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By slaveofconvention at 2012-06-25 16:09
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If you recall the original review of the Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler, back in June of 2011, all of the testing was carried out on a relatively modest AMD Athlon II X2 250 CPU running at 3.0Ghz. Like most of us, the upgrade bug has bitten me and my main PC is now running on an AMD FX-8120 - 8 cores at 3.1GHZ which self-overclocks to 3.9 under load. The question is, can this Editors Choice winning 10/10 CPU Cooler handle it? Read on to find out...
It isn't often we here at TBCS go back and look once again at a review but we're making an exception today. It is relatively obvious that Noctua are aiming it's NH-C14 CPU Cooler at higher end system, considering the size and price of the unit. Our original testing was carried out on a fairly mid-range system in order to acknowledge the coolers' HTPC suitability.
Having recently moved the cooler from the HTPC and into a much more powerful PC, it seemed only reasonable to re-test it in the interests being thorough.
In the original HTPC, the cooler was installed to cool an Athlon II X2 250 running two cores at 3.0Ghz and as the original review (available here) attested, the NH-C14 did an outstanding job, knocking almost 20 degrees C off of the stock cooler and 15 off of the Arctic Cooling PWM64 cooler, as you can see in the following chart.
The question before us today, however is will the cooler be as impressive on a 125W 8 Core CPU as it was on the 65W 2 core unit?
The revised core specifications of the test PC are as follows.
Antec 900 PC Case
AsRock 970 Extreme 3 Motherboard
AMD FX-8120 8-Core Bulldozer CPU
16GB PNY DDR3
As before, the tests were carried out using freshly applied thermal paste, although in this case a quality generic paste was used instead of the Noctua NT-H1 paste originally provided with the cooler. The same paste was used on all three coolers in this test for the sake of continuity.
The "stock" AMD cooler is different unit to the stock cooler used in the original testing - AMD provides a much better stock cooler with the FX-8120 than with the Athlon II X2 250, and the mid-range cooler used for comparison is a step up from the original Arctic Cooling unit - this time it's a Freezer Pro 64 with a single 120mm fan as opposed to the PWM64 with an 80mm unit installed.
The results....
Simply stunning. There is a MUCH much better level of airflow in the current case than in the Thermaltake unit used in the original review. The Thermaltake had no case fans whatsoever, relying utterly on the PSU fan to expel hot air whereas the Antec 900 has a pair of front mounted 120mm intakes, a rear mounted 120mm exhaust and a top mounted 200mm exhaust all of which almost certainly helped but there's no denying the difference between the coolers in the same system. Give or take a week or so, the time of year is the same, so ambient temperatures will be fairly close between the systems, and the tests were carried out in the same room.
The NH-C14 actually managed lower temperatures on the 125W 8-core CPU than on the 65W 2-core unit although the case airflow has to have been a contributing factor. Nevertheless, a drop in temperature from 47C (stock cooler) down to 29 is a great result and fully reinforces my previous conclusions.
With these results in mind, I have no problem whatsoever confirming both the Editors Choice award and the original 10/10 score. This is a serious CPU cooler which is more than capable of taming mid and high-end CPU's alike.
This product was provided free of charge by the manufacturer for the purpose of review.
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By SXRguyinMA at 2012-05-18 16:02
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Fans can be a touchy subject in the PC world. There's a billion different fans and fan designs on the market today. Some are just general, inexpensive all-purpose fans while others are designed for specific purposes. The new FZ fans we'll be looking at from NZXT today fall into the latter category. Read on for the details....
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By SXRguyinMA at 2012-05-15 01:30
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When NZXT debuted the Phantom full tower it was an instant hit. From the unusual styling to the laundry list of features, it was quite the impressive case. Building off of the Phantom platform came the Phantom 410. A mid-tower version of the famed Phantom. How does it stack up to it's big brother? Well lets take a look.
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By SXRguyinMA at 2012-02-25 08:43
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Every case manufacturer has a variety of cases. In addition to standard cases each one has their flagship case. It's their pride and joy. It's the one that has the most features and supports the most hardware. Today we'll be looking at NZXT's new flagship - the Switch 810. Read more...
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By SXRguyinMA at 2011-10-31 17:05
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Midtower cases these days are a dime-a-dozen. Every manufacturer has one and each has their own way of doing things and features that try to make theirs stand out from everyone else's. But the ones that do stand out are those that are innovative and inexpensive - a sometimes hard recipe to get right. Will the latest offering from NZXT get it right? Read on to find out...
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By slaveofconvention at 2011-08-16 14:37
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"A ninja (忍者) or shinobi (忍び) was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations." Quite what this has to do with computer cases is unclear but it certainly sounds pretty cool. Is the Bitfenix Shinobi Mid-ATX tower as cool as the name it has been given? Read on after the break to find out...
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By SXRguyinMA at 2011-07-07 14:22
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Gigabyte recently unleashed their new G1.Killer series of motherboards into the market. They're billed as high-performance gaming motherboards with lots of customizations. The three G1.Killer models are the Assassin, Sniper and Guerrilla. Today we'll be looking at the bottom-end of the lineup, the G1.Guerrilla...More.
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By SXRguyinMA at 2011-06-24 07:45
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Cooler Master's CM Storm gaming department unleashed it's newest mid-tower case, the Enforcer. Cooler Master is known for their high-end feature-rich cases, so let's see how this one fits in with their already impressive line of CM Storm gaming cases. Read on for the details.....
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By slaveofconvention at 2011-06-05 23:01
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Many people think that the best processor, or the best motherboard is what lies at the heart of a custom built PC. The truth of the matter is, without the right Power Supply, it really doesn't matter what else you put in that dream rig of yours. An underpowered, or poor quality PSU WILL (not can, not might, WILL) lead to stability, noise, cooling and lifespan issues in the rest of your machine. Today we're going to take a look at our first ever Mushkin review sample. The 800W incarnation of the Joule PSU line. Click here to read more....
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By OvRiDe at 2011-05-17 20:34
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Florida based manufacturer Sentey has released their Extreme Division computer chassis. Being one of the newer kids on the block they have brought their A game to the competition with their GS-6400 Arvina. Packed with features, performance, and style, the Arvina has arrived on the scene with gamers in mind.
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By Oneslowz28 at 2011-05-09 15:14
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In this installment of Hardware Focus, we'll be looking at the DESIGNER Notebook Cooler from Antec.
Before I get into the body of the article, let me take a moment to summarize the Hardware Focus segment at TBCS. Hardware Focus will be a random mini review written by one of the TBCS Staff members. We will be taking a brief look at some products that we feel would make too short of an article to call it a full review. Sounds pretty neat huh? Well it gets much better! We will give you a chance to win every product we feature on Hardware Focus. We will wait 2 weeks and draw a name at random from the comments and that person will win one of the item that was featured...More.
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By blueonblack at 2011-05-04 13:09
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Since I've been with TBCS I've had a lot of firsts, and covered a lot of new territory, both in modding and in technology in general. The most recent example was my much-delayed entry into the land of always-on broadband Internet. As always, it wasn't enough. To better utilize this endless tide of information I needed a way to share it with multiple devices simultaneously. Enter the Trendnet TEW-673GRU 300Mbps concurrent dual-band wireless router.
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By Oneslowz28 at 2011-04-29 01:12
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How many of you have a spare HDD laying around because all of the SATA ports on your motherboard are full? I am betting that the majority of you raised your hand. There are many solutions that would allow you to put that HDD to use, and today we are going to take a look at one solution that is blazingly fast...More
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By SXRguyinMA at 2011-04-21 18:37
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In Win recently released their new BUC mid-tower case to their DESTINY-Lite series. I was lucky enough to get my hands on one to review. How will it compare to it's big brother, the Dragon Rider? Would it make a good candidate for your next build? Well read on to find out more.
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By slaveofconvention at 2011-04-09 05:16
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By Colin M. Ormsby (Slaveofconvention)
A while back, newcomer Bitfenix exploded onto the custom computer scene with an utterly unique chassis, the Colossus. We've already seen what they did with the follow-up to that case, the Survivor in a previous review. Now they're back with a special edition of the Colossus - the Venom Edition. We didn't cover the original Colossus so let's get our hands dirty and get a real close-up look at this new Venom edition. Read on...
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