Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler Review

External Impressions of the NH-C14

The NH-C14 comes completely assembled, and ready to install into your system.

Over all the NH-C14 has an overall height of 130mm, which is short for a CPU cooler when current tower coolers are routinely over 150mm . This is good for users that have a shallow case, but require a solid performing CPU cooler. If the 130mm height is too much the top fan can be removed to have an overall height of only 105mm.

TheNH-C14 has silicon blocks in channels that the fans rest on. The fans also use spring clips to attach to the fins. The clips attach to the channel that runs down the side of the fins.

Looking from the side of the NH-C14 we can see the shape of the heatpipes. Without the lower fan the NH-C14 has a total of 65mm of clearance. With the fan it is a scant 38mm. So depending on the motherboard heatsink arrangement around the socket and the sockets relation to the RAM slots the ability to use the lower fan could be an issue. For most Intel boards with standard height RAM this shouldnt be an issue. AMD users and those with tall RAM like the Corsair Dominators or Kingston HyperX T1 may want to do a little planning.

Looking at the heatpipe end we can see how the pipes are arranged. In the center is a support brace.

The brace helps keep the weight of the fins and the fans from bending the heatpipes.

The top of the brace sets in a channel in the fins. To keep vibrations noise down there is a silicon pad between the brace and fins.

At the bottom the brace is bolted to the top of the cooler base. The base also comes with the upper portion of the SecuFirm2 mounting system. Now these hold down screws are under the fins, and with the fans on and in the case are imposable to reach from the sides.

To gain access to the mounting screws Noctua removed a small section of fins above the mounting screws. Then with the provided tool you can reach through both fans between the fan blades and the fins of the cooler. This was quite easy to do, hard part was lining the fans back up after I took them off for the photos.