Noctua NH-C14S, Premium CPU Cooler with NF-A14 PWM 140mm Fan (Brown)

Using this on an ASUS Z170i mini itx board with (2) 16GB Trident Z DDR-3000 ram. I did not know for sure if the fan would fit on the bottom of the heatsink as I had it installed on top originally, so I unclipped it and slid it in on the bottom and it fit. I am using a EVGA GTX 1070 ACX3.0 and the heatsink fins on the Noctua NH-C14S are the same height as the video card now. I have the fan blowing downwards so it cools the components on the motherboard as well. I did loose a little performance by having the fan pull air through the heatsink vents instead of push, but not much. I am running a i7-6700K at 4.68Ghz with voltage at 1.31. Right now the idle temp is 23 Celsius and ambient temp in house is 67 Fahrenheit (19.44 Celsius). Fan is super silent and super high quality. Under load (Cinebench CPU test) I am at around 73 Celsius. If you are looking for the best quality unit...this is it.

Anything Noctua gets a thumps up!

EDIT 5/7/2023 - Dropping down to 4 stars because it is basically impossible to change some high profile RAM sticks with this cooler attached, especially if it is a AM4 build where you cant change the cooler orientation.

CPU:Ryzen 9 5900X

Best CPU air cooler Ive used, hands down. I ended up replacing the fan with Noctaus Industrial 140mm PWM fan just for the black vs brown but the included fan is excellent if youre ok with Noctua fleshy-beige (Im not haha)

You cant go wrong with Noctua. I bought this when I converted my old PC into a NAS and the original water cooler was end of life after 8 years! The Noctua seems to keep the temps about the same as the water cooler did. I have a big fan controller on the front and I can see the temps all the time so I know if its getting hot, which it does not. My ambient temps are around 75 max and the CPU is always below 30C, no O/C and running freenas OS. Fan is quiet but not completely silent, gets only a little louder when the fan controller kicks it into high. Still not bad. The case fans are louder.

Pictures dont do it justice. This is a big cooler. Albeit the thing still fits. Great cooling.

Absolutely Amazing Cooler. It Looks So Cool In My Case. Installed Easy. Did I Mention That It Looks Cool?

excellent craftsmanship

I bought this one for my sons computer, since I am really impressed by the performance of the NH-D15. This is way nicer looking CPU Cooler than the NH-D15 and the temperature performance is just few degrees higher. I guess beauty has its price. Anyhow, I offered my son my NH-D15 for this one, and he refused. I told him that the NH-D15 is more capable, more expensive, but no. My son says that he also cares how his PC looks. All in all, if this CPU can handle my sons AMD nuclear power station (his computer is hot), I am highly recommending it.