I’ve never believed in the coolers that came with processors. Unsurprisingly, the Ryzen 5 3600 stock cooler instantly thermal throttles when trying to break 4GHz. Using my Noctua NH-D14 from 2013 with the Ryzen 5 3600 on my new build was something I wanted to do from the very start. Thankfully, Noctua still supports older NH-D14 on newer chipsets with their NM-AM4 mounting kit, and they ship it to you for free upon request!

Dust accumulation on the Noctua NH-D14

This is how 7-years of dust looks like on this gigantic cooler. To be honest, using a Noctua NH-D14 in an ITX case was not ideal. It’s a very tight fit, and I can’t remember taking it apart after assembly. I didn’t touch the Noctua when cleaning my old build, as I only vacuumed the front panel mesh, and blew dust out from inside the case.

This was very satisfying to clean, and very simple too. I took it apart and drenched the cooler with water. After shaking off excess water, I used a hairdryer to push more water out from between the fins. The hairdryer also heated the entire cooler, making it dry faster.

Cleaning and using the NH-D14 on this build was worth it. It looks brand new, with the ARGB shimmering off the fins. Although the classic Noctua fans do not fit with the overall aesthetic of the build, it stands out in a good way.

Ryzen 5 3600 @ 4.4GHz with Noctua NH-D14

These are the temps I am getting on the Ryzen 5 3600 with Noctua NH-D14 with the tempered glass side panels of the Deepcool Mattrexx 55 closed, with all fans turned up to max RPM.

	CPU (°C)	GPU (°C)
Idle (4.4GHz @ 1.246V)	46	35
Gaming (Warzone)	66	72
Aida64 System Stability Test (20 minutes)	88	76

The Noctua NH-D14 holds this overclock by ClockTuner by Ryzen really well, with results in an 8% increase in performance for Cinebench and Blender. Read about that here.