Noctua NH-D14 Reviewed

Conclusion 

If you are wondering if this will fit in your case, the rule of thumb we follow is that if you have a 120mm fan above your IO back plate on your motherboard, then it will almost certainly fit. Keep in mind that you *may* have to sacrifice a GPU/Side panel fan if your case is narrow.

Some system builders will not ship systems with the NH-D14 attached. Although we don’t have any evidence or even anecdotal suggestions that the unit is too big for a LAN rig, we wouldn’t chance it on our motherboards for a highly mobile/portable PC.

We were after something quiet and effective for a machine that wasn’t going to be moved around. The NH-D14 fit the bill perfectly and we can’t fault it. We probably could have gone for a cheaper cooler as this cooler was overkill of a home server but here at pcgamers.net.au, we like to keep our options open.

The Noctua NH-D14 is a good balanced combination with the Fractal Design : Define R3 case if the goal is a quiet system without sacrificing too much in terms of thermals. That said, the NH-D14 would also be a great inclusion in a high airflow enthusiast overclocking build using another type of case but the benefits available in terms of acoustic performance wouldn’t be as noticeable in this scenario.

The bottom line is that we can’t fault this thing and if we had our time over again, we’d still buy it.

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