Overview
I guess most of you guys are familiar with the legendary cooler right? Touted as one of the best air coolers you can get. Well, the huge Godzilla size and maroon brown-ish colour is one of the famous ‘signature’ identity of NH-D14. Noctua products officially arrived here in Malaysia few months ago, 3 months plus if I’m not mistaken.

Unboxing
The box.


Neatly packed into 3 segments, mainly the heatsink itself, one box with the accessories and one empty box.


Basically the box that contains the accessories is pretty simple, 1 mounting kit for Intel(LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA775) and AMD(AMD AM2, AM2+, AM3) platform, manual for both of that platform and finally a bag labelled as Common Parts.

This is what you’ll find in the Common Parts bag,
• 1x NF-P14 premium fan
• 1x NF-P12 premium fan
• 2x Ultra-Low-Noise Adaptor (U.L.N.A.)
• Y-Split Cable
• 4x Vibration-Compensators (for using NF-P12 as case fan)
• 4x Fan screws (for using NF-P12 as case fan)
• NT-H1 high-grade thermal compound
• SecuFirm2 Mounting Kits
• Noctua Metal Case-Badge


And this is what you get when opening the biggest box.


tadahh, the omgpwnbbq HSF!


Well, how irony, no copper base? Looks something more like those WC CPU blocks, nickel plating material. Fear not, the base is actually made from copper, same goes with the heatpipes. I must admit that the base is uber flat, but sadly it is not mirror finished.


Rough idea of the size and weight,

• Height (without fan) 160 mm
• Width (without fan) 140 mm
• Depth (without fan) 130 mm
• Height (with fan) 160 mm
• Width (with fan) 140 mm
• Depth (with fan) 158 mm
• Weight (without fan) 900 g
• Weight (with fan) 1070/1240* g

Although this HSF looks huge, heavy and badass, but it can fit tall RAMs like Dominator, provided that you remove the fins.


It’s pretty cool of Noctua to give the users a first-hand sight on whether the HSF will fit the motherboard. To check it, refer to this link http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compati...ts_id=34&lng=en

This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jun 27 2011, 04:31 PM

Installation
Alright, my lovely setup <3


SecuFirm2 backplate. Only for LGA775 setups that you leave that rubber piece there, LGA1155 and LGA1366 must be removed.


I’m going to mount it this way. Actually it is very flexible, you can either mount it horizontal or vertical. Superb mounting


My Noctua is finally in! look at how it didn’t crash with my GPU and SC. And it’s a pretty good motherboard, but too bad it is LGA1156.


This is very interesting, they provided a long screwdriver to screw in the screws.


This is the Ultra-Low-Noise Adapter(U.L.N.A) that that I pointed out earlier which is available in the Common Parts bag. IT is for those people who are particular about the fans operating noise. The black adaptor is for the NF-P14 140mm fan, and the blue one is for NF-P12 120mm fan. It is advisible to check your current CPU temp before using this adaptor.


Just look at the quality of the fan cable. The right one is Noctua, left one is Thermaltake.


Okay, it’s done and ready to roll!


The picture that most of you are waiting for? RAM clearance.









This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jun 24 2011, 06:41 PM

Test Setup
• Processor: Intel i7-870
• Mainboard: MSI Big Bang Fuzion
• HSF: Noctua NH-D14
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM 2X2GB
• GPU: MSI GTX 570 1.3GB
• HDD: 2xSamsung SpinPoint F3 1TB RAID 0
• PSU: Seasonic X-750W

most of you shouldn’t have known that i7 tempts is pretty good at at stock speed but what about OC? The temperature is goddamn crazy and stupidly high.
This results was obtained when I’m still stuck with my previous HSF, Thermaltake Jing. Even just a minor OC to 3.1Ghz, the idle temperature is fluctuating around 70c+

Supa-terrible huh?


Testing
Everything is done in a 19c room. Don’t worry, I slept for 5 hours before doing the test to ensure that it is completely at that temperature.

Stock i7(2.93Ghz)


Overclocked i7(3.5Ghz)


Overclocked i7(4Ghz)




This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jun 24 2011, 06:41 PM

Conclusion
Priced at RM269, I would strongly recommend this product to any hardcore users who is searching for a powerful HSF with low-noise levels. Not to mention that the warranty period is 6 years, which is darn good. The only drawback is the size which most casing can’t fit and I noticed some users GPU is few millimetre away from the HSF. So my advice is to do some measurement before buying


This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jun 24 2011, 06:42 PM

less than 10 minutes?
those review said that it is super hard to mount blah blah crap. But in reality, it is super easy.

RM339 is SRP, bought mine for RM269.

Corsair Hydro is bull OCed temps is bad, but stock is ok.

for SB, 70c is pretty normal IINM you cannot compare a RM700+ WC with this, different league.

Yeah, the room temperature will definitely increase. When I turn off my aircond, the temperature is around 30c+ idling.

imho, most of the good HSF cover the RAM slots. But you are aware that HSF like CM V6GT and Scythe Ninja 3 can't install RAM with tall heatsinks right?
but this HSF can fit RipJawsX,

actually it depends on how you mount it too. I find that mounting it vertically gives more RAM clearance.

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Added on June 26, 2011, 4:15 pmso far I found out that only CEX is offering it at RM269, rest of the resellers are selling at SRP, which is RM339.

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Added on June 28, 2011, 5:04 pmNah, not that bad get this monster, and you won't regret, trust me.

This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jun 28 2011, 05:04 PM

vs TT Jing?
check out post 3 for the idle temps.

If I don't run on a aircon room, then lagi teruk. Let's say if I do on morning and night, and at night, it happened to rain, so the temperature dropped a lot.
then it doesn't make sense anymore. If I bench 4Ghz at night, the temp will be almost same as 3.5Ghz benched on afternoon

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Added on July 2, 2011, 3:48 pmI don't think you can fit a RAM cooler with this HSF, even if you mount vertical or horizontally.
your ADATA RAMs, can the fins at the top be removed? maybe it is something like that Corsair Dominator thingy. If it can be removed, then it should be ok the max clearance is less than 44mm.

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Added on July 2, 2011, 3:53 pmwell..it is just like comparing a Bentley and a Proton, answer is obvious.

This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jul 2 2011, 03:53 PM

lawl. Why 45min? that's pretty long.

just wondering, you mount it vertical or horizontal? I've changed mine to horizontal, cause I want to keep one PCI-E x16 slot free.

This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jul 8 2011, 08:16 AM

umm, actually they give darn alot of goodies, seriously
they even provide those kind of fan vibration silencer like this,

for that 120mm fan you mentioned to be mount onto any casing.

gooding right?

Uhmm, I would say NH-D14. The only HSF that can keep up to NH-D14 is Mega Shadow, provided that you have the right pair of fans

p/s: was contemplating to buy either Mega Shadow or NH-D14 before I finally bought this cooler.

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Added on July 10, 2011, 4:22 pmimho, this cooler is good for load, not that good on idle. Total opposite of Scythe Ninja3
now my i7-870 is clocked at 3.5Ghz, idle temp(w/o aircond) is around 42c, when playing games, it doesn't hit 50c, true story

This post has been edited by TechnoG: Jul 10 2011, 04:22 PM

It won't, because there is a backplate
don't worry, it won't damage your mobo.

Personally, I don't trust close loop water cooling either get the DIY or just get high end cooling. Corsair Hydro series gooding if put in HTPC, but if used it for overclocking, then confirm fail. but am not really sure about newer ones like H100 etc. cause IINM, it doesn't use Asetek OEM anymore.

to be frank, I'm not really sure but if you really want to install it, have to check the size of your RAMs, mobo and casing to confirm that it fits.

Yup, very certain about that
www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_ram_gen&products_id=34&lng=en

This post has been edited by TechnoG: Dec 8 2011, 06:05 PM

anyway, got some images for proof.