The box for the Noctua NH-C12P SE14 is quite large and designed with an elegant appearance. It has two windows that allow you a glimpse of what's inside and the has all the pertinent specifications and information printed on it. Inside, we find two further cardboard boxes and everything is very securely packaged.

 

Included are a common parts bag that contains thermal paste, a metal case badge and the fan speed adapter, as well as rubber mount blocks and fan clips. Another bag has the mounting parts for an AMD setups, and third bag holds the Intel mount. Noctua supply instructions for both AMD and Intel in separate pamphlets within a small folder. The other cardboard packaging holds the fan and cooler itself.

 

The cooler is quite big and you can instantly see what I mean about the tower design but laying horizontally. Six heat pipes curl up from the base and into the horizontal aluminum fins. Holding it in your hands it's not overly heavy but it's not flimsy at all; it feels like quality.

 

The mid section of the fins extend down to the base itself and you can see that the heat pipes start very close to the CPU indeed. Moving to the opposite end of the pipes, the end fin is stamped with the Noctua logo.

 

Each of the fins is almost serrated in appearance on top of the heatsink where the fan is mounted.

 

The fan is Noctua's NF-P14 140mm fan that mounts on top with the supplied clips. The fan has standard mounting points for 120mm and is circular in nature. Noctua have nicely sleeved the 3 pin fan cable and provided a generous amount of cable too. Noctua's Vortex Control Notches are a feature on the fan, and aid in keeping the CFM high but the noise low. In Noctua's own word's, “The two Vortex-Control Notches at the trailing edge of each blade make the flows along the suction and pressure side mix more smoothly, allowing for less turbulence and velocity loss, which leads to increased efficiency as well as a significant reduction in noise emission."

 

The four white rubber vibration dampeners are simply sticky back; you peel and stick them onto the top four corners of the heatsink. The fan then sits on the rubber dampeners and the two supplied clips hold the fan onto the heatsink. It was actually a bit of a struggle to get the fan clips on; there is certainly no fear of the fan moving anywhere once it's mounted. You can however easily remove the fan without the need of a screwdriver … unless you're using it for leverage against the clips. You also have to mount the heatsink onto the motherboard before you attach the fan, or at least that is what the instructions tell you. Personally I found this difficult as I could never get enough room to leverage the fan clips into place. In the end, I removed the heatsink, mounted the fan on it, and then just moved the fan blades into the right position enough that I could put a screwdriver down past them to reach the spring loaded screws.

 

 

Installation

 

As with the Noctua NH-D14 we reviewed a little while ago, I'm going to perform a dummy install on the MSI P45 Platinum. This motherboard features a rather elaborate cooling setup that often interferes with installation of oversized heatsinks, so if we can get the NH-C12P SE14 to install on here, it should install fine on many boards. Noctua do have a compatibility list on their website, so if you're not sure about your board, go check it out before you purchase.

 

The first part in an Intel installation is to get the back-plate set up. Basically, if (like me) you're using a Socket 775 motherboard, you'll want to make sure you have the rubber insert ... inserted. 1366 and 1156 setups can remove it. Then you put the hex headed bolts in the correctly marked holes (there is a guide engraved on to the back of the plate itself). The plate then goes on the back of the motherboard and through the mounting holes.

 

Next you place the black plastic spacers over the bolts. At this point you should offer up the heatsink and decide how you are going to orientate it on the board. In our case, we could mount it in all 4 directions perfectly fine on both the MSI board and the Asus Blitz Formula we tested with. The orientation of the cooler dictates the next part of the mounting installation.

 

The curved mounting bars attach to the bolts and are screwed on with the supplied thumbscrews. Tighten thumbscrews till they stop, and they do suddenly stop due to the way the mounting bars are designed, which is great because it removes any guesswork on your part.

 

The next part, according to the instructions is to mount the heatsink, but honestly, I found getting the fan on a little difficult with the heatsink attached to the motherboard. I found that I could mount the fan first and still install the heatsink fine.

 

Each of the four corners on top of the heatsink should have the supplied rubber dampeners stuck to it. Then the fan sits on top, and the two clips leverage over the four corners of the 140mm fan.

 

You can then put the complete heatsink on the CPU and pass a screwdriver through the fan blades to tighten up the spring-loaded screws. Like the thumbscrews that attached the curved bars to the mounting bolts, the spring-loaded screws can be tightened to the maximum; there is no guesswork involved, just simply tighten until done.

 

Total installation time the first time was about 55 minutes, but that was purely because I tried to follow the instructions to the letter. If I was to start to finish doing it my way (fan on first) then the entire thing could be done in 15 minutes or so, not including the time to remove the motherboard if your case doesn't have a motherboard tray that allows access to the rear of the socket.

 

The lower height of the NH-C12P SE14 meant there was no installation issues in my Cosmos S case, even with the side panel fan in place, although the heatsink fan and side panel fan were quite close. In the end I removed the side panel fan anyway so as not to interfere with the results from other heatsinks during testing that required the removal of the side panel fan.

 

Testing

Test Setup: Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 @ 3.20GHz and an Intel Pentium 4 Extreme @ 3.73GHz*, 2GB of Patriot PC2-6400 Ram**, Asus Blitz Formula, Silicon Power M10 32GB + WD640AAKS, Hyper Type M 730w PSU.

 

Asetek Waterchill Cooling was reduced to 3 fans running at 50%.

 

Tuniq Tower 120 used the same Noctua 120mm fans as the Noctua Cooler.

 

The Noctua fans used the ULNA fan controller adapters for the higher temperatures.

 

*The Intel Pentium 4 Extreme 3.73GHz is an older CPU but it does provide a good test for us since it is quite a hot running CPU.

 

**Our usual OCZ Reaper ram interfered with the installation of the Noctua NH-D14 with both fans attached, so for the sake of keeping the system the same between coolers, the OCZ Reaper was swapped for smaller/shorter Patriot ram.

 

Idle and Load temperatures were recorded over a three day period (for each cooler) at various intervals (5 records each) and then averaged. Readings were taken while room temperature was at 24C ambient. For Idle readings, the PC was booted into Windows 7 and left for 15 minutes to do nothing. Load readings where taken after an hour of Orthos CPU testing.

 

Intel Pentium 4 EE 3.73GHz @ 3.73GHz

 

 

 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 @ 3.2GHz

 

 

The Noctua NH-C12P SE14 is not the best cooler here, but it still performs well. One thing to remember here is the design of it makes it more compatible with a wide range of setups and still provides high end cooling. It also does it very quietly. Even with out the supplied ULNA adapters, the 140mm fan on the NH-C12P SE14 is probably going to be one of the quietest items in your system. With the slowest speed ULNA it's just whisper quiet, and the performance difference is minimal.

 

Final Words

 

One thing to keep in mind about the Noctua NH-C12P SE14 is that while it's designed to offer you high end cooling (which it does) it's also designed for extra compatibility with a wide range of enclosures. I think Noctua have done well with it.

 

The NH-C12P is not in of itself a new heatsink, but the SE14 version adds Noctua's excellent 140mm fan which provides very quiet performance indeed. The fan features Noctua's Vortex Control Notches which seem to work well in keeping the noise levels down and CFM moved high.

 

All in all it makes for a great combination. Compared to some other proper tower based setups it does trail a little behind, but it's not by much and if you don't have the room for a tower, you will probably find that despite it's size the NH-C12P SE14 will fit.

 

Noctua supply everything you require to mount the NH-C12P SE14 using their excellent SecuFirm2 mounting setup which works brilliantly.

 

One thing I would like to have seen however is a fan guard. A tower heatsink does a little better in disguising the fact that the fan is for all intents and purposes open to your case, and in some cases the fan is actually enclosed within the tower cooler. But with the NH-C12P SE14, the 140mm fan lays flat against the top of the heatsink, facing your side panel. It's not a big deal, and I'm kind of picking nits, but there is a slight price premium to pay for the NH-C12P SE14.

 

I also thought that perhaps the same clips used with the NH-D14 would have been a better choice for the NH-C12P SE14 as well; with the D14 you can quite easily unclip the fans for cleaning without any need to remove the heatsink. With the C12P I did have a less than easy time leveraging the clips over the corners of the fan, and this is only going to be exaggerated if you try to remove the fan for cleaning inside the case.

 

It's still a good heatsink though, maybe not the best, but it's certainly going to fit in more cases despite it's size and there is a lot of appeal there. It's quiet and very easy to mount. Just don't be surprised if it doesn't do any monster cooling, especially if your case is going to restrict the fan (keep in mind the direction of it, facing the side panel) in some way; you will need good airflow to get the best from it. The main appeal is without a doubt it's high compatibility, and while designed with high compatibility in mind, it is a larger sized heatsink, so check the compatibility list on Noctua's site before you purchase.