Introduction

We are reviewing today the Noctua NH-C14, a huge CPU cooler with a horizontal heatsink, six heatpipes and two 140-mm fans. Check it out!

The NH-C14 box is big, as you can see in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Package

In Figure 2, you can see what comes inside the box: the cooler itself, installation parts, thermal compound, a case badge, and the product manuals.

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Figure 2: Accessories

In Figure 3, you can see the NH-C14.

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Figure 3: The NH-C14 CPU cooler

In the next pages, you will see this cooler in detail.

The NH-C14

In Figure 4, you see the side of the cooler. The NH-C14 has an unusual design, with a horizontal heatsink and two fans blowing the air from the top to the bottom. The manufacturer claims you can use this cooler three different ways: with two fans for maximum performance, with only the upper fan for high clearance (for example, if you have memory modules with tall heatsinks), or only with the lower fan for low profile needs.

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Figure 4: Side View

In Figure 5, you can see the front of the cooler, where you can check the shape of the fins. The fans do not touch the heatsink directly, but use rubber pads to absorb vibrations.

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Figure 5: Front view

In Figure 6, you check the cooler rear side.

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Figure 6: Rear view

In Figure 7, you can see the cooler from the top, where the top fan is visible.

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Figure 7: Top view

The NH-C14 (Cont'd)

In Figure 8, you can see the bottom of the cooler. Note that the six heatpipes are connected directly to the base.

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Figure 8: Bottom view

In Figure 9, you can check the base of the cooler. It is plain, with no mirror-like finishing.

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Figure 9: Base

In Figure 10, you can see one of the 140 mm fans from the NH-C14. It has a three-pin connector, thus not supporting PWM control.

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Figure 10: Fan

In Figure 11, you can check the nice case badge, the NT-H1 thermal compound that comes with the cooler, and the four power adaptors which can be used to reduce the speed of the fans.

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Figure 11: Badge, thermal compound and power adaptors

Installation

In Figure 12, you can see the hardware used to install the NH-C14 on Intel CPUs. The backplate goes on the solder side of the motherboard, and the metal holders stay at the component side. In Figure 13, you can see this holding system installed on our motherboard.

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Figure 12: Intel holders

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Figure 13: Holders installed on the motherboard

After installing the holders, the cooler is screwed to them (it comes with a long Phillips screwdriver). In Figure 14, you can check the cooler installed.

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Figure 14: Instaled in our case

How We Tested

We tested the cooler with a Core i7-860 CPU (quad-core, 2.8 GHz), which is a socket LGA1156 processor with a 95 W TDP (Thermal Design Power). In order to get higher thermal dissipation, we overclocked it to 3.3 GHz (150 MHz base clock and 22x multiplier), keeping the standard core voltage (Vcore), which was the maximum stable overclock we could make with the stock cooler. Keep in mind that we could have raised the CPU clock more, but to include the stock cooler in our comparison, we needed to use this moderate overclock.

We measured noise and temperature with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to get 100% CPU usage in all threads, we ran Prime 95 25.11 (in this version, the software uses all available threads) with the "In-place Large FFTs" option.

We compared the tested cooler to the Intel stock cooler with a copper base (included with the CPU), as well as with other coolers. Note that in the past, we tested coolers with a socket LGA775 CPU, and we retested some "old" coolers with this new methodology. This means you can find different values in older reviews than the values you will read in the next page. Every cooler was tested with the thermal compound that accompanies it.

Room temperature measurements were taken with a digital thermometer. The core temperature was read with the SpeedFan program (available from the CPU thermal sensors), using an arithmetic average of the core temperature readings. During the tests, the left panel of the case was open.

The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the case and video board cooler fans so they wouldn't interfere with the results. This measurement is only for comparison purposes because a precise SPL measurement needs to be made inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, which is not the case here.

Hardware Configuration

• Processor: Core i7-860
• Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD6
• Memory: 2 GB Markvision (DDR3-1333/PC3-10700 with 9-9-9-22 timings), configured at 1,200 MHz
• Hard disk: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
• Video card: Zotac GeForce GTS 250
• Video resolution: 1680x1050
• Video monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW Plus
• Power supply: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
• Case: 3RSystem L-1100 T.REX Cool

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Software Used

• Prime95
• SpeedFan

Error Margin

We adopted a 2 ^oC error margin, meaning temperature differences below 2 ^oC are considered irrelevant.

Our Tests

The table below presents the results of our measurements. We repeated the same test on all coolers listed below. Each measurement was taken with the CPU at idle and at full load. In the models with a fan supporting PWM, the motherboard controlled the fan speed according to core load and temperature. On coolers with an integrated fan controller, the fan was set at the minimum speed on the idle test and at full speed on the full load test. With the reviewed cooler, both tests were done without the speed reducers that come with it. 

		Idle Processor			Processor at Full Load
Cooler	Room Temp.	Noise	Speed	Core Temp.	Noise	Speed	Core Temp.
Intel stock (socket LGA1156)	14 °C	44 dBA	1700 rpm	46 °C	54 dBA	2500 rpm	90 °C
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 G1	14 °C	47 dBA	2050 rpm	33 °C	56 dBA	2900 rpm	62 °C
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme	14 °C	45 dBA	1400 rpm	27 °C	53 dBA	1950 rpm	51 °C
Thermaltake Silent 1156	14 °C	44 dBA	1200 rpm	38 °C	49 dBA	1750 rpm	69 °C
Noctua NH-D14	14 °C	49 dBA	1250 rpm	27 °C	49 dBA	1250 rpm	53 °C
Zalman CNPS10X Performa	14 °C	46 dBA	1500 rpm	28 °C	52 dBA	1950 rpm	54 °C
Prolimatech Megahalems	14 °C	40 dBA	750 rpm	27 °C	60 dBA	2550 rpm	50 °C
Thermaltake Frio	14 °C	46 dBA	1450 rpm	27 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	50 °C
Prolimatech Samuel 17	14 °C	40 dBA	750 rpm	40 °C	60 dBA	2550 rpm	63 °C
Zalman CNPS8000A	18 °C	43 dBA	1400 rpm	39 °C	54 dBA	2500 rpm	70 °C
Spire TherMax Eclipse II	14 °C	55 dBA	2200 rpm	28 °C	55 dBA	2200 rpm	53 °C
Scythe Ninja3	17 °C	39 dBA	700 rpm	32 °C	55 dBA	1800 rpm	57 °C
Corsair A50	18 °C	52 dBA	1900 rpm	33 °C	52 dBA	1900 rpm	60 °C
Thermaltake Jing	18 °C	44 dBA	850 rpm	34 °C	49 dBA	1300 rpm	60 °C
GlacialTech Alaska	18 °C	43 dBA	1150 rpm	36 °C	51 dBA	1600 rpm	60 °C
Deepcool Gamer Storm	18 °C	43 dBA	1100 rpm	35 °C	48 dBA	1600 rpm	62 °C
Corsair A70	26 °C	56 dBA	1900 rpm	40 °C	56 dBA	1900 rpm	65 °C
Deepcool Ice Blade Pro	23 °C	45 dBA	1200 rpm	38 °C	52 dBA	1500 rpm	64 °C
AC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2	23 °C	47 dBA	1750 rpm	44 °C	51 dBA	2100 rpm	77 °C
Corsair H70	27 °C	60 dBA	1900 rpm	37 °C	60 dBA	1900 rpm	61 °C
Zalman CNPS9900 Max	27 °C	55 dBA	1600 rpm	38 °C	58 dBA	1750 rpm	63 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 11 LP	25 °C	45 dBA	1700 rpm	51 °C	49 dBA	1950 rpm	91 °C
CoolIT Vantage	26 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	37 °C	60 dBA	2500 rpm	62 °C
Deepcool Ice Matrix 600	25 °C	46 dBA	1100 rpm	41 °C	53 dBA	1300 rpm	69 °C
Titan Hati	26 °C	46 dBA	1500 rpm	40 °C	57 dBA	2450 rpm	68 °C
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13	27 °C	49 dBA	1950 rpm	41 °C	53 dBA	2300 rpm	70 °C
Noctua NH-C14	26 °C	52 dBA	1300 rpm	37 °C	52 dBA	1300 rpm	61 °C

In the graph below, at full load you can see how many degrees Celsius hotter the CPU core is than the air outside the case. The lower this difference, the better is the performance of the cooler.

 

 

Main Specifications

The main features of the Noctua NH-C14 CPU cooler include:

• Application: Socket LGA775, 1155, 1156, 1366, AM2, AM2+, and AM3 processors
• Fins: Aluminum
• Base: Nickel-plated Copper
• Heat-pipes: Six 6-mm nickel-plated copper heatpipes
• Fan: Two, 140 mm
• Nominal fan speed: 1,200 rpm
• Fan air flow: 64.92 cfm
• Maximum power consumption: 1.2 W
• Nominal noise level: 19.6 dBA
• Weight: 2.2 lbs (1 kg)
• More information: http://www.noctua.at
• Average price in the US*: USD 90.00

* Reseached at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.

Conclusions

CPU cooler with a horizontal design, where the heatsink is placed in parallel to the motherboard, has the advantage of helping cooling memory modules and motherboard components such as the voltage regulator transistors and the chipset, but normally do not present great performance. Usually in our tests they show far less cooling performance than models with tower heatsinks.

The NH-C14, however, surprised us, showing an extraordinary cooling performance.

Probably the two 140-mm fans explains the impressive performance of this cooler: the NH-C14 simply cooled our CPU better than any air cooler we have tested so far. If that wasn't enough, it achieved this extraordinary performance while presenting a far lower noise level than all high-performance coolers we have reviewed to date.

The Noctua NH-C14 is not only a big cooler, it is also a great one. So, it receives the Hardware Secrets Golden Award.