-shadowed by our main system which is a good 10 foot away. Price wise you are paying a premium, but if you want the best, you have to pay for it and the NH-C14 simply is the best. Yes it may look like a mechanical hamburger (thanks Chris) but it does the job in terms of performance, heat dissipation and keeping a low noise output. It’s also very versatile and caters for most systems, as long as you have a chassis that’s big enough and has the clerance for it. If you haven’t, I can only advise you to sell your case and buy something else, as we couldn’t imagine not having this cooler in our lives.