- Review -

24.04.2014 PC Perspective

Before continuing with our parting sentiments on the NH-U14S cooler, we would like to take this opportunity to give our friends at Noctua a hearty "Thank You" for giving us the opportunity to review another one of their well-designed CPU air coolers. After reviewing so many dual-tower CPU air coolers, I had some reservations going into the review. Sure, the NH-U14S' single tower is 150mm wide and almost double the thickness of a standard fan, but the single 140mm fan included just didn't seem like it would be enough. Those thoughts quickly evaporated once I started putting the unit through it paces. Noctua designed the NH-U14S cooler as a high-performance unit that was compatible with any Intel LGA115x or LGA2011, or AMD motherboard. At this, they succeeded amazingly well. There were not space constraints with the cooler fitting on the MSI Z87 MPOWER board, which is notorious for is larger VRM coolers framing the CPU socket on three sides. The width-wise fit was tight, but the cooler did fit between the VRM sinks without touching. Further, you could use all four DIMM slots on the board even with a front facing fan. The NH-U14S' design and implementation conform to the high standards we've come to expect from Noctua as well - clean solder joints on all layers, nickel-plating on all copper surfaces, and enough copper heat pipes running through the unit to please even us hard-core water cooling addicts. Further, Noctua stuck to there tried and true Secure Firm2™ mounting system, both easy to use and a rock-solid grid on that heavy chunk of aluminum and copper.

"You will spend a pretty penny on this cooler, but the old adage remains true here - you get what you pay for. And in this case, you are paying for a high-quality, high-performance solution." (Morry Teitelman, PC Perspective)