Review on 🌙 Noctua NH-D14: Deluxe CPU Cooler with Dual NF-P14 PWM and NF-P12 PWM Fans (Brown) by Luis Esquivel

If you are hesitant to buy this for aesthetic reasons, let me tell you that it is definitely worth it. I was about to buy an all in one water cooler but was very concerned about the reliability. The fan's size and ugly colors put me off at first, but after much research I decided to give it a try. The thing is really huge and the fans are ugly, but it's worth it for the performance. Once installed, there's really something sexy about it. Anyway, before that I had a CM 212 Evo paired with my i7-6700k processor. I'm not sure if I applied too much thermal paste, but my idle temp was around 34°C (which isn't bad), but my load temp was around 79°C. My computer isn't in the best room in terms of ambient temperature, but it seemed to me that those temperatures were too high. I ended up reapplying thermal paste on the Evo and still getting similar results. Initially I wasn't expecting such a big improvement from this Noctua, but WOW! My idle temp dropped to around 24°C and under load to 58-60°C! Keep in mind that since PWM fans are not included, the fans will run at full speed all the time, but these things are almost silent. While coolers like Evo or AIO rigs spin the fans relatively loudly to increase cooling, the D14 is almost silent. When you're gaming, your GPU fans will completely drown out any noise this thing makes. Also this thing is quite big so make sure it will fit in your suitcase before ordering. I have this in a Corsair Obsidian 450d and there is a few millimeters gap between the top of the 140mm fan and the window. Also, I had the fans installed backwards and the Noctua embossing on the top of each heatsink would be upside down. It wouldn't make much of a difference, but one heatsink sticks out a little further than the other. So if I held it upside down, the longer side would fit more into my RAM slots. I have a low profile Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM so that wouldn't be a problem, but I did flip the fans and put the anti-vibration bumpers in the correct position (the Noctua stamp was pointing in the right direction). All in all, if you can handle the size and the brown color scheme, this is probably the best air cooler out there.