No matter how many times I get a Noctua cooler to review, I am still amazed by its attractive finish. It strikes me as a piece of art as much as it is functional and robust. Its appeal is partly helped by the nickel plated finish on the aluminium heatsink, and on the copper heat pipe and base. The cooler does its premium branding justice. The ‘C’ design that Noctua are employing is to help improve compatibility as we saw on the previous page and to also improve airflow towards the motherboard components. The down facing NF-P14 fans push air through the fin stack onto the base and adjacent area. It seems counter intuitive to push the hot air from the heatsink down but it does add to convective heat dissipation compared to modern tower heatsinks. A good airflow is strongly advised to extract the air. For tower cases with side exhaust fans, it might be better using the fan as a "pull" fan instead. From the side profile, it is clear that the size of the heatsink is smaller than the original NH-C12P. The NH-C14 has a simple rectangular stack through which the 6 heat pipes go through. The ‘C’ heat pipes have a more linear profile compared to the curved design on the NH-C12P. This is to accommodate the 140mm fan on the underside of the fin stack. To increase the surface area, the radiator uses a densely packed 68 finned array. The dense fin array works well with the high static pressure of the NF-P14s. Rather than have the side fins removed for easier access to the mounting screws at the base, there are simply two square holes through which the bundled screwdriver can be used. During installation, it is recommended to have the bottom fan already installed so it is advisable to make sure that the fan doesn’t block the passage way. On top and below the fin array are rubber mounts on which the fans can rest without vibrations. The old NH-C12P had a central aluminium block that connected the base to the fin array. The advantage was quicker heat dissipation and most importantly for support. Unfortunately, the decision to use a second fan instead means that the fin array cannot connect directly to the base so Noctua have cleverly created a metal support bar that holds the stack straight. On the other end, it is screwed on to the base for security. From the previous pictures, we can see that the bar does a tremendous job keeping the stack perfectly horizontal.