9.5.2013

In addition to the power supply and case, I now consider a good CPU cooler as an investment. Well, at £65 it's certainly the most I have ever spent on a heatsink. But wait. You don't just get a heatsink, but also two of the best fans available, which sell for around £35 each. So £30 for the heatsink doesn't sound so outlandish, especially when you discover that it will keep the processor cool at moderate loads with only the draught from the system fans. It is also of very high quality, with soldered heatpipes for optimal heat transfer and very nice plated finish.While also supporting Intel CPUs, I was particularly taken by how simple and elegant it was to fit this to my AMD processor.No need to remove the motherboard, the whole job was very easy. Plugging the fans into the motherboard was a little tricky as there's not much wiggle room, but I found the square end of a chopstick most helpful in pushing the connectors home. Fitting the rear case fan on its rubber mounts was awkward for the same reason. Please understand, these are not criticisms by any means, merely points to consider for installation. All coolers have to comply with the laws of physics, and if you want good cooling you need a large surface area, QED large heatsink. If you don't like the sound of that, take a look at water cooling but be prepared to spend more money for probably similar performance and more noise and more things to go wrong.Unfortunately, neither of the CPU fans are PWM controllable. Given that the performance of the heatsink is so impressive, this is a pity, since it would otherwise yield a virtually silent system for most tasks. Noctua do produce PWM versions of their fans, but why they don't see fit to supply them with their flagship cooler I'm not sure. I do have a Zalman four-channel fan controller, but having just upgraded my motherboard to the quite lovely Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0, I was keen to use the built-in fan control capabilities and do away with the external controller altogether. Some motherboards (Gigabyte, for example) allow speed control of 3-pin fans. My Asus supports this on 3 system fans, but unfortunately not on the CPU fan. It requires a 4-pin fan and otherwise just runs on full speed. Being handy with electronics, I knocked up a simple little circuit which connects between the 3-pin fan and 4-pin motherboard header to take care of this. It is now perfect.Clearly the primary task of a CPU cooler is to, er, cool the CPU. There are two main designs of air-cooler, known as top-flow and tower. A top-flow cooler is what all stock heatsinks are, sucking cool(er) air down through the heatsink and onto the motherboard, where it flows outwards and through/around other components. The most important of these on a high powered system is the Voltage Regulator (VRM) which has to deal with very high current (albeit at low voltage), and so can generate a lot of heat itself. The difference here is that the VRM can safely run at much higher temperatures than the CPU. It will perform better if it is kept cool, however, as will the Northbridge/Southbridge chipset. If you want the best top-flow cooler, get the Noctua NH-C14.A Tower cooler, on the other hand, is typically fitted so that the air flows through from front to back, inline with case airflow. This method has the advantage that the general airflow is in the same direction, with cool air being sucked in through the front of the case, through the CPU cooler and then out the back. All the fans work together and are therefore more effective and this arrangement provides the very best cooling performance of any air cooling solution. The main disadvantage of tower coolers is that the air is typically blown above the level of the motherboard heatsinks (rather than through them), which means the VRM and chipset get less airflow and therefore less cooling. Perhaps the biggest difference between the Noctua NH-D14 and other tower coolers is how the main 140mm fan sits low between the two cooling stacks, blowing air at a lower level directly over the VRM. The air also gets disrupted slightly by the heatsink heatpipes, so there's a little turbulence which helps things too.As I mentioned earlier, the D14 is a very good heatsink in its own right, so it's very good at sucking the heat out and away from the processor without any fans running. I consider this a very nice safety feature, on the off chance that a fan fails or stalls the CPU is still protected. There are other air coolers with performance similar to this one (Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E, Phanteks PH-TC14PE, BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 2, Silverstone HE-01), but despite the fact that the NH-D14 has been around a lot longer does not mean it's out of date or needing an update (although PWM controllable fans would be nice). If anything, these other coolers just show how good a job Noctua made first time around. My overall impression is that these coolers all attempt to emulate the Noctua, but only mangage to exceed it by increasing airflow and therefore noise. Also, none of them make any mention of motherboard airflow.If necessary, this whole issue of motherboard airflow could be managed by adding a fan over the VRM and/or over the chipset, but that seems very messy and inelegant and just sloppy. It occurs to me that with a strong flow of air in one direction, front-to-back, a better way to deal with possible hotspots is to put little cardboard 'diverters' in to pull the air onto the bits that need it. I've done that with the northbridge and it seems to help.So, having considered all the available coolers, the deciding factors for me were as follows:1. AMD mounting system - uses existing mounting plate so motherboard doesn't need to be removed2. Additional motherboard cooling through positioning and performance of central fan.3. Build quality - superb. And no mucking about with fancy colour schemes or making things pretty. This is an example of beauty through function.4. Fan mounting system - both fans can be adjusted up or down as required with great ease.5. Noise - what noise? Even on full whack I could never describe this cooler as noisy.6. Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound supplied is very good7. 6 year warrantyThe Noctua NH-D14 is pretty much the best air cooler. Period. Many other (cheaper) coolers are quite poor at this and I would have felt it necessary to add yet another fan specifically to keep the VRM cool. Noctua also have very good customer support. For example, they will the supply an Intel socket 2011 mounting kit free-of-charge for this cooler. You can imagine they'd do the same if/when AMD bring out a new socket. I have quite a collection of CPU coolers, which is a bit silly. Now I have the Noctua NH-D14 I doubt I'll need another one for many years.

20.4.2017

***edited to 5 stars ***So after using this for a while now, I am very happy with it, and even help and support Noctua provide. So, upgrading my rating from 4 stars to 5.So, cooler although expensive for air-cooling, it's very good. I would give it a 5 star review, but the thermal paste in comes with isn't that great, not to mention I got only 3 applications out of it, they would have provided at least 3/4 grams. The mounting system and instructions as simple to understand, Noctua has always been known to provide simplicity, and concise instructions, in the box, you get more boxes so this product is well packaged, you do need low-profile ram, and now a days you can get very good ram which doesn't have to have a massive footprint,now I haven't put it in a case just yet, I am going to check the specification, of a tempered glass case I am looking to buy.Unfortunately, due to my own fault I did not secure my test bench on my workstation, and while I had the cooler attached, I dropped the it, if slid off my workstation and smashed onto the ground, on the way hitting my knee I was trying to brace it's fall.***NOTE***The pictures I am going to post are going to be of the cooler after I dropped it, this isn't Noctua's fault this is entirely on me, I dropped the test-bench and which ended up in the damage you see to the cooler - I could have been a jerk and sent this back as a damaged item, which would be utterly unethical and something which would not sit right with me personally, honesty and integrity is very important to me, hence why I am up front about the pictures, that it was me who dropped it, and I caused the damage, which is unfortunate because it means I will soon have to remove this cooler even though I like it, and has reduced my temperatures from stock Intel cooling from 85 sometimes 89 degrees C to maximum high through a burn test of 76/77 bare in mind this is after I had dropped the cooler with the motherboard, which dis-aliened the heat-sinks, and bent it pretty out of shape, so I am amazed that this cooler has brought the temperature down by at 10 degrees C.I did tell Noctua about me dropping the cooler and causing the damage, they've not got back to me yet, it's been less then 4 hours, I contacted them because I had an issue with how I aliened it at first with my GTX 1080 blowing hot-air into it, so I wanted to get some advice, someone called Alexander contacted me back and suggested I change the orientation of the mounting, and maybe not use the low-noise cables - which helped a lot.I am running the fans at full speed and honestly even on an open test bench I can barely hear them, no more annoying strange sounds as I used to get with the Intel cooler. My processor is a core i5 7600 so this is kind of over-kill but I just like to buy a quality product from a repeatable company for my stock cooling solution.Their team were supportive enough to have my issue resolved in the first contact with them - I will post an update if Noctua get back to me, I wonder what they'll say because I suppose it voids the warranty the accidental drop by.***edited part two ***After speaking to Alexander from Noctua's team. I've manged to pretty much fix the the damaged parts after I dropped it. This is just more testament to Noctua build quality. So I have decided to keep the cooler on. My temptress under heavy stress testing do not go above 78 degrees C. I've run Aida64 as well as Prime for 48 hours straight and this thing is cool even with a monster of a graphics card a gtx 1080 blowing some hot air out.So yes I have voided the warranty after the drop but Noctua's team have been kind enough to send me some more thermal paste because I had to remove at least 3 times to bend it back into shape.Out of curiosity I installed a closed loop 240mm water cooler. And yes it the first 10 minutes or so I saw stable and steady rise in temperatures unlike in air-cooling. No the even more curious part was that after running the water cooler for 3/4 hours my temperatures eventually reached the same give or take a degree here of there due to margin or error.But water cooling maybe isn't what it's made out to be after further testing water cooling said hotter for longer after ending the tests. I also noticed that the water temperature had increased to the touch. So basically water cooling isn't really any better than air cooling. Yes the rise and falls of the temperatures are more stable but practically it makes no difference in terms of temperature.Unless your struggling for space etc then I suggest save your money and get an air cooler.*** end part two edit ***

22.5.2011

I was attempting to overclock my i7-920 to at least 3.8MHz, and I couldn't get even close with the Zalman CNPS9900LED, which many consider a great CPU fan. My CPU core temp's zipped to 87C and I had to shut down immediately.Then I swapped in the Noctua DH-D14.Oh my God. Incredible. My CPU core temp's dropped a full 10C. The countless reports on this fan are true:For overclocking a i7-9xx series CPU, MANY independent online thermal test reviews (and many postings in overclocking forums) concluded (as of May 2011) this is by far the BEST AVAILABLE forced-air CPU cooler. It gives you the "best chance" to take i7-9xx series CPU to 3.8MHz (or above) while keeping your CPU core temp's below max allowed,and avoiding the hundreds of dollars a CPU water cooling system costs.However, please know that "best chance" doesn't mean guaranteed you'll succeed OC'ing to 3.8MHzBut let's define successful overclocking (of an i7-9xx) to also mean keeping the steady-state CPU core juntion temp's BELOW 73C after say 100% CPU loading with test software like Prime 95 running Small FFT's for at least 20 minutes with PC in ambient air of 22C (72F) standard (or higher room temp).My PC with the DH-D14 installed didn't succeed at it, but it came closer than with any other fan I've tested. You have to keep in mind, you might discover (like I did) that you simply have a CPU that has thermal performance on the lower end of the "bin" distribution. Overclocked to 3.8MHz, my CPU core junction temp's settled in at 77C, 77C, 75C, and 73C, which is too high but it is a result far better than any other CPU cooler I tried.However, depending on the thermal performance of your CPU, you may have better luck.I should also mention you should use common (thermal) sense when installing this fan. You must orient it to match the existing forced-air flow in your case, and must not create any air flow "obstructions" for air inflow into the NH-D14, and flowing out of it. Additionally, while natural convection air flows are typically small velocity to forced air (and thus easily counteracted by the NH-D14), it is always a good thermal rule-of-thumb to try and achieve additive (complementary) relationship between forced air flows and inherent natural convection flows (which are generally UP). You might imagine (don't actually do it) if you removed the fans from the NH-D14, then from natural convection standpoint you would of course orient the NH-D14 so the fins are VERTICAL so natural convection will flow UP through the vertically-oriented fin channels. However, that doesn't mean you ALWAYS should orient the DH-D14 that way for ever PC case.For example, in my HAF932, I have the HAF 932's stock big 230 mm (110 CFM) fan sucking air UP out of the top of the case. My NH-D14 is sitting a few inches under that. I oriented the NH-D14 so its two fans also blow air UP directly into that same big 230 mm fan and out of the case. So you ask WHY didn't I orient the NH-D14 horizontally to blow air into the 140 mm (60 CFM) fan which is blowing air out the back of my PC case? The answer is: 1) with the NH-D14 in UP orientation, natural convection is complementary to my NH-D14 air flow; 2) The CFM on the top case fan is 110 CFM, but on the back case fan it is only 60 CFM.Now others may have: 1) a case without a top fan sitting above the DH-D14 blow air up and out, and/or: 2) a case so crowded that if you orient DH-D14 vertically like I did then you create major inflow or outflow obstruction for the DH-D14 (for example, due to position of video card). In these example situations it is best to then check for a rear fan on the back of your PC case that is not to far back of the DH-D14. If you have that back fan (and some of the other air flow complications just mentioned), then I think you might orient DH-D14 horizontally to blow air into that back fan. (I have a masters degree in thermal engineering of electronic components.)

20.3.2013

First of all the Noctua NH D-14 is by far the best product of its kind available. I would not have purchased three of them if that were not indeed true.Here's my objection: No AMD Mounting Kits. Anyone who uses AMD CPU's must apply separately for mounting brackets. I think my email to customer service says it best:++++++++++Good Grief. I just purchased my 3rd Noctua NH D-14 and AGAIN I must play this game of requesting mounting brackets for an AMD ASUS motherboard. I remember having this exact same problem before.Why in the world .....?This nonsense is wasting my time. What can you do to rectify this problem?Just an idle question here:Were your engineers dropped on their head at birth?They seem unable to learn from past mistakes!Please respond ASAP!++++++++++I rated the product a 3, because Noctua has wasted my time --- yet again.******************Update: 3/21/13From Noctua:thank you for contacting Noctua.We're very sorry for this inconvenience.We'll dispatch you one AMD mounting kit right away, but since you're situated in the USA please expect a shipping time of up to 7-14 working days.Kind regards,Alexander DyszewskiNoctua support team*****************Note: This mounting bracket costs less than the "postage and handling".By way of personal background, I have bought, sold and exported computer products for many years; and I can assure you that the cost of this AMD-specific bracket is far less than US $.50 - far less!26% of the Desktop CPU market is AMD. And AMD is especially popular with overclockers who would require the Noctua NH-D14 as an alternative to liquid cooling.Can anyone explain how not including a simple mounting bracket for AMD motherboards is a cost-effective business practice?And why must AMD CPU users (26% of the market) be required to PROVIDE both Proof of Purchase for the Noctua NH-D14 AND their AMD motherboard?Obstinacy and resistance to change appear to be more important to Noctua than customer-centric service. Noctua's requirement that buyers "jump through hoops" to satisfy them -- and then be required to wait another 2 weeks before you can actually use their product is sheer idiocy in this day and age.Will I purchase another Noctua NH-D14? Yes.Will I continue to believe that Noctua is a Ship of Fools? Yes again.Please note that I dropped the rating to 1 star. That's how frustrated I am with Noctua as a company!++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++UPDATE - 8/24/13Noctua is quite a responsive company, as evidenced by my email box being full of correspondence from them.Here is what Noctua has to say regarding the AMD Mounting Kit:"Regarding the NH-D14, I know you had issues with the AMD-kit in the past but is usually included with every "normal" NH-D14, as long as you don't order the NH-D14 SE2011."For the record, the SE2011 is the version to be avoided. My initial review was justifiably based on my frustration with not knowing that. Indeed, how would the buyer be expected to know? Well, since I wrote the review I purchased yet another of the NH D-14 (yes, I DO build hundreds of computers) and this latest one comes with BOTH the Intel and the AMD mounting kits. It also costs about $2.00 more.Conclusion: The Noctua NH D-14 is the finest (non liquid) cooling unit on the market - hands down the best. And Noctua's responsive customer support is second to none. For that reason, then, I am upgrading my review to 4 stars and renaming it as well so others will not purchase the wrong unit.

1.10.2011

I bought this thing after reading a LOT of reviews, both positive and negative, in the belief that this is probably the #1 or #2 best air-cooling solution available anywhere.It works. My i7 2600k system is overclocked to max stable speed (4.7 Ghz) and it can generate some serious temps if the cpu gets under heavy load. In my real-world use (not bench tests) - this baby keeps it well below the maximum level of 100 C. Typical temps at idle are about 28 to 31 C depending on ambient room temp (room varies between 76 to 81 F) and under gaming loads the temps may hit 55 on up to say 70 or 75. What's amazing is the minute you close out the gaming - the CPU almost 'instantly' returns to idle tems and I mean FAST.That tells me that this cooler works, and works well.Don't go nuts with the Thermal Grease. Put a pea-sized blob of Arctic Silver 5 or whatever you're using (this does come with its own thermal grease). Hint: Squeeze a tiny drop of paste out onto a paper towel to clear the carrier fluid (clear fluid) and get to the silver paste. I bought the Arctic 5 cleaner kit as well, which I recommend, because some day you may need to remove this cooler and reinstall it, and you'll want to make sure you GET ALL THE OLD PASTE off your CPU before you re-paste it.Some readings suggest that a 200-hour break-in period benefits this cooler, and my real-world experience seems to agree, it seems like each day it's doing a little better than the day before.I trust Noctua. I think this cooler is the best you can do if you don't want to run the risks associated with liquid cooling solutions (can you say "leaks"? Thus far I couldn't be happier. The fans are a beige color that turned me off at first, but have grown over time, because they are SUPER QUIET. I have mine set to run at MAX SPEED all the time (the fans Noctua provides are 3-pin fans and cannot be controlled by PWCM motherboard controllers. That said, they are so quiet it's a total non-issue. Love them and believe you will too.This cooler is BIG and it is HEAVY. It is also VERY SHARP-EDGED (cuts your hands) so buy a decent pair of gloves at Lowe's or Home Depot and you'll be happy later! It is far easier to install this cooler if the motherboard is OUTSIDE the computer case. There are two sets of mounting hardware, 1 is Intel and the other is AMD. If you can read, you can install this.Note: This cooler doesn't play well with HIGH RAM COOLERS (like Corsair "vengeance"). Buy a "lo profile" ram chip (like Corsair Vengeance LO PROFILE) and you can dodge that issue.Do your homework, make sure that the motherboard you are planning on will accomodate this cooler, and be sure you have a BIG case (like the Coolermaster HAF-X) and no worries!Solid performer. Not cheap, but it's made well and you get what you pay for. I tried the cheap cooler and never even took it out of the box (returned it and bought this instead). Next to the power supply, the cooler is probably one of the very most critical parts of your build. If you get a wimpy cooler you are leaving your entire investment open to possible damage.*** UPDATE December 3, 2012 - after about 1 year of daily use, I noticed that the cooling fins on the DH-14 were loaded with dirt. The best procedure is to completely remove this from your PC, and wash the fins with water (under a tap, works great), then clean up the mounting plate and apply new thermal grease. Be sure to tighten the DH-14 down completely when you re-mount it, wear gardening gloves to protect your hands, the fins are RAZOR SHARP on this thing! Love it, though! Get 4.7GHZ on i7 2600k with just the DH-14. That rivals many water cooled setups.***

2.2.2013

It's a little hard to write an accurate technical review of this product because I'm not sure what the load temperatures are. And that's fantastic. Let me put it this way - using an i5 3570k overclocked to 4.2 GHz, idle temperatures in a room that hovers between 18-22 degrees rest somewhere around 26-30 degrees. I tried some real-world testing using games in a window next to a system monitoring program. Running games like Assassin's Creed 3, Metro 2033 and Skyrim at 1280x720 made the temperatures jump to around 34 degrees, and then immediately drop back to idle when I quit the games.I couldn't tell you what the temperatures were at 1920x1080 because by the time I've alt-tabbed out of the game to look at the temps they've already dropped back to idle.I can't see them going above 40-45. That's fantastic performance, but like I say, it's annoyingly good because I don't know just how high I can push it before the temperatures get dangerous. Someday I'll push it to 4.5GHz and we'll see how it fares then, but right now I'm enjoying the safety that comes with extremely low temperatures.It's also extremely quiet. Unless you've got a case with no fans in it, you won't be able to hear the noise of it over the case fans. I tested this by turning on the computer with the fans unplugged and I couldn't tell the difference. The fans run at a static 1000rpm, so they aren't PWM enabled (though you could replace them with other fans, or if you've got a socket 2011 motherboard there's a version for that which has PWM fans. But if you are going to replace them, get Noctua fans because otherwise you'll regret it). To be honest, given the amazing performance of this beast, it doesn't matter so much.Installation was easier than expected. You have to remove the fans, which is toolless since they're held on by metal arms that you simply unhook and lift away, and it's held in place by two very large, long screws linked to a backplate on the motherboard. I reckon the best way to do this is to install the backplate first, screw the motherboard down, then for crying out loud get all the cables installed because you DO NOT want to be fiddling around trying to sort them out later. Trust me. That would be bad. Once you've done all that it's a cinch to screw it down and it holds very well after that. It even comes with a tube of Noctua's own high-performance thermal paste, which is fantastic because I'd totally forgotten to buy some.Some cons, to go with the size problem - it's incredibly heavy, weighing the better part of 1kg. It installs solidly with hardly any wobble so I'm going to put my faith in good engineering, but I can see how someone might not want a chunk of aluminium hanging sideways off their motherboard. Up to you. It also covers every single RAM slot and the first PCI slot on my Asus P8Z77-V PRO motherboard, so be wary of that. it's not a problem because I bought some low-profile RAM and I don't use the top PCI port which is a legacy 1.1 slot, but it may affect you. I doubt bigger form factor motherboards will have this problem.So, to sum up, this is a fantastic, if slightly unwieldy, product. It gives much more expensive closed-loop water coolers a run for their money, so if you don't want the noise or expense of one of those, get this. They're obviously easier to manage, but that's about the only advantage. It will never be as good as a custom water-cooling job, but then it's also cheaper and more compact. If you're looking to build a large, self-contained, quiet(ish), extreme-performance PC, this is what I'd recommend.

23.10.2013

After agonising for some time over whether to adorn my new PC build with a water-cooled heatsink or an air-cooled version, I finally decided on air cooling, and after that decision was made, all roads seemed to lead to Noctua. This beast has an envious reputation, being the cooler of choice for a huge number of PC builders in general, and overclockers in particular.The heatsink comes with all the necessary fittings to attach it to an AMD or Intel board. My particular project was based on a P8Z77-V Pro motherboard and Intel i3770k cpu. The fitting instructions are very clear, with plenty of illustrations. For anyone who has never fitted a cooler like this before, the idea is straightforward.Brackets are fitted on the underneath of the motherboard and bolts pass through to attach to similar brackets on the upper surface. This provides a strong, firm base for the fitting of the heatsink assembly.The two supplied fans simply clip onto the heatsink with wide spring clips, and are easily removed. A long screwdriver is then used to screw the heatsink down onto its carrier, and flat against the cpu. Noctua even provide a long screwdriver for this job, and a tube of thermal paste is also thrown in.Now, this device is big. I mean... BIG! It's wide and it's tall, very tall. So there are two things to be aware of. First of all on my board at least, the heatsink/fan assembly extends completely above all four of the RAM slots. You're going to want to fit your RAM before you fit the heatsink, and you're going to want to ensure that you have enough clearance to do so. My RAM is standard size, and fits with almost 10 mm to spare. If your RAM has super-duper cooling fins, you might have problems.Next concern is the height. This monster projects from the motherboard like some gigantic skyscraper erected overnight without planning permission in a tiny Cornish hamlet. It dwarfs everything else inside the case, and comes within a centimetre of touching the side panel, so check your case. I reckon there is just over 17 cm required from the upper surface of the motherboard to the case side panel, that's how far the heatsink extends. If the internal dimensions of your case cannot accommodate that, it's not going to fit.Build quality is very good. It looks impressive, despite some complaints I have heard from people objecting to the beige colour of the fans. I think they look fine, but who knows, maybe beige is just one of my favourite colours.Finally, let's look at performance. I was never intending to stay with the stock 3.5 GHz of my cpu, so overclocking was a must. Did this heatsink/fan assebly cope? Yes it did. Very well indeed. I overclocked my i3770k to 4.5 GHz. It's stable and barely raises a sweat, hovering between 25-30 C at idle, and running at around 80 C under heavy load, still perfectly stable - Prime 95 couldn't push any core over 82 C, and that's an artificially far heavier load than I would ever use in the normal day to day running of my PC.All in all, very pleased with this. Highly recommended.

2.6.2016

Wow! Ugly as sin, the other reviews are right on, and covers half of the frigging motherboard (gotta remove it to access any of my RAM sticks..). If you have any fancy ram that is taller than the norm by even a hair good luck..Probably won't fit.However, I was having issues with my i7-860 on stock cooling idling near 50c and at load hitting 90c and throttling back. And when I say at load, I mean a simple COUNTIF() excel formula being applied to a few hundred thousand cells..Not even Prime95. My case temps were above normal as well. Three times I replaced the thermal compound because hey, I have a bunch of AS5 and I was out of practice, maybe I even screwed up twice somehow.But after the third reapplication resulting in the same high temps I called in the experts: Noctua. My options for this socket are a bit limited these days, however this unit supports a variety of socket types including my LGA 1156 and has top notch reviews. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for on some of these things. I think I did here.Well packed without any real possible damage aside from flattening the entire package with a truck. Tons of parts for AMD & Intel, each socket type, and very clear instructions. All tools included except alcohol wipe (would have been a nice touch), even dongles to slow the fans if noise is a concern for you. Warning: you will have to remove your motherboard to install the support bracket.High quality parts, never did I feel in danger of breaking anything or stripping screws. Everything fit together super well. It's rare these days you get anything mass produced, then shipped, and reshipped, and handled by a consumer, that still fits so well in the end. Not a single part had to be forced, twisted, adjusted. Fit like a glove!It did require some re-solutioning of my cable routing and stuff due to the massive size of this thing, but I elected to leave both fans on it and mount it going front to back to help pull air through my drive cage and leave the fans at full speed ratio (no dongles).First impression: dropped temps about 10c across the board from drives to mb to cpu cores. Not much noticeable noise, but I'm not very close to it and it faces away. I also have a very thick case (full tower/server) that helps isolate the sound I suppose. But OK..Load up that Excel doc again and recalcuate. Temps increase about 10c and we wait...and wait...and wait....ended up settling in at 49c full load no throttling. GPU, HDD, MB, all temps lower than before and full load barely raises even core temps now. What a difference.I read that the clips on the stock HSF can warp over time. I've had this installed for over 5 years now and the machine itself has been moved, and is moved, on a regular basis. It gets a lot of bumps and stuff. It never was a great cooler but I didn't expect this much of a change. I'll probably overclock it now to help support my Vive games and keep up with this GTX 1080.Good times, thanks Noctua!

22.8.2013

Personally I liket the color, the red fans reflect my red case led so it works great style wise for me. However I did not base my decision on looks, I based it on performance. I spent hours reading reviews, researching the coolers, liquid vs air, thermal dynamics etc. I am building my first gaming system so I wanted a quality CPU COOLER. All my parts just arrived yesterday so I am still building the system, however I did a heat test on idle by leaving the fans running for 1 hour. The cooler was still cool to the touch and totally silent. For such large fans they make no noise at all using the standard cables, though Noctua do provide cables to lower the rpms and sound such as it is.Whisper quiet and cool. The installation guide is packaged nice, however it is basic. I looked on youtube and got a good idea on the installation process. The screws you need to tighten the cooler to the brackets are springy, which can give you some nice shock and sound absorbtion however it makes it a little more difficult to screw in, especially if - like me you were expecting a standard screw. Press down as you screw it in and you will be fine. Please note this cooler is huge! I have a full tower so it was ok for me, but be warned as it (roughly) as wide as a mouse mat/pad and as tall as 1 1/2 Iphone 5 phones. This sucker is huge! At $80 it is well priced for a top of the line cooler. You will need to use low profile RAM with this cooler and you need to have it installed before putting the cooler in as the fans block the first ram slot. You also need to remove the middle fan to screw the cooler in - easy thanks to the springy clips provided. Great product, I can't wait to finish putting my system together and seeing what it does under load! For those interested here are my specs: AMD Quad core 3.4 Gig CPU, Noctua cooler, ASUS Sabertooth 990fx Motherboard, 8 gigs Ram, ASUS GTX 720 PCIE graphic card, corsair 650 watt PSU, 1TB HD, Samsung Blu Ray Player, Samsung DVD writer/rewriter, Sony Multi Media reader, Cool Master HAF 932 Full Tower and Belkin 8 plug Surge ProtectorUPDATE:I have now upgraded to an Intel i7 4770K and the Noctua does a wonderful job of keeping that cool also. A couple very important notes for anyone buying to put on an Intel chip. Firstly the Nocuta DOES support LGA 1155, just use the same slot on the back plate, slot B I think. Also put the noctua backplate and mounting brackets on the motherboard BEFORE installing the motherboard into the tower as this is the only way the backplate will go on. I found the easiest way to put the backplate on was to turn the motherboard upside down on my desk and put the backplate on then, hold the backplate in place as I flip the motherboard and place back down on the desk. The Noctua still runs quiet and is giving me idle temps 4 degrees Celcius cooler than my stock cooler. I have not benchmarked it under load yet, but I will update once I have done so

31.8.2013

I've got an older spec machine - Core2 E8400 overclocked from 3Ghz to 3.8GHz. It's fine for my purposes and still plays all my games (including newer ones) at decent/max graphics on a 30inch screen (2560 x 1600) with an overclocked GTX285. It used to be water cooled, until I accidentally split one of the pipes and emptied the contents of the cooling system over the motherboard, graphics card, and case! That sucked. Thankfully, it didn't quite make it to the cream carpet (the case was sitting on an old laminated shelf to keep it off the carpet). That would have been diabolical.Given that replacing all those components would cost a significant amount (might as well upgrade),

19.2.2011

Bought this cooler replace my Intel stock cooler which was struggling to cool my Intel i5 750 CPU Overclocked at 3.25 Ghz. Since having this cooler I have been able to reach brilliant performance with my i5 Processor with a clock speed of 4.162 Ghz. The Noctua NH-D14 cooler keeps the CPU brilliantly cool at this speed with temperatures of 34 Degrees Celsius at idle load and about 48-55 Degrees Celsius under load. This cooler is a great compromise to more expensive cooling solutions.There is a few things to look out for when purchasing this cooler. Firstly this thing is massive in all dimensions. The cooling fins are placed very high up and are extremely wide which can cause problems.

2.7.2015

UPDATE - 11/11/2020I am still using this CPU cooler after 5 years. I am currently using it with a delidded Intel i7-8700k and it is still going strong. The 8700k is a very hot chip and I am using this cooler in a case that is rather tight for cooling, but it keeps my cpu around 54 degrees Celsius idle. Very pleased with it.___________________________________________________________________________________________I am using this to cool my Intel Core i5-4670k Haswell chip. The Haswell chips tend to run very hot and my chip in particular is overclocked to 4.4Ghz @ 1.15v. At those settings, my temps sit at about 30-40 degrees C idle. While stress testing with Prime95 the temps usually sit at around 60-70 degrees C.

11.4.2013

My computer is a bit older now, I built it myself just over 6 years ago. Over the years the only thing to die on me was my power supply. That being said, my computer has always been loud! Whenever I did anything demanding my cpu would heat up and the stock Intel cooler would scream non-stop. I was annoyed, I was fed up, I was considering liquid cooling. Randomly I stumbled upon the Noctua cooler and after reading the reviews thought it was the best deal for the money. I have a full size tower and was still a bit worried it might not fit! The item arrived in a relatively timely fashion. The boxing was overly sturdy with the actual heat sink within a box within a box within some cardboard cutouts - the thing was rock solid.

16.5.2012

Got this after reading reviews and being recommended it on various forums around the net. My Phenom II X4 965 is currently overclocked to 4Ghz and following high temperatures, even idling the CPU was at 40c with 62c after load testing before I cancelled it. Order this and it turned up. Whilst I knew that this cooler was large and would fit in the case, quite how large it is in person, amazed me. The fans are quiet, although it did require some minor adjustment of cables and the removal of a case fan. Installing the SecuFirm2 brackets onto an AMD motherboard were straightforward as it doesn't require a backplate change, however whilst my RAM fits underneath the cooler,

26.10.2016

What a great investment, this cooler has knocked almost 30C off my CPU temperature'sI had to RMA my GTX 970 FTW and it was replaced with a GTX980ti SC+ ACX2.0+As soon as I got the Card I thought I better monitor my temperature's so I used AMD Overdrive and MSI Afterburner and I realized something wasn't right straight away as I was reading in the region of 60C on my CPU using stock coolerI purchased a Arctic freezer CPU fan and it only knocked off a few degrees and with my temp's spiking into the late 60C during games like Dark Souls 3, the Witcher 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition so I spoke to AMD technical support and they advised me not to run my FX8350 above 61C,

Noctua NH-D14 - Reviews

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