The NH-C12P SE14 is everything you would expect from the Austrian-based company. A well-designed, quite efficient and quiet cooler, which will cost you some extra bucks to have it. The product is built upon the awarded NH-C12P but additionally offers compatibility with the latest Intel sockets, improved cooling efficiency with the NF-P14 fan onboard and follows the latest design trend that has the fan installed on top of the heatsink.

The low volume and height of the NH-C12P SE14 cooler offers easy installation, increases its compatibility with many motherboards and allows it to fit inside smaller or desktop style cases. Placing the fan on the top saves some space inside the PC case and gives the cooler greater compatibility and easier installation. On the other hand, it doesn't give you the top performance you might expect. It's the standard trade off of small-sized CPU heatsinks. Noctua tried to minimize the effect of this design by adding a larger 140mm fan. The result was successful and the NH-C12P SE14 proved to be very efficient with our Intel Intel Core i7-920 running at stock voltage and also quite competitive under demanding overclocking conditions. Basic element in Noctua's success is also the very quiet operation of the oversized 140mm fan.

Besides its good performance, the Noctua NH-C12P SE14 retails in a complete package, which includes everything you may need for easy installation including a thermal compound.

Noctua has managed to optimize the design of the NH-C12P SE14 by smartly balancing the cooling efficiency and the compact size. The product is very interesting to play with and it deserves your attention if you are looking for an almost noiseless cpu cooler with good performance and universal socket compatibility.

The NH-C12P SE14 retails for $70 and this automatically positions it to the category of high-end CPU heatsinks. Although the competition is hard, this baby is offering something other solutions don't - a quiet operation If you can afford ~$70 just buy the NH-C12P SE14 and you won't be disappointed...

Retail package
Design
Motherboard compatibility
Installation time
Copper Base quality

Pros:

+ Complete retail package
+ Low volume - fits in most PC cases
+ Good performance either with stock/overclocked processor
+ Low noise levels even at full speed
+ Works with both AMD/Intel platforms
+ 6 years of warranty

Cons:

- High retail price
- Installation procedure takes some time, but is straight forward
- Due to product design you cannot install a second fan