Noctua NH-C14S C-Type Premium CPU Cooler Review

TECHNOLOGY X TEST PROTOCOL

At Technology X, we test our CPU coolers slightly different depending upon the cooler’s marketed purpose, whether it be for a silent operation or extreme overclocking.  Our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, however, CPU C State alteration may or may not have occurred depending on the motherboard and BIOS configurations. Additionally, we also try to include links to the benchmarks used in our report so that you as the reader can replicate our tests to confirm that your cooler performs the way it should.

Z170 Test Bench Photo 5

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchases; our appreciation goes to the below mentioned manufacturers for their support in our project. All of the components we use for testing and evaluation can be easily purchased at a relatively affordable price. The links provided below can assist in pricing, as well as availability for those of you who may find interest in our equipment.

PC Chassis: In Win 805 Mid Tower Chassis
Motherboard: ASRock Z170 OC Formula
CPU: Intel i5-6600K
CPU Cooler: N/A
Memory: Crucial 64GB DDR4-2133 Memory
Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W
Graphics Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 980 Amp! Edition 4GB
System Cooling: be quiet! Silent Wings 2 Chassis Fan
Keyboard: Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum
Mouse: i-rocks M20E Illuminated Gaming Mouse
Storage: Intel 750 Series NVMe PCIe SSD (1.2TB)

AIDA64 EXTREME

In order to test our CPU cooler, we’ll be running a CPU stress test and monitoring our temperatures using AIDA64, which is a great utility for benchmarking, testing the stability of, and monitoring your system.

COOLING PERFORMANCE

To test our cooler, we ran AIDA64’s ‘System Stability Test’ for one hour and recorded the highest temperature reached on any core. We did so at both the stock core frequency of our Intel Core i5 6600K, as well as overclocked to 4.2GHz, and 4.6GHz.

During all tests our ambient temperature was approximately 22C while the cooler’s intake temperature was a slightly warmer 28C.

NH-C14S AIDA64 Testing

We can really see how the more efficient Skylake CPU performs here. At a top overclocked speed of 4.6GHz, the max temperature recorded was 54C, this leaves us with plenty of room to push this CPU even further. Even running at it’s stock clock speed, the difference from idea to load temperature is only that of 11C! When we look at our 4.6GHz overclock, the same comparison is that of only 25C!

With the recent news of Skylake CPU's being pushed up to 7 GHz, one can only begin to think of ways to overclock their CPU and take performance to the next level. Any easy way to do so is by swiping out your old CPU cooler for a new one. Without going to the extremes of custom liquid cooling and LN2 testing, one could easily swap in an all-in-one liquid cooler or a air cooler. Today we have the preiveldge of testing the Noctua NH-C14S C-Type Premium CPU cooler, while adding an additional Noctua NF-A14 PWN fan for additional performance,…

Review Overview

Design
Build Quality
Performance
Noise
Pricing

Cool!

The Noctua NH-C14S C-Type Premium CPU Cooler is one heck of a CPU cooler that we would recommend for anyone looking to upgrade their system to get that added bit of performance, don't forget that second NF-A14 fan though!

User Rating: 4.65 ( 1 votes)

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