Pricing
With a street price of $125, both the NH-C14S and the NH-D15S are the most expensive CPU coolers available from Noctua. It’s fair to say that the NH-C14S isn’t cheap but it’s a product designed to suit a particular niche and buyers need to remember that this is an enthusiast heat sink.
The NH-C14S provides a lot of cooling potential for a typical configuration so there are cheaper alternatives in the Noctua range and for this reason, we don’t count the price as a negative.
Final Thoughts
This cooler made me want to build in a low profile case. The performance was better than I’d expected as was the acoustic result. It was pleasing to see that the NF-A14 fan could operate at a canter when keeping our i7-5930K cool under stock conditions and still manage to tame a moderate overclock.
Don’t let the initial odd appearance of the NH-C14S fool you, this CPU cooler provides great performance with an overall height that’s lower than a graphics card whilst still remaining easy on the ears. The offset design also means that the conductive edges of the fin stack and fan clips are kept clear of the graphics card in the first PCIE slot.
Noctua NH-C14S CPU Cooler |
|
|
|
PROS |
Impressive thermal performance, especially for a low profile cooler Multiple fan positions to suit most case constraints Premium build quality Compatible with more motherboards due to the offset design Easy to mount |
CONS |
Not cheap |
Awards |