Pros: Plenty of cooling power with fans set @ 900rpm. Fans blow downward and push air to cool components around/near cpu socket. Due to offset / overhang of heatsink & fans it pushes air to also cool RAM modules. Runs fairly quiet. Very slight "whoosh" sound. No buzz, no whine. Excellent instructions, parts, labeling and packaging.

Cons: At 1200rpm full speed it's too audible for home theater system due to a slight cyclical hum.

Overall Review: Original Core i7-965 Extreme Edition 130 cpu has always run hot compared to most other Core i3's / i5's / i7's. With this Noctua NH-C14 the core temps are approx. 38/34/36/33 deg. C. at idle which is as low as i've ever seen them. After 30 mins. of Prime 95 the temps. are approx. 57/54/55/53 deg. C. - an outstanding result. Looks as though it could handle overclocking the cpu but have not yet tried that as the system performs well at stock speed of 3.2GHz. When playing Crysis 3 the core temps. seem to peak at approx. 50 deg. C. To recap, it won't lower cpu idle temps. down into the 20's but it caps the peak load temps. nicely in the mid-50's. Using the supplied Low Noise Adapters, the Noctua fans run at a steady 900rpm whether idle or under load.

Pros: In Midma's review, he was disappointed because it did not improve temperatures vs. the stock cooler that his processor came with, which were between 25-30c. I'd like to point out that this is 77-86 degrees Fahrenheit! How are you going to cool it below 77 degrees??? What is the room temperature in your house? You cannot expect a heatsink to dissipate 100% of the heat your CPU creates, don't be ridiculous. The benefit to this cooler is not realized while idling in windows. if you run stress tests with this Noctua cooler vs the stock intel heatsink, you will notice the difference, and you will see that you got your money's worth. Do not buy this if all you do is putz around in windows, its a waste of money.

Cons: .

Pros: Yes, this cooler is as good as the review sites say it is. It is quieter than my stock fan! My temps have dropped under load, from 80-90C to under 50C, and no I can't believe it either. I'm running i7980 at 4.2gHz. Idle temps are in the 20's. When I removed my old heatsink, the thermal paste was not evenly spread, which accounts for the huge drop in temps, but I don't care. My previous temps were still fine/within specs, but now they are freakishly cool.

Cons: Yes it's a pain to install. On the Sabertooth X58, it will fit, but you MUST remember to plug in the CPU fan to the board BEFORE you install the heatsink. Anyone that complains about the directions is mistaken. Directions are simple and very clear, and written in normal, easy to understand english. If you have trouble it's because you are not familiar with this kind of install. It is a pain, nevertheless, to get the heatsink aligned and put on, but it's oh so worth it.

Overall Review: Read the directions. Understand the entire process before you did in. Think about if for an hour or so if you must before proceeding, and then jump in. The water is fine.

Pros: Surprisingly quiet even with both fans on high. can configure it in different ways comes with thermal paste very well packaged i7 920 @ idle 40 @ 100% load for 24 hours strait never hit above 60 stock 2.8mhz from real temp with both fans there was still plenty of room for memory and north bridge cooler. The fan overhangs the memory and blows down on it to help cool

Cons: This thing is big - not really a con but it is huge

Overall Review: My ambient temp in the room is high and I still get great temps. It is fairly easy to install not confusing at all. Directions are written well.

Pros: It's all about the little things, and Noctua considers them all. They include two sets of adapters for 'quiet' and 'ultra-quiet' fan speeds--not that either makes a lick of difference, but it's still nice that they included them! The quality of the parts, the precision in every aspect of the design is astounding. They make it SO EASY to configure it exactly the way you want it, you can put the whole thing in any way you want, so that it fits the best way it can. They include tons of extras (like rubber screws just in case you want to use one of the 140mm fans on your case instead). Overall, you just can't give this product less than a 5 star. It actually made my cpu temp lower, and because it's so big it even made my VReg and ram cooler too!

Cons: None, not even a typo in the instructions!

Overall Review: I'd recommend this heatsink to anybody. I built a 4U rackmounted studio machine whose height is only 7 inches, with a quarter inch of sound dampening foam and a quarter inch of mobo standoff and this thing FIT like a dream still! If you are considering the same type of machine, you'll be pleasantly surprised even after reading all these reviews.

Pros: Keeps the CPU as well as most parts of the board extremely cool. If you're using a mid-tower case you def. want to check for fit issues. This is a very simple installation (at least if you have built computers in the past) and the hardware that comes included is extremely well designed and rugged.

Cons: Also, I have invalidated 2 DIMM slots (#1 & #2) because this is such an enormous heat sink that the pipes just out of them. I don't intend to use the other two DIMM slots anytime soon but I certainly don't even have the option with this cooler.

Overall Review: NONE

Pros: replaced the older version of this and it's a great improvment. i notice atlrast 5 deg cooler all the time. more versatile- it clears my ram so i can rotate it any direction i like. old one was to short to do this.

Cons: none

Overall Review: works nicely on i7 950, asus sabertooth mobo, g-skill ram (tall ramsinks) coolermaster stacker 830 case

Pros: •this is a great alternative to the D14. while the performance isn't quite as good, it is one of the best if you clearance issues with the tower style HSF (in my case, the GPU placement on my motherboard is the limiting factor for tower style units) •as expected, great Noctua quality •comes with Noctua's thermal compound (only a quarter tube though), which is one of the best on the market •good, easy to install, mounting hardware

Cons: •Noctua fans are not pretty, and it is very visible through the side window of my case •included fans aren't PWM

Overall Review: tests on other websites show that there is little difference between running 2 fans and using only the top fan (bottom fan only shows a more significant difference). so, if you have RAM with top fins, its not a big deal to remove the bottom fan (which has the added benefit of being somewhat quieter). Alternatively, you could remove the fins from the RAM, if allowed (such as on Trident-X RAM) and get extra RAM cooling from the fan blowing over it.