INTRODUCTION

   No matter how we try to see it i think we've finally reached a point in time where commercial CPU cooling technology has finally come to a standstill. Sure we have newly designed air and liquid CPU coolers make their debut all the time but nothing is really new in terms of the technology all those products are based on. Luckily we don't need something new since current products are more than enough to keep temperatures in check so with that in mind lately manufacturers have been doing their best to reduce the size of CPU coolers in an effort to cover the needs of every consumer out there. A while back Noctua released their very good NH-C14 low-profile model which combined very good cooling efficiency while at the same time offering compatibility with many HTPC oriented cases. Well Noctua is known to stick with their popular models a little bit longer than others by performing slight “tweaks” and so today with us we have the brand new NH-C14S model.

     Designed in Austria, Noctua's premium cooling components are internationally renowned for their superb quietness, exceptional performance and thoroughgoing quality. Having received more than 3000 awards and recommendations from leading hardware websites and magazines, Noctua's fans and heatsinks are chosen by more than a hundred thousand satisfied customers around the globe.

   The original NH-C14 CPU coolers managed to perform right on par with many twin tower models because it came bundled with two 140mm fans placed both ontop and beneath the C-Type heatsink in push & pull configuration. Of course although this improved the coolers cooling efficiency it also ment that the NH-C14 wasn't really what many would call a low-profile model and with a height of 130mm that's somewhat understandable. Removing one fan and re-launching the same cooler would be the easy thing to do to satisfy people looking for a low-profile CPU cooler but instead of doing that Noctua took the design back to the drawing board and performed several slight changes. For one the body of the new NH-C14 is actually taller since without a fan at the top it has a height of 115mm (vs the 105mm of the original) while with the fan mounted at the top that number increases to 142mm. Noctua has also used slightly thicker and taller fins with the new NH-C14S so although it features a total of 66 aluminum fins it's actually quite a bit heavier compared to the original NH-C14 with its 68 pieces (820g vs 700g). Finally the 140mm large fan used is also improved compared to the two used with the original NH-C14 since back then Noctua had bundled two NF-P14 models (140mm/1200RPM/65CFM) whereas now we find a single NF-A14 fan (140mm/1500RPM/82.5CFM). Now i can't comment on whether or not the new NH-C14S can compete with the original NH-C14 but we tested the NH-C14 back in early 2012 so we'd like to think that things have improved compared to 4 years ago.