Review: Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler

[slaveofconvention]

A new story entry has been added:

Review: Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler

By Colin M. Ormsby

Way back in June of last year, our own Shane McAnally got his hands on the Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler, and frankly couldn't say enough good things about it. It scored a maximum 5/5 on our old rating scheme, and got the editors choice award from our Editor-in-Chief, Charles Gantt. Today I have the NH-C14 to play with - let's find out if it lives up to the outstanding NH-D14 or if those shoes are just too much to fill. More after the break....

[Fuganater]

What AMD sockets does it fit? Either I missed it or you didn't say. I'm looking for a good cooler for my new server but I can't decide if I should spend almost $100 on an air cooler or $70-80 on one of the all-in-one CPU water coolers.

Very good review. This will deff help if I decide to go air cooled CPU cooler.

[slaveofconvention]

I reviewed this on an AM2+ socket so it'll fit pretty much all current AMD sockets I think.

Originally Posted by noctua

SecuFirm2™ multi-socket mounting system
Noctua’s enthusiast grade SecuFirm2™ multi-socket mounting provides broad socket compatibility (LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA775, AM2, AM2+ and AM3) and meets the highest demands in safety, performance and ease-of-use.

[slaveofconvention]

Had a message from Noctua - if you happen to be one of the VERY few people who buy an AMD board which doesn't use a backplate, all you need to do is drop them an email and they'll send you one at no cost. I've updated the review to reflect this, but just wanted to mention it here for those of you who have already read the original.

I did have ONE minor negative on this cooler, the backplate issue - now even that has gone - top product, and a top company by the look of things

[mDust]

Very nice review. Lots of great pics and descriptions.

The only thing I'm still wondering is what the ambient temp was during testing.

[slaveofconvention]

I can't give you an exact figure because I didn't take one at the time. What I CAN tell you is that it was comfortable. I spent pretty much all day that day in the office/workroom and I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt - I would estimate, it was between 17 and 22 degrees centrigrade which I know is a pretty wide range. It certainly wasn't COLD cold - not cold enough to really affect the temperatures in a big way...

In all honesty, if the temps were affected in any way by surrounding things, I'd think they'd have been artifically HIGH because during testing, I had the media centre pc sat directly on top of my Lian Li 343b server (which was on and running) so there may have been some ambient heat rising from there.