Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler Review

Over the past few years Noctua has continued to impress the enthusiast community with some down right great CPU cooling solutions. We here at Hardware Canucks have looked at everything from one of their earliest coolers (the U12) to a massive beast dubbed the D14, and for the most part have walked away impressed. The one exception was the C12, which did leave a bit to be desired but Noctua has been hard at work behind the scenes and has released a successor: the NH-C14.

This all new heatsink combines dual 140mm fans and a down draft form factor to create what we hope is a highly flexible, high performance cooler. It also promises an easy installation setup. This is a tall order, as the C12 the C14 supersedes really couldn’t do either due in part to its unique design.

While it is not exactly hard to find, the C14 does come with a pretty steep asking price of about $75 USD. Even though it is equipped with a pair of good-looking stock fans (or at least low noise, high priced fans), this is a serious chunk of change that places it firmly in the upper end of the enthusiast spectrum and close to what the D14 originally went for. For the same - or less – money, you can get some other extremely high end tower style coolers.

Pricing does tend to put the C14 into a interesting market segment but if anything, Noctua has proven they have the engineering chops to pull of some incredible feats. Hopefully, they’ll be able to pull off another one here.