Review on 🍫 Noctua NH-C14S, High-Performance CPU Cooler with NF-A14 PWM 140mm Fan (Brown) by Dave Neal

I went with the NH-C14S due to the advertised cooler height limitations with my Cooler Master Silencio 352 mATX case. I found out later that a larger cooler would probably fit, but I don't regret my choice. I chose this cooler because I'm a big fan of Noctua's quality and performance and the specs showed it was compatible with my setup. Tests have shown that this cooler is only just behind the big NH-D14, which is incredible considering the C14S only has one row of fins and a 120mm fan rather than the dual 140mm and 120mm fan. mm fan heatsink of the D14. Another plus of the C14S is that it blows cooling air directly onto the motherboard, so it might end up being a better choice. between the fan and the board than between the fan and the side of the case when top mounted. I feel the improved airflow makes up for the less-than-ideal location. My experience is that the cooler works very well. CPU temperatures stay below 20 degrees above ambient in stock mode and 30 degrees when overclocked from stock 3500 to 4600. The fan is pretty quiet at full speed, but with the stock CPU clock speeds, I didn't have to over-rev the fan at 700 rpm to keep everything cool, and at this speed it's almost silent. I found that the fan doesn't want to start when the PWM is set to 300 at low temperatures, so I had to increase the initial speed to 400 rpm, although it's still almost inaudible. My setup uses an ASRock Z170M Extreme4 MB with an Intel I5-6600k processor, EVGA GTX750 Ti SC, 2 x 4GB Crucial 2133 DDR4 memory modules, 2.5" Crucial MX200 SSD, 3TB WD Green HDD, Blu-ray burner LG WH16NS40 Blu -ray , EVGA SuperNOVA 550 G2 power supply, case ventilation by a pair of Noctua NF-F12 PWM fans in the inlet and a Noctua NF-P12 PWM fan in the outlet, Cooler Master Silencio 352 mATX case, everything fits perfectly, this cooler seems 90$ more expensive too than it should be as it only has one fan and is less complex than other cheaper Noctua coolers.