Performance
Test setup and Testing Methodology
The system used for testing is listed in the table below. Ambient temperatures were kept at 24 degrees Celsius +/- 1 degree. The thermal paste used was CoolerMaster thermal fusion (for testing consistency). For the overclocked results I upped the voltage to 1.30v and attained a clock speed of 4.2GHz. The cool and quite mode was disabled to prevent the CPU idling at lower voltages to attain accurate temperatures at idle. The fan speed was set to auto. The idle temperatures were recorded after 10 minutes of idle and max temperatures were recorded after a 5 minute torture test using Prime95. The software used to monitor temperatures was HWMonitor courtesy of CPUID.
Now that we covered the testing methodology, let us get to the results in the tables below!
In the graph below we see the idle temperatures for both stock and overclock. The NH-C14S is right in the middle and shows really good cooling capabilities at idle but remember these are idle temperatures and the fan on the Noctua NH-C14S is merely spinning 780 rpm and the fan noise is hardly noticeable.
Featuring sophisticated aerodynamic optimizations such as Flow Acceleration Channels, the NF-A14 is renowned to be among the best quiet 140mm fans on the market. Combined with the deeper fin stack of the NH-C14S, it allows the cooler to achieve similar performance levels as its dual fan predecessor despite only using a single NF-A14. The NF-A14 premium fan supplied with the NH-C14S supports PWM for convenient automatic speed control through the motherboard. In addition, the maximum fan speed can be reduced from 1500 to 1200rpm using the supplied Low-Noise Adapter for even quieter operation.
The peak noise levels were recorded while performing the torture test. During the test on stock settings the meter recorded a dB level of 35 with a fan speed of 1106 RPM. During the test with an overclock the meter recorded a dB level of 35 with a fan speed of 975 RPM.
One thing Noctua offers with this cooler is a set of low-noise adapters. The purpose of the low-noise adapter cables are to reduce the voltage sent to the fans, in turn limiting the RPM at which they will spin. The low-noise adapters will prevent the fans from spinning over 1200 RPM. This accessory is a nice added bonus from Noctua. As you can see from the results below we did lose performance in the cooling area but we did achieve dBs at lowers levels.
While testing with the low-noise adapters, the increase in temperatures, were at a mere one-to-two degrees Celsius.
There we have it! The NH-C14S brought to us by Noctua! Let us cover a few final thoughts and conclusion of our review.
