Conclusion:

In just five years Noctua has developed a reputation for high quality components, backed up by countless awards from reviews published around the world. Downdraft coolers have been manufactured in the past, however few have been able to stand up to the larger tower coolers. The NH-C14 shows that Noctua knows what they are doing.

With the NH-C14, Noctua has designed a downdraft cooler that can compete with the huge tower coolers on the market. At stock speeds and a light workload, it can cool a system almost as well as the Thermaltake Frio, a large tower cooler designed specifically for overclockers. However, if the system gets put under an extremely heavy heat load the NH-C14 can't quite keep up with the Frio. With that in mind, take into account the flexibility the NH-C14 provides with three different fan orientations, and four different power connections which allows the NH-C14 to be used in almost every type of case from a tower to a low profile HTPC, all while cooling far better than the stock CPU cooler.



The Noctua NH-C14 shouldn’t have any space issues in most cases. However, if the memory has tall heatspreaders then the bottom fan might need to be removed, which will lower the cooling potential. In addition, if there are other tall components around the CPU the heat pipes of the cooler might have an issue. Installing the cooler took a little longer than most because the edge of the cooler was near the top of the case and I was unable to easily line up the screws. Once that was done however the other side was easy.

The Noctua NH-C14 CPU cooler carries a price tag of around $90 at popular online retailers like Amazon.com and Newegg.com. This price does place it up there with some of the most expensive air coolers available. While cheaper coolers may be able to compete with the NH-C14 in terms of performance, they might not be able to when it comes to style and the variety of configurations supported by the NH-C14.

I have no hesitation recommending the Noctua NH-C14 CPU cooler to anybody looking for a great cooler, and it therefore earns the Bigbruin.com "Recommended" award. In addition it also earns the Bigbruin.com "Whisper Quiet" award due to the the dual fans being nearly silent at default speed setting and could not be distinguished over the other noises in the test system.



Pros:

» Large amount of cooling area
» Fan power cables fully wrapped
» Installation flexibility
» Very quiet
» High quality construction
» High quality fans
» 6 year warranty

Cons:

» Big
» Might have conflict with some motherboard components
» Installation could be a little difficult in some cases

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