Noctua NH-U14S Tower Cooler Review
Category : Aircooling
Published by Marc Büchel on 08.07.13
With the NH-U14S, Noctua updated a cooler which, back in the days simply set a new standard. We're talking about the NH-U12P and three to four years ago this cooler was one of the best, if not to say, the best single tower cooler on the market. Since these are quite big footsteps to follow, we're curious if Noctua is going succeed shaking the market for CPU coolers once again.
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On the following pages we will show you what the Noctua NH-U14S cooler is capable of.
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Preview
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Specifications and included in delivery
Specifications
| Model | Noctua NH-U14S |
| Material | Aluminium / copper / nickel |
| Dimension (D x W x H) | 52 mm x 150 mm x 165 mm |
| Weight | 770 g |
| Fan | 1 x 140 mm x 150 mm x 25 mm - 300 - 1500 rpm |
| On the manufacturer's website | Noctua NH-U14S |
Included in delivery
- Cooling block
- Mounting kit for Socket 775, 1155/1156/1150, and 2011, AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+
- Noctua Thermal compound
- Mounting components
- Manual
The NH-U14S ships well bolstered, therefore none of the parts included will be damaged during transportation. Noctua ships this cooler also with mounting kits for AMD and Intel sockets but we had to find out the Intels Socket LGA1366 is not supported anymore. Also included in the delivery is one fan, which measures 140 milimeter. Rotation speeds can vary between 300 and 1500 rotations per minute and the fan features a PWM connector. Thanks to the depth, which is only 52 millimeter, you can install any memory you want without worrying about the fan colliding with big heatspreaders.
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Construction and design
Construction
If we had to define the type of cooler the NH-U14S is, then we would say it is a single tower cooler. Tower coolers come with the advantage that the air used to cool the CPU will be moved directly to a case fan, which then put the warm air outside of the case. Unfortunately there is no direct airflow towards the motherboard, which means, that the power design as well as the memory almost only receives passive cooling. The Noctua NH-U14S has been built using aluminium and copper. You can find a nickel plated copper base plate which leads the dissipation power to six - also nickel plated - heatpipes. All heatpipes have a diameter of six millimeters. Altogether there are 51 fins soldered to the heatpipes for perfect heat transfer. A closer look at the edges of the cooler reveals, that fins have been angled by 90°, which causes them to form a channel where the air has to flow through. Shifting focus from the outer edges about two centimeters towards the center, we see, that at this point the fins have a tooth shape. Thanks to this design there is going to be vortex inbetween the fins and since the fan produces the highest airflow at this location it is very effective to have such a shape at this spot.
Design
We couldn't find any manufacturing mistakes on our sample, and it seems that it has been very well made which means that manufacturing is on an excellent level. The heatpipes do have different bending radius. When looking at how they have been arrange from a birds view, we see that they for a hexagon. Two out of four heatpipes, which pass the center of the base plate, go to the outside, where there is the highest airflow and two of these heatpipes are located closer to the center of the cooler. The other two heatpipes which pass through the base plate on the outside, a located between the other four heatpipes (when looking at the cooler from a brids view).
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Mounting
Noctua ships their NH-U14S with mounting kits that are compatible to most of the common Intel and AMD sockets. Installing the cooler is very easy and it's done quickly. In our case we didn't have to check the manual. The installation process is really that simple. Unfortunately we had to find out that this cooler is not compatible to Intels Socket LGA1366. Although this socket is quite old meanwhile there are still lots of users out there using it, which would be a good reason to have a mounting kit ready for them.
On these pictures you can clearly see that the NH-U14S is quite a slim cooler. Therefore there should be no copmatibility issues if you should want to install memory with big heatspreaders.
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Testsystem and testroutine
Testsystem
| Cooler | |
| Mainboard | ASUS P6T Deluxe |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 920 2.66 GHz 4C / 8T |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX 3 x 1 GByte |
| Graphics card | Gigabyte GTX 285 |
| Hard disk | Samsung Spinpoint F1 640 GByte |
| Power supply | Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050 Watt |
Testroutine
The CPU is being evaluated using Real Temp and with Prime95 we reach nearly 100% load on the CPU. For measuring the noise level we use a Voltcraft SL-200 decibel meter, which is positioned one meter from the CPU cooler with the fan mounted.- 2.66 GHz 12 volts load
- 2.66 GHz 7 volts load
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Results 2.66 GHz 12 volts
| Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Noise | Price | Review link |
| EK Water Blocks Kit L360 - Triple Fan (Push) - EK-Supreme LTX CPU block | 21 K | 48 °C | 1600 rpm | 41.7 dBA | CHF 294 (EUR 220) | EK Water Blocks Kit L360 |
| Corsair H110 - Dual Fan | 27 K | 51 °C | 1500 rpm | 41.9 dBA | CHF 125 (EUR 104) | Corsair H110 |
| Cooler Master Eisberg 240L Prestige - Dual Fan | 27 K | 52 °C | 1600 rpm | 46.5 dBA | CHF 186 (EUR 155) | Cooler Master Eisberg 240L Prestige |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Triple Fan | 28 K | 57 °C | 1250 rpm | 41.3 dBA | CHF 124 (EUR 103) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Dual Fan | 29 K | 58 °C | 1250 rpm | 41.1 dBA | CHF 99 (EUR 83) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Corsair H90 - Dual Fan | 29 K | 53 °C | 1500/1500 rpm | 42.1 dBA | CHF 96 (EUR 80) | Corsair H90 |
| Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E - Dual Fan | 30 K | 56 °C | 1100/1300 rpm | 41.8 dBA | CHF 70 (EUR 58) | Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Single Fan | 30 K | 59 °C | 1250 rpm | 40.7 dBA | CHF 99 (EUR 83) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Noctua NH-U14S - Dual Fan | 30 K | 60 °C | 1300/1300 rpm | 41.2 dBA | CHF 82 (EUR 65) | Noctua NH-U14S |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega - Dual Fan | 30 K | 57 °C | 1400/1400 rpm | 40.8 dBA | CHF 126 (EUR 105) | Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega Dual Fan |
| Corsair H90 - Single Fan | 30 K | 54 °C | 1500 rpm | 41.4 dBA | CHF 96 (EUR 80) | Corsair H90 |
| Noctua NH-D14 - Single Fan | 31 K | 56 °C | 1300/1200 rpm | 40.9 dBA | CHF 114 (EUR 95) | Noctua NH-D14 |
| Noctua NH-U14S - Single Fan | 31 K | 61 °C | 1300 rpm | 39.8 dBA | CHF 82 (EUR 65) | Noctua NH-U14S |
| Cooler Master TPC 800 - Dual Fan | 32 K | 61 °C | 1400 rpm | 41.2 dBA | CHF 113 (EUR 94) | Cooler Master TPC 800 |
| Enermax ELC240 - Dual Fan | 32 K | 57 °C | 1500 rpm | 43.4 dBA | CHF 107 (EUR 89) | Enermax ELC240 |
| Prolimatech Armageddon - Dual Fan | 33 K | 56 °C | 1100/1100 rpm | 36.4 dBA | CHF 70 (EUR 58) | Prolimatech Armageddon |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 | 33 K | 61 °C | 1400/1400 rpm | 42.0 dBA | CHF 96 (EUR 80) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Dual Fan | 33 K | 57 °C | 1500 rpm | 43.0 dBA | CHF 103 (EUR 86) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| Cooler Master Seidon 120M - Single Fan | 33 K | 57° C | 1800/1800 rpm | 43.6 dBA | CHF 75 (EUR 63) | Cooler Master Seidon 120M |
| Gelid GX-7 - Dual-Fan | 33 K | 53 °C | 1800/1800 rpm | 45.5 dBA | CHF 45 (EUR 38) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Alpenföhn Gotthard - Single Fan | 34 K | 60 °C | 1200 rpm | 39.7 dBA | CHF 65 (EUR 54) | Alpenföhn Gotthard |
| Gelid The Black Edition - Dual Fan | 34 K | 60 °C | 1600/1500 rpm | 41.4 dBA | CHF 72 (EUR 59) | Gelid The Black Edition |
| Cooler Master Seidon 120M - Single Fan | 34 K | 58° C | 1800 rpm | 42.8 dBA | CHF 75 (EUR 63) | Cooler Master Seidon 120M |
| SilverStone Heligon HE01 | 35 K | 61 °C | 1900 rpm | 48.2 dBA | CHF 84 (EUR 70) | SilverStone Heligon HE01 |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Dual Fan | 34 K | 58 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.5 dBA | CHF 79 (EUR 66) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| Enermax ETS-T40-VD - Single Fan | 34 K | 57 °C | 1900 rpm | 42.4 dBA | CHF 43 (EUR 36) | Enermax ETS-T40-VD |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Dual Fan | 35 K | 57 °C | 1250 rpm | 41.0 dBA | CHF 91 (EUR 76) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Single Fan | 35 K | 59 °C | 1500 rpm | 42.4 dBA | CHF 79 (EUR 66) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| Gelid GX-7 - Single Fan | 35 K | 55 °C | 1800 rpm | 45.0 dBA | CHF 45 (EUR 38) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Coolink Corator DS - Single Fan | 35 K | 57 °C | 1900 rpm | 47.9 dBA | CHF 45 (EUR 38) | Coolink Corator DS |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Single Fan | 36 K | 59 °C | 1400 rpm | 37.0 dBA | CHF 79 (EUR 65) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| Prolimatech Armageddon - Single Fan | 37 K | 60 °C | 1100 rpm | 35.9 dBA | CHF 88 (EUR 73) | Prolimatech Armageddon |
| BeQuiet! Shadow Rock - Single Fan | 37 K | 60 °C | 1500 rpm | 42.7 dBA | CHF 63 (EUR 53) | BeQuiet Shadow Rock |
| Corsair H5O - Dual Fan | 37 K | 59 °C | 1600 rpm | 44.4 dBA | CHF 133 (EUR 111) | Corsair H5O |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Single Fan | 38 K | 60 °C | 1250 rpm | 39.4 dBA | CHF 91 (EUR 76) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Thermalright Macho 120 - Single Fan | 38 K | 64 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.8 dBA | CHF 38 (EUR 32) | Thermalright Macho 120 |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 - Single Fan | 38 K | 65 °C | 1400 rpm | 42.0 dBA | CHF 77 (EUR 64) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Dual Fan | 38 K | 62 °C | 1400 rpm | 41.6 dBA | CHF 125 (EUR 104) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Corsair H5O - Single Fan | 38 K | 60 °C | 1600 rpm | 44.0 dBA | CHF 113 (EUR 94) | Corsair H5O |
| Cooler Master Hyper 412S - Single-Fan | 39 K | 62 °C | 1200 rpm | 41.6 dBA | CHF 57 (EUR 48) | Cooler Master Hyper 412S |
| Cooler Master Hyper 212Evo - Single-Fan | 39 K | 62 °C | 1500 rpm | 42.9 dBA | CHF 50 (EUR 40) | Cooler Master Hyper 212S |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Single Fan | 40 K | 64 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.5 dBA | CHF 85 (EUR 71) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Thermalright AXP-100 | 46 K | 72 °C | 2400 rpm | 43.1 dBA | CHF 48 (EUR 40) | Thermalright AXP-100 |
| Prolimatech Samuel 17 - Single Fan | 56 K | 85 °C | 1400 rpm | 40.1 dBA | CHF 49 (EUR 41) | Prolimatech Samuel 17 |
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Results 2.66 GHz 7 Volts
| Cooler / fan | Temp. diff. load | Absolute temp. | RPM | Noise | Price | Review link |
| EK Water Blocks Kit L360 - Triple Fan (Push) - EK-Supreme LTX CPU block | 25 K | 52 °C | 650 rpm | 32.4 dBA | CHF 294 (EUR 220) | EK Water Blocks Kit L360 |
| Corsair H110 - Dual Fan | 30 K | 53 °C | 650 rpm | 32.1 dBA | CHF 125 (EUR 104) | Corsair H110 |
| Cooler Master Eisberg 240L Prestige | 32 K | 56 °C | 800 rpm | 43.8 dBA | CHF 186 (EUR 155) | Cooler Master Eisberg 240L Prestige |
| Noctua NH-U14S - Dual Fan | 33 K | 64 °C | 1000/1000 rpm | 37.7 dBA | CHF 82 (EUR 65) | Noctua NH-U14S |
| Corsair H90 - Dual Fan | 34 K | 58 °C | 650/650 rpm | 32.1 dBA | CHF 96 (EUR 80) | Corsair H90 |
| Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E - Dual Fan | 34 K | 60 °C | 500/900 rpm | 35.0 dBA | CHF 70 (EUR 58) | Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Triple Fan | 34 K | 63 °C | 750 rpm | 35.1 dBA | CHF 124 (EUR 103) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Corsair H90 - Single Fan | 35 K | 59 °C | 650 rpm | 32.1 dBA | CHF 96 (EUR 80) | Corsair H90 |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Dual Fan | 35 K | 64 °C | 750 rpm | 34.9 dBA | CHF 99 (EUR 83) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega - Dual Fan | 35 K | 62 °C | 800 rpm | 40.8 dBA | CHF 126 (EUR 105) | Prolimatech Megahalems Super Mega Dual Fan |
| Noctua NH-U14S - Single Fan | 35 K | 65 °C | 1000 rpm | 37.3 dBA | CHF 82 (EUR 65) | Noctua NH-U14S |
| Noctua NH-D14 - Single Fan | 36 K | 61 °C | 1000/900 rpm | 37.2 dBA | CHF 114 (EUR 95) | Noctua NH-D14 |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Dual Fan | 37 K | 59 °C | 800 rpm | 34.1 dBA | CHF 91 (EUR 76) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Cooler Master TPC 800 - Dual Fan | 37 K | 66 °C | 800 rpm | 34.2 dBA | CHF 113 (EUR 94) | Cooler Master TPC 800 |
| Cooler Master Seidon 120M - Dual Fan | 37 K | 61 °C | 1200/1200 rpm | 37.1 dBA | CHF 75 (EUR 63) | Cooler Master Seidon 120M |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Dual Fan | 37 K | 61 °C | 1000 rpm | 38.9 dBA | CHF 79 (EUR 66) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| Enermax ELC240 - Dual Fan | 37 K | 62 °C | 1500 rpm | 37.0 dBA | CHF 107 (EUR 89) | Enermax ELC240 |
| Prolimatech Armageddon - Dual Fan | 38 K | 61 °C | 650 rpm | 32.1 dBA | CHF 70 (EUR 58) | Prolimatech Armageddon |
| Phanteks PH-TC14PE - Single Fan | 38 K | 67 °C | 750 rpm | 34.6 dBA | CHF 99 (EUR 83) | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
| SilverStone Heligon HE01 | 38 K | 64 °C | 1000 rpm | 34.7 dBA | CHF 84 (EUR 70) | SilverStone Heligon HE01 |
| Gelid The Black Edition - Dual Fan | 38 K | 64 °C | 1100/1000 rpm | 34.8 dBA | CHF 72 (EUR 59) | Gelid The Black Edition |
| Cooler Master Seidon 120M - Single Fan | 38 K | 62 °C | 1200 rpm | 36.7 dBA | CHF 75 (EUR 63) | Cooler Master Seidon 120M |
| Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow - Single Fan | 39 K | 63 °C | 1000 rpm | 36.2 dBA | CHF 79 (EUR 66) | Prolimatech Megahalems Megashadow |
| Prolimatech Armageddon - Single Fan | 41 K | 64 °C | 650 rpm | 32.3 dBA | CHF 88 (EUR 73) | Prolimatech Armageddon |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 | 40 K | 67 °C | 500/500 rpm | 33.3 dBA | CHF 96 (EUR 80) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 |
| Alpenföhn Gotthard - Single Fan | 41 K | 67 °C | 700 rpm | 35.5 dBA | CHF 65 (EUR 54) | Alpenföhn Gotthard |
| Gelid GX-7 - Dual Fan | 42 K | 62 °C | 700 rpm | 34.0 dBA | CHF 45 (EUR 38) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Noctua NH-C14 - Single Fan | 42 K | 64 °C | 800 rpm | 33.5 dBA | CHF 91 (EUR 76) | Noctua NH-C14 |
| Corsair H5O - Dual Fan | 42 K | 64 °C | 900 rpm | 37.5 dBA | CHF 133 (EUR 111) | Corsair H5O |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Dual Fan | 43 K | 67 °C | 700 rpm | 37.0 dBA | CHF 103 (EUR 86) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| BeQuiet! Shadow Rock - Single Fan | 43 K | 66 °C | 800 rpm | 36.7 dBA | CHF 63 (EUR 53) | BeQuiet Shadow Rock |
| Cooler Master Hyper 412S - Single Fan | 43 K | 69 °C | 800 rpm | 35.8 dBA | CHF 57 (EUR 48) | Cooler Master Hyper 412S |
| BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 - Single Fan | 44 K | 70 °C | 500 rpm | 32.9 dBA | CHF 77 (EUR 64) | BeQuiet! Dark Rock 2 |
| Thermalright Macho 120 - Single Fan | 44 K | 70 °C | 700 rpm | 34.2 dBA | CHF 38 (EUR 32) | Thermalright Macho 120 |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Dual Fan | 44 K | 68 °C | 1000 rpm | 38.0 dBA | CHF 125 (EUR 104) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Enermax ETS-T40-VD - Single Fan | 45 K | 66 °C | 650 rpm | 32.7 dBA | CHF 43 (EUR 36) | Enermax ETS-T40-VD |
| Gelid GX-7 - Single-Fan | 45 K | 65 °C | 700 rpm | 33.5 dBA | CHF 45 (EUR 38) | Gelid GX-7 |
| Noctua NH-U12P - Single Fan | 45 K | 69 °C | 1000 rpm | 37.4 dBA | CHF 85 (EUR 71) | Noctua NH-U12P |
| Coolink Corator DS - Single Fan | 46 K | 68 °C | 800 rpm | 35.0 dBA | CHF 45 (EUR 38) | Coolink Corator DS |
| Corsair H5O - Single Fan | 46 K | 68 °C | 900 rpm | 35.4 dBA | CHF 113 (EUR 94) | Corsair H5O |
| Alpenföhn Nordwand - Single Fan | 48 K | 72 °C | 700 rpm | 36.4 dBA | CHF 79 (EUR 66) | Alpenföhn Nordwand |
| Cooler Master Hyper 212Evo - Single-Fan | 52 K | 75 °C | 750 rpm | 35.3 dBA | CHF 50 (EUR 40) | Cooler Master Hyper 212S |
| Thermalright AXP-100 | 57 K | 83 °C | 1200 rpm | 37.0 dBA | CHF 48 (EUR 40) | Thermalright AXP-100 |
| Prolimatech Samuel 17 -Single Fan | 67 K | 96 °C | 800 rpm | 36.2 dBA | CHF 49 (EUR 41) | Prolimatech Samuel 17 |
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Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| With the NH-U14S, Noctua shows a perfectly manufactured and beatifully single tower cooler. The fact that it is quite slim makes it leave plenty of space for memory with huge heatspreaders. With this cooler Noctua was even able to surprise us, since it is the best single tower cooler we've tested so far. | - Dimensions - Performance | ||
| Installation | + | - | |
| Installing a Noctua cooler is usually simple and easy and there is no exception with the NH-U14S. In our case it wasn't necessary to check manual to do the installation, which is always a good indicator for an easy mounting process. Apart from the fact that there are mounting kits for most recent sockets, LGA1366 is missing. Should you own an older Nocuta cooler and upgrade with this one, then you can at least use the old mounting kit. | - Compatible with Intel and AMD sockets - Simple mounting process | - No mounting kit for LGA1366 | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| During our tests we used the fan(s), which were in the delivery. At 12 Volt the noise level is subjectively well audible. Using an adapter and regulating the voltage to 7 Volt made the noise level drop to subjectively silent. At 12 Volt and 1500 rotations per minute we've seen excellent temperatures. Driving the fan at 7 Volt and 800 rotations the cooler is still performing exceptionally good. Overall this has been the best performing single tower cooler we've had for review so far. | - Excellent cooling capacity - Cooling capacity at 7V | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you're looking for an excellent cooler, which offers headroom for overclocking, then the NH-U14S from Noctua is a great choice. These days you can get this cooler for CHF 82.- (est. EUR 65.-). |
- Overclocker - Gamer - Enthusiast |
||
| Feedback Noctua LGA1366 Support | |||
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Author: Marc Büchel m.buechel@ocaholic.ch