Price R900
The Noctua NH-D14 is a monster cooler that dwarfs the Thermalright Venomous X and Cogage Arrow. It uses a twin tower design comprised of six copper heat-pipes and 42 aluminium cooling fins, all of which are nickel plated.
Noctua has bundled two different fans with the NH-D14; the NF-P14 and the NF-P12. These two fans (one intake and one exhaust) are almost impossible to hear even in a reasonably quiet environment. The louder of the two, the NF-P12, has an acoustic noise level of 19.8dB, which is only slightly louder than the sound of a pin dropping from a height of 1cm from 1 meter away (15dB).
Noctua has included Ultra-Low-Noise Adapters (UNLA), which drop the fans’ standard 12v power supply to 7v, further reducing the speed of both fans to 900 RPM, which in turn decreases the amount of noise that they make. Using these adapters will see the NF-P14 become the louder of the two fans, with an acoustic noise level of 13.2dB (only 0.2dB louder than the hum of a light bulb). The beige and brown colouring of the fans is an avant-garde approach and will come down to personal taste but even the most conservative consumer would be hard-pressed to ignore the performance weighting.
Noctua’s SecuFirm 2 mounting kits are solid and provide a reasonable degree of assurance that this massive cooler will not tear your motherboard a new one. A tube of Noctua’s NT-H1 thermal compound is included and is an excellent non-conductive compound that works instantly without the need for curing (heating and cooling the compound several times before it reaches its maximum transfer potential).
The NH-D14 is not only the quietest cooler, but it is arguably the best air cooler money can buy. The Thermalright Venomous X was able to keep the Core i7 975 idling at 36°C while the mercury hit 65°C under full load for an hour. The Noctua was able to match the idle temperature, and at full load the maximum temperature never rose above 60°C, making it the best tested ever at the PCF Ranch. However, a large part of that praise needs to be reserved for the NT-H1 thermal compound. Under the same testing conditions using the NT-H1 compound, the Venomous X was able to improve on its load temperatures by 3°C, resulting in a maximum temperature of 62°C.
Additionally, the size of the NH-D14 is a problem for motherboards that have limited space; it will simply not fit on some motherboards. Beyond the inevitable, the NH-D14 is an excellent, albeit expensive, cooler which is capable of handling the modern silicon toaster while remaining eerily quiet to boot (get it?).
Michael Reed
90%
Full product specifications, benchmarks and other data can be viewed in the December (165) issue of PCFormat Magazine
