Noctua NH-D14 and NH-C14 Product Review By Peter Amadeus Lo
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Introduction
Noctua is well known to its premium aftermarket fan and cooling products for computers. A combination of silence and performance in one whole package. I’ve tested their fan the NF-S12B-FLX, it performs like a gem. I’ve used a NH-C14 cooler on my rig and made me smile that I reached 5.3ghz on my Core i3 540 on air cooling, and now Noctua sent me their tower version, the NH-D14. How would this NH-D14 stack up to NH-C14? I know it would be a close battle with the two.
From Noctua.at website:
Noctua comes from a cooperation of the Austrian Rascom Computerdistribution Ges.m.b.H. with the Taiwanese cooling specialist Kolink International Corporation, pooling more than ten years of experience in the development, manufacturing and marketing of high-end cooling components. Established in 2005, Noctua took the international silent enthusiasts’ hearts by storm and quickly developed into one of the most acclaimed suppliers of premium quality quiet cooling products. Today, Noctua is present in more than 30 countries across the globe and working with several hundred sales partners. Chosen by noise conscious PC users, system integrators and industry clients alike, Noctua has become synonymous with impeccable quality, excellent customer service and class leading quiet cooling performance.
Anyway, let’s take a look of its specs.
Technical Specs and Features – Noctua NH-D14
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This is from their website www.noctua.at , as you can see they are very detailed in their specs. In this case, this is the specs for NH-D14.
Technical Specs and Features – Noctua NH-C14
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Close up – Package and Contents – Noctua NH-D14
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Noctua NH-D14 retail box is very big, colorful and lots of details about the cooler. The quality also include the exterior package as well.
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Well written on all side about the features and specifications. This is good news to consumers for easy readout on spec description.
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Noctua NH-D14 package contains 2 boxes, first the NH-D14 itself attached with P12 an P14 fans preinstalled and the small box that contains the hardware needed for installation. The NH-D14 is very huge indeed, but a bit heavier than the NH-C14 at 1240 grams.
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in depth detail, the cooler and fans are very high quality, every inch and every angle are very top notch as Noctua intended.
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Fans included on Noctua NH-D14 are the NF-P12 and NF-P14 operating at 1600rpm and 1300rpm, high pressured fans that is suitable for the large fins of NH-D14, Very effective airflow while retaining the quiet operation of the whole cooler.
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Closer view on the fins and heatsink base. The base is machined finish, very high quality process and flawless.
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The contents of the small box includes, the instructional manual booklet that has instruction guide for Intel and AMD. The SecuFirm2 bracket, fan adapters for Normal, LNA ( Low Noise Adapter ) and ULNA ( Ultra Low Noise Adapter ), 4 Rubber Compensators. This kits is complete that you don’t have to spend on those items which are included.
Now, let’s take look on Noctua NH-D14’s C-Type brother, The NH-C14.
Close up – Package and Contents – Noctua NH-C14
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The overall package design is same with NH-D14, the box is slight shorter. Still the same high quality finish.
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It includes the NH-C14 cooler preinstalled 2 NF-P14 fans, SecuFirm2 bracket kit, screwdriver, fan adapters, the kit also similar to NH-D14.
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Unlike the NH-D14 whose height approx. is 160mm, this NH-C14 is intended for low profile PC chassis, you can set on high clearance or low profile by removing either the top portion or the bottom. Which is very flexible on end users on installing the fan in case there’s an obstruction on the cooler in the motherboard.
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The base of the NH-C14 is also machine finished, no flaws seen even on the fins, as Noctua intended to be high quality product.
Installation
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On installation, as I follow the instruction manual, you’ll never go wrong with it. The manual are very comprehensive and easy to understand. On my case, as you can see I removed the plexiglass on NH-D14 setup because the heatpipe ends are hitting the plexiglass, this is not the case of the NH-C14 because of its low profile height even on dual fan mode.