Noctua NH-D14 VS Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E

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NCPereira

NCPereira

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Mar 13, 2014
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Looking for a CPU cooler for a i7-4770K.

Which of these 2 do you think is the best? Do you know another good one?

Thank you in advance!
 
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davcon


Thermalright SA is the better unit imo!
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Calculatron

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I believe the old-style of the Silver Arrow, which had four 8mm heatpipes, traded blows with the Noctua NH-D14, although it was acknowledged that the Noctua was a touch better.

With the upgraded SB-E variant, there have been enough sites (Vortez, Xbitlabs, etcetera) that have shown it to have a consistent and marked edge over the Noctua NH-D14.
 
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4Ryan6

4Ryan6

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Apr 14, 2002
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If Memory clearance is a problem you can always move the front fan from a push position to the rear of the heat sink as an additional pull setup, by swapping the mounting clips, it will not hurt the cooling performance at all, as I had to do exactly the same thing with the Noctua NH-D14 in one of my setups as the front fan would not clear the memory modules.

Actually it ended up cooling better as the front fan motor body was no longer blocking the airflow entering the front of the heat sink, the center fan is already setup as a pull through so you just duplicate it's setup and you have a pull/pull setup.

Which is even more beneficial if you also have a rear case exhaust fan directly in line with the setup as you'll see some really good cooling results with all three fans working together.
 
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Calculatron

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Sadly. I think the max RAM height is 32mm for the Silver Arrow? Low-profile RAM is a must.

The Noctua, on the other hand, allows for up to 44mm in height, I do believe.

If you have really tall RAM modules, like Corsair Vengeance, you may want to look at the tall, slim, heatsink solutions from each respective manufacturer, such as the Thermalright Archon SB-E, or the Noctua NH-U14S.
 
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NCPereira

NCPereira

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Thank you very much! So basically, if I end up buying a Noctua NH-D14, I can buy any Memory kit I want? No worries about the height?


Alright, thanks for your input!
 
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NCPereira

NCPereira

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Actually, I just checked Noctua's website and it says that the NH-D14 does NOT support either Kingston HyperX Predator or Beast RAM.

So that means I will have to get a low profile RAM kit.
 
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NCPereira

NCPereira

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Looks don't matter to me, and price is all about the same. Which one makes the least noise?
 
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davcon

davcon

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Thermalright SA is the better unit imo!
 
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