Noctua NH-C14S CPU Cooler Review

Testing
We will be testing the Noctua NH-C14S in our Intel X79 system.

Noctua NH-C14S CPU Cooler

It is comprised of the following components.

Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 Twin Frozr Gaming OC
Memory: 16GB Kingston 10th Anniversary
Power: Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G 850W Power Supply
Storage: 750GB SATA II Drive
Cooling: Noctua NH-C14S
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II with 5 fans

For testing we will be using the Intel Burn Test with the AVX instruction set. We use this instead of Prime 95 as it will push the processor much harder. We have it set on the maximum setting and let it run through 3 passes. This gives us a realistic idea of the temperatures the processor would hit when it is under full load.

Keep in mind this is an Extreme Edition processor. These run much hotter than normal chips. First up we have our idle test.

idle

Now for the load test.

load

As you can see the NH-C14S sits at the top of our testing group when it comes to both idle and load tests. That is very impressive!

The cooler comes with a Low Noise Adapter (LNA) that slows the fan speed down. Here is the difference between running the cooler with the LNA and without it.

lna

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