I have been searching all day for several days and my eyes are wearing out. I am building with a Corsair Carbide 400R, Asus P8H77-V Deluxe, and an i7-3770 (non-K), G-Skill Ripjaws X, Seasonic PS. I have had a terrible time finding everything of interest on the same set of comparisons so they could actually be rationally compared. Pronouncements of "best" create an almost Gaussian distribution. But the inflection point is more like a plateau. Usually without a supporting discussion of why. These are the current 3 candidates (not in any particular order). There are more, but I just could not be sure and would appreciate any additional recommendations; preferably with any links to a comparison between your recommendation and my list.

1 - be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 (FYI - Newegg should have these in a "few" days)
2 - Thermalright HR-02 Macho
3 - Prolimatech Genesis (has interesting benefits for surrounding heat sources)

My strategy is to buy overkill cooling so the fans will be running as slow as possible most of the time. I understand the 3770 can be overclocked a little bit (depending on motherboard apparently) and I might do that. I may use the embedded graphics (I have an older AMD graphics card now).

The cooler/fan package should fit the board and case and have a very secure mounting method. I rather like the one from the Dark Rock because it can be simply assembled from the back of the mother board. This seems like the simplest approach I have seen.

Thermalright does two things of interest. It has an offset that helps to clear RAM and specifies a slightly convex surface on the heat spreader. My understanding is that this is necessary because the chip package thermal interface tends to concave.

Dark Rock has had a significant issue with the surface of the heat spreader. There was a thread from Mike Chin where he conclusively showed the geometry was incorrect (flat one way, concave the other) which caused it to fail to properly mate with the chip heat spreader. This occurred through multiple samples. I have seen other tests of this cooler that show much better performance. So, was it quality control, design error, or that is the way they want it? And if that is the best choice and I buy one today, what will I get?

Please help me to wring out a solution. Everything was ordered today except for the cooler. My wife's computer crapped out a few days ago (PS and MB). Instead of building her a new one, I will build one for myself and give her mine. She who must be obeyed groweth impatient. And don't feel bad for her - she gets an i7-860.

Prolimatech Genesis is in another category with the silver arrow n NH-D14, its a $80 cooler with no fans... there is the gain of cooling the mobo/ram... to me neither is needed atm with intel chipset and ddr3 that bearly gets warm, neither needs direct cooling unless heavy overclocking is a goal. Be sure to check SPCR Prolimatech Genesis CPU Heatsink: Retaking the Crown, for more info.

On be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2, i have no opinion, seems interesting though, if you finally decide on it, try to post your experience on it.

The HR02 macho is imo a wonderful cooler that doesnt try to compete with the best air coolers, its a $50 cooler that comes with a decent fan, with its wider fin spacing it very efficient under low pressure airflow... its mounting mechanism is really nice, even better than the old none macho version (i can now drop the TY140 even low due that it doesn't have a tall screw below the fan). Another big plus its asymmetrical design, it will allow in most cases to even install tall memory, or even be able to change it with out much fuss, the cooler grows flush from the cpu socket towards io shield, making also, in most cases, the back fan be very close, kinda creating a twin fan setup... Its biggest strength is its price/performance/noise ratio, for $50 i dont think anything can touch it. Read the following reviews, SPCR Thermalright HR-02 Macho Quiet/Fanless Cooler and [H]ardOCP Thermalright HR-02 Macho CPU Air Cooler Review

Btw your choices of components seems fine, the only thing i would change is Corsair 400R, for something like Fractal Design Define R4, same price and better imo for quiet setup.

Thanks. I have decided on the Dark Rock. Unfortunately there is none in stock in the US at the moment. I hate that when it happens. Days of deliberation; then can't get one.

The case is already on the way so too late to entertain an alternative. Comments on the Corsair were good on some sites I respect.

My next issue is fixing my RAM to work with the heatsink. The cooler is VERY big and encroaches on the RAM slots (and the keyboard, ceiling light, and operators chair). I have G-Skill Ripjaws X. They have heat spreaders attached. I will have to remove the heat spreaders to fit, and even then I am not sure. I am trying to find out the distance between the top of the RAM and the motherboard with the heat spreaders removed. I really don't want to have to buy another 16GB of RAM to make it all work.

According to G-Skill, when I take of the RAM heat spreaders They are just a tad lower than their Ares series. And I found a review that specified only the Ares would actually fit. Every now and then even I manage to win one.

I exchanged a couple of emails with be Quite!. They insist there is no problem and can't understand why that article showed what it did. I don't think I really believe that, but I will test the grease pattern before I start using it and return it if it is not correct. I might consider honing the heat spreader to get it flat. But that is not really what it should be, and I won't lap a $300 cpu at this point. I don't mind voiding the warranty on the RAM, cpu - no.

After you take it off I'd suggest getting out a hacksaw and cutting them down to size, then reattaching. They are not really there for heat dissipation as RAM uses 1-2W and in some cases they actually insulate the RAM given the adhesives used but instead they can have a good purpose in shielding the RAM and physically protecting the chips from marauding, staticly charged fingers.

Turns out I got the wrong case. I actually intended to get the 500 but while messing with wish list/order I screwed up.

I switched to a Fractal Design Define XL R2.

Anyone want to buy a brand new Corsair Carbide 400R? Very nice case; just not what I want.

Don't you have a 2 week no-questions-asked return deadline?

Yes but - $15 restocking fee + about $24 shipping to get my $100 back. I put it on Craigslist and will see how that goes. If it does not sell I can return it before the window closes.

Last night my wife moved from I have to have it now to sure if you want to take a month or two. Sigh - there goes Haswell.

At least she changed her mind literally as I was about to stick on the Intel heat sink. Now I can wait til I find a place that actually has the be Quiet! heatsink available. And I do not have to scrape off the grease from the Intel heatsink. Apparently getting the Black Rock Pro 2 heatsink on with the mother board in the case is a mother. So sort of good news.

I just did a new build with an i7 3770, HR-02 "original" (non-Macho) and Lian-Li PC-B10 chassis.

The i7 3770 runs a lot hotter than did the Xeon X3360 in the same chassis, despite having a much lower TDP (77W vs. 95W). Apparently that's normal, because while the 22nm Ivy Bridge processors generate less heat overall, that heat is concentrated on a smaller die size.

The setup is reasonably quiet under load, but the 120mm Nexus PWM fans spin up to 2000RPM and that introduces some mechanical resonance with the aluminum chassis and I get this slightly annoying hum. I'm going to try swapping out some of the fans, but even with this setup I am seeing temperatures up to 73°C under load (85° is considered "high"). Under normal use it's all very quiet and the temperatures are in the low 30s, and that's the important thing.

Anyway, I was a little surprised at the amount of cooling the i7 3770 requires under load.

Update.

I changed the fan configuration on the HR-02 (original) from a single 12cm Nexus 500-2000RPM intake fan to a Gelid Wing14 intake @900RPM and a 12cm Scythe Slip Stream 0-1350RPM exhaust fan, and it's working beautifully. The i7 3770 maxes out at 65°C under full load (a really good number for this processor from what I understand) and the whole thing is barely audible.

The moral of the story is that on the HR-02 the exhaust fan is much more important than the intake fan. I had purposely mounted the cooler backwards because I wanted more air over the RAM and chipset. It's a phenomenal cooler with two low-speed fans working in tandem. I also found that gluing some sound-dampening foam onto the part of the fan housing that is in contact with the cooler more or less eliminates the low hum you get from mechanical resonance in the aluminum fins.