The Noctua NH-D14 is a dual tower heatsink/air-cooler with 6 heatpipes, and it has a perfect balance between performance and noise control. Removing the fans is very easy. The six heatpipes are evenly spaced in a pattern that spreads the heat across the pipes.

Size:

The NH-D14 is so large that it extends above the top of the motherboard. By rotating this cooler 90 degrees you can gain some space.

Benchmarks:

The E-LEET tuning utility was used to obtain and record system temperature data. The temperature at stock was 39 degrees Celsius and overclocked 50 degrees.

Conclusion:

Overall performance was excellent and the heat tests showed that the Noctua NH-D14 had plenty of heat capacity to spare. Cooling performance can be enhanced by installing a more powerful fan, but will probably make more noise. running just one fan resulted into slightly higher temperatures but far less than an OEM solution and very close to performance coolers using more powerful fans.

Test Setup:

Mainboard: EVGA X58 LE -- CPU: Core i7 920

Compared To:

Socket1366 OEM Heatsink