minerva330 :
Calculatron :
The NH-D14 should come with its own tube of thermal compound (Noctua NT-H1) which is good stuff. You'll be hardpressed to find a thermal compound that works noticeably better.
Not true it is highly dependent on the application...http://archive.benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?Itemid=62&id=150&option=com_content&task=view
The one nocturna provides is good but there are better ones
I said that you will be hardpressed to find a thermal compound that works noticeably better, not that it couldn't be done. In the link you provided, which is five-years old now, it shows Arctic Silver 5 operating just over 1C better than Noctua NT-H1. That is within the margin of error, and may be counted as negligible.
Here is Tom's Hardware's round-up, which they did near the end of last year:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616-19.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616-18.html
You'll note that in this round-up Noctua's solution fared better in each example listed, by just over half and just over a full degree Celsius. Noctua fared better in the GPU and Water-cooled tests as well. I think the extreme range between Arctic Silver 5 and Noctua NT-H1 is 1.5C, which is still within the margin of error - you will probably experience more variation when installing your cooler.
If he's buying a new Noctua NH-D14, which comes with a tube of NT-H1, it will not be worth it to invest in another tube of thermal compound.