That’s right folk, The one and only Noctua NH-D14 Is up for review!! The reason this GIGANTIC heatsink is being reviewed is because it is known to all computer entusiast that it’s the number 1 air-based cooler. It truly is a massive peace of geektech and deserves nothing but respect for what it does.
The contents are pretty much all you will ever need to install the heatink, Its comes with the instructions for installing it on Intel and AMD based CPU’s as well as all the brackets you will need. Also supplied is Noctua’s renowned thermal compound NT-H1
| Socket compatibility | Intel LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA1155, LGA775 & AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3 (backplate required) | |
| Height (without fan) | 160 mm | |
| Width (without fan) | 140 mm | |
| Depth (without fan) | 130 mm | |
| Height (with fan) | 160 mm | |
| Width (with fan) | 140 mm | |
| Depth (with fan) | 158 mm | |
| Weight (without fan) | 900 g | |
| Weight (with fan) | 1070/1240* g | |
| Material | Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminium (cooling fins), soldered joints & nickel plating | |
| Fan compatibility | 140x140x25 & 120x120x25mm | |
| Scope of Delivery |
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| Warranty | 6 Years | |
| Fan specifications | ||
| Model | Noctua NF-P14 & Noctua NF-P12 | |
| Bearing | SSO-Bearing | |
| Rotational Speed (+/- 10%) | 1200 / 1300 RPM | |
| Rotational Speed with U.L.N.A. (+/- 10%) | 900 / 900 RPM | |
| Airflow | 110,3 / 92,3 m³/h | |
| Airflow with U.L.N.A. | 83,7 / 63,4 m³/h | |
| Acoustical Noise | 19,6 / 19,8 dB(A) | |
| Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A. | 13,2 / 12,6 dB(A) | |
| Input Power | 1,2 / 1,08 W | |
| Voltage Range | 12 V | |
| MTBF | > 150.000 h | |
There we have an extensive idea of its specifications and content.
There’s the wonderful Nickel plated base, It’s shiny as hell too!! This offer’s extremely good contacted and heat absourion with the CPU, One of the many reason’s this cooler is extremly good. Also to not the 6(Count them) 6 heatpipes to gather heat away from CPU and cool it.
As you can see from the picture above, The Cooler has a great overall design, The fan on the left(120mm) acts as a push fan to blow air directly to the middle fan(140mm), The middle fan also pulls air from your Ram aswell, Which is a great bonus.
This is the Noctua NH-D14 installed and ready for testing, The test will be done 4 serperate times with different setup’s on each. 1. Stock settings with Two fans, 2. Overclocked to 3.5GHz with two fans, 3. Stock settings with three fans, 4. Overclocked to3.5GHz with three fans. The extra fan being another 120mm Noctua NF-P12.
The testing computer compoenents are.
- Coolermaster HAF X
- Asus Rampage II Extreme motherboard
- Intel i7 920 D0 stepping
- Western Digital Velociraptor 600GB
- 3 X 2GB Corsair Dominator Ram
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit
Testing software, Was Real-temp and prime-95. All temperatures are in Celsius.
So, Here are the test results for each test. They were all done the same day With breaks in-between each.
First Test – Stock Settings(2.66GHz, Idle and Load)
Idle = 31
Load = 52
Second Test – Overclocked (3.5GHz, Idle and Load)
Idle = 35
Load = 62
The next test’s were done with three fans, The third fan was supplied from Noctua themselves along with the kit(Brackets) to install it, It was fairlysimple to install the extra fan, Took about 5 minutes.
Third Test – Stock Settings Three Fans(2.66GHz, Idle and Load)
Idle = 28
Load = 49
Fourth Test – Oveclocked Three fans (3.5GHz, Idle and Load)
Idle = 32
Load = 59
As you can see from the results, The Noctua NH-D14 is truly a magnificent heatsink. The current price for this heatsink in most place’s is around €75(£65). Not only is it an amazing cooler, The price is extremely good aswell.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a great heatsink that is not only amazing at cooling even extremely overclocked CPU’s but also does it while been extremely quiet. Then this is the cooler for you. The results truly speak for themselves and Noctua can rest assured there Heatsink is one off, If not the best Air-based CPU Cooler that money can buy. This is gets the Great Geek Tech award for best CPU Cooler.
