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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 blueonblack at 2011-06-27 09:23
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We've seen a lot of coolers from a lot of companies over the years, and they continue to evolve and impress. From Thermaltake to Coolermaster to Xigmatek, the technology behind heat transfer is always improving. Today we have a chance to look at the latest offering from Thermaltake, the Jing.
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By slaveofconvention at 2011-06-22 07:55
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Way back in June of last year, our own Shane McAnally got his hands on the Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler, and frankly couldn't say enough good things about it. It scored a maximum 5/5 on our old rating scheme, and got the editors choice award from our Editor-in-Chief, Charles Gantt. Today I have the NH-C14 to play with - let's find out if it lives up to the outstanding NH-D14 or if those shoes are just too much to fill. More after the break....
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By blueonblack at 2010-11-11 05:46
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Sometimes you find a piece of hardware that you like: it's effective, it's different, it's appealing for whatever reason personally. You admire it, you buy it if you can and you use it. Then the designers come along and make it better. Enter the SpinQ VT from Thermaltake.
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By Datech at 2010-11-09 19:47
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Spire's TherMax Eclipse CPU cooler is a mid-range heatsink and fan combination that promises to be one supreme performer. With universal compatibility for all of today's Intel and AMD platforms, the TherMax Eclipse is just begging to be installed on the professional or gaming system of your choice. Will the ability to run two 120mm fans provide incredible cooling, or outrageous noise? Read on to find out.
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By Kayin at 2010-09-23 11:41
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Today on the bench is the Xigmatek Thor's Hammer, their top-end heatsink offering. Also on the bench is AMD's top-end chip. When the smoke clears, will Thor triumph, or has he met Ragnarok in Thuban? We'll find out!
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By Kayin at 2010-08-31 10:52
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Today on the bench I've got Xigmatek's Balder CPU cooler, one of their HDT (Heatpipe Direct Touch) series. Faced with some of the hottest and fastest processors available today how does it fare? We'll find out as we strap it to something and try to blow it up!
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By Oneslowz28 at 2010-07-27 11:21
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By Charles Gantt ( Oneslowz28 )
Cooler Master is world renowned for their CPU coolers, and for years their high performance coolers have been a staple in the enthusiast community. In the last few months we have seen the release of some very fast and very hot CPUs. Most namely Intel’s Core i7 980x and AMD’s Phenom II X6 line. With these hot CPUs there arose a need for extreme air coolers and today we are going to take a look at one of Cooler Masters answers to this problem… Keep reading…
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By blueonblack at 2010-06-11 05:40
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CPU coolers. We’ve all got to have them, we’re all familiar with them and their purpose, and recently it seems that just about all of the coolers on the market do their job at least adequately. Buy it, bolt it on (usually without even having to apply thermal compound), plug it in and you’re done. Your CPU is kept within safe operating temperatures. We’re not here because we work like that though, are we? Today we’re going to take a look at the largest CPU heat sink available to date: the NH-D14 from Noctua.
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By Trace at 2010-04-12 23:29
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In the lab today is Prolimatech's new socket 1156/1366 air cooler dubbed "Armageddon." Its competition is Intel's stock cooler and Cogage's Arrow cooler. The Armageddon cooler features a unique design on the top of fin stack, which would feel at home in any modded computer case. But that isn't today's question. Today's question is how does it perform? Read on to find out.
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By Trace at 2010-04-05 20:50
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Cogage has once again raised the bar for function and design with their new Arrow CPU cooler which supports sockets 1366, 1156, and 775. Released to deal with the massive amounts of heat that the i7 produces, it sports backwards compatibility for even the hottest running socket 775 CPUs. I will be putting this cooler through the firing squad and see how it performs. Against it will be other leading air coolers and Intel’s stock heat sink solution. Read on to find out how it stacks up.
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By slaveofconvention at 2010-04-01 05:22
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By Colin M. Ormsby (slaveofconvention)
Every now and then, we get the opportunity to review something that little bit special. Something brand new or even pre-release. Kayin recently took a pre-release Ultra 1050w PSU prisoner in his lab and this time it's my turn; the victim is the Thermaltake Frio cooler. The Frio is Thermaltakes brand new top-of-the-line air CPU cooler. Read on and see if it stands up to scrutiny as well as the aforementioned PSU did...more...
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By blueonblack at 2010-01-04 23:17
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Processors get hot. It's the nature of the machine. We all like speed, but with that speed comes heat, and as a rule the faster it is the hotter it gets. Lots of companies offers a lot of different ways to deal with this heat, from the mundane to the exotic, but unfortunately when the build is done the budget often doesn't leave room for a decent cooling solution. Enter the Spire Thermax Pro...
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By Kayin at 2009-12-07 06:18
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Today I've the Prolimatech MegaShadow on the bench. It's real heavy metal, for real heavy cooling-but how hot can it handle? I'm throwing the new and improved tech bench at it, and we'll see if it turns out to be a Megatron, or if there's something more... Prime about it! ....More here
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By Oneslowz28 at 2009-11-03 11:22
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This week I reviewed the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus, a medium sized tower style CPU cooler that will mount to all of the current sockets from both the AMD and Intel camps. The Hyper 212 Plus is the middle child in Cooler Master's Hyper CPU cooler series. However being the middle child means nothing in the world of CPU cooling as this midsized tower offers enough punch to cool the hottest processors out there.
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