Noctua NH-C14S, Premium CPU Cooler with NF-A14 PWM 140mm Fan (Brown)

I am glad I spent the extra money for this well built and extremely quiet cooler. Noctua uses a more sophisticated rating system to select the cooling power you need for your CPU, even if INTEL just tells wattage. Very high quality build and design. Its a big unit but it fit easily in my case and leaves real access to memory boards.

Anything Noctua gets a thumps up!

The main plate on the heatsink had a scratch across it. Im not sure how this happened as there was no damage to the packaging and the protective cover was in the correct place. If I built my computer within the 30day return period I would have returned it to Amazon. I reached out to Noctua and their customer service said it wont affect cooling performance and might actually improve it. I think thats just a joke, if it improved cooling performance then they should prescratch all of their heatsinks, Lol.

Put on an Intel i7 11700KF, 125 tdp. Stressing cpu runs at 60C max using 105-110 watts. Normal usage runs 34C to 43C. Idles at 26C. Happy customer, didnt get anything as low or stable using AIO water coolers. Install was easy enough as long as you follow the instructions. Fan is quiet, havent been able to get it to go over 50% yet. Board temp good to, only 26C. Might not be as pretty or cool as the AIOs but Im more into protecting my electronics.

Quiet and performance is great

Every CPU cooler I have ever purchased came with a back-plate, even coolers much cheaper than this one. This expensive cooler does not! They expect you to use the old back-plate that comes with your motherboard. Thats all fine, but my previous cooler is a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO which is a great cooler, but I have my old back-plate in storage someplace and it would be a nightmare to locate. Why not just include a back-plate like everyone else? They include an Intel back-plate, but not an AMD. I had to go to the hardware store to jerry-rig it to work. Aside from that, this is a good cooler, although overpriced. The reason I wanted this cooler is so it will cool the VRMs and northbridge.

Average Temperature of CPU dropped ~10F with this cooler. Absolutely quiet as well.

I wanted a better cooling solution for my gaming / htpc. It is in a Grandia GD08B case. I love the case, but it has a limit if 138mm for heat sinks. I replaced a Noctua cooler with dual 92mm fans, and this C type cooler with a single 140mm fan idles 9 deg C cooler, and is more quiet as well. I would recommend this cooler for anyone that needs a good cooler in a case with limited height. Check your case height requirement to make sure this fits.

Im so impressed with this fan. I decided to build a gaming PC but wanted it small, so went with the Thermaltake Core V1 case and a mini ITX Z97 board with i5-4690K so I could overclock. I was going to do a self contained water cooler but all the ones around $100 had so so reviews, with most people replacing the fan on the radiator with a Noctua one anyway. So thought Id take a chance and just go air cooling. The fan in the photo looks small but its still huge. Fits fine in my case with the fan under the radiator vs on top like in the photos (it supports both methods as well as adding a second fan). I overclocked my system from 3.5Ghz to 4.2Ghz and on idle Im running around 26-29 degrees C and when using 100% under Prime95 for stress testing I never go over 59. Highest Ive ever seen it hit was 61. Even when on full at 59 degrees the fan is insanely quiet, to the point that I had to turn the TV right off to try and hear it. With the system on the floor you cant hear it at all. Very impressed and highly recommended. Photo shows my rig with it installed to show the size.

Wanted a quiet but substantial cooler for an i9 cpu. One of the problems is a number of air coolers are a tight squeeze in most computer cases. This cooler will likely fit most cases.