Noctua NH-D14 HSF Review – The Best CPU Cooler Ever?

The Legit Reviews Core i7 Test System

Here are the parts that make up the Legit Reviews Core i7 test system:

Intel Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Pricing
Processor	Intel Core i7 920	Click Here
Motherboard	Intel DX58SO	Click Here
Memory	Kingston DDR3 3GB 1333MHz ValueRAM	Click Here
Video Card	ATI X1950 XTX	Click Here
Hard Drive	Western Digital 250gb SATA	Click Here
Power Supply	PC&C Silencer 750 Quad	Click Here
Chassis	Ultra M998	Click Here
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate (64bit)	Click Here

To test the coolers I ran them on our Intel Core i7 test platform, which was then set to run at both default and overclocked settings. As a baseline all coolers will be compared to the retail boxed Intel cooler.

The list of previous coolers tested are:

• Asus Triton 81
• Cogage True Spirit
• Cooler Master V10
• Cooler Master V8
• Corsair H50
• Noctua NH-C12P
• Noctua NH-U12P
• Noctua NH-U12P SE2
• Scythe Mugen2
• Spire TherMax II
• Stock Intel
• Swiftech Apogee GTZ
• Swiftech Apogee XT
• Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme 1366
• Thermaltake ISGC-300
• Thermaltake ISGC-400
• Thermaltake SpinQ
• Titan Fenrir
• Vigor Monsoon III LT
• Zalman 10X Extreme

All of the temperatures were obtained by using Core Temp v0.99.3 after the system sat at idle for 30 minutes and then again under 100% load while running Prime95 (64bit) v25.8 for 30 minutes using the blended test. The room temperature was kept a constant 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22c) for all benchmarking. All of the coolers were tested with Arctic Silver Lumiere as the thermal interface material.