A Closer Look

The "C" in "NH-C14S" obviously stands for the cooler's shape, which is a massive C. Unlike the older NH-C14, the NH-C14S features a deeper fin stack and one rather than two fans. The top-flow design should push air down onto the memory and the motherboard's VRM and mosfets, which will result in generally lower temperatures across the board.


If you hate fingerprints on your cooler, you had better grab some cotton gloves since the bare aluminum is a fingerprint magnet. Other than that, the build quality is, as per usual, top notch. The fins feel stiff and the fit and finish is good. As can be seen, there are also two spots for fan clips. This allows for a standard top-flow design with the ability to also mount the fan on top. The low-profile option out of the box is 115 mm tall. Put the fan on top and the cooler is 142 mm tall. Either method works, but the bonus here is with the extra fan clips users can use to install a second fan, which would improve performance further.


Here, you can see the offset design that allows for extra expansion-slot clearance for those on mini-ITX or micro-ATX systems. Noctua has also kindly added cutouts over the spring screws to save users the hassle of wrenches or spanners during installation; gotta love that SecuFirm 2 mounting hardware, right? The heatpipes are fairly evenly spaced out and six of them make contact with the base and go up through the fins. What appears to be a smaller seventh heatpipe is in fact a brace to add rigidity to the design.


The nickel-plated copper base, while smooth to the touch, is a far cry from a mirror finish. As much as I like seeing my own ugly mug looking back at me from a cooler's base, whether it does or not doesn't impact performance all that much.


The NH-C14S uses the NF-A14 fan, which utilizes the company's SSO bearing. It makes use of PWM and has a maximum RPM of 1500, or 1200 RPM with the low-noise adapter. Ridges are used to help streamline airflow. Meanwhile, the tried and true brown and tan color scheme obviously makes an appearance, front and center.