Will it fit??

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preacher
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 12:21 am

Will it fit??

Post by preacher » Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:53 am

Hi, I'm upgrading to a Lian Li PC A05 FNB case, z77 mATX and a 2500k.

I have ordered an arctic cooler i30 for the 2500k but a bit worried as the i30 is sealed at the sides and has a fan cowling to make the air flow come out the top of the fan.

The case specs say the max sized CPU cooler is 4mm taller than the i30, will that allow for space for the air to flow or will it be right against the side of the case?

Not sure if I should send it back and get something like the corsair H60??

Silence is very important and some reports say the h60 is louder than a decent air cooler!

SebRad
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 1121
Joined: Sun Nov 09, 2003 7:18 am
Location: UK

Re: Will it fit??

Post by SebRad » Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:17 pm

Hi preacher, I'm not sure what your issue is here? The Arctic Cooling Freezer i30 is a straight forward blow through tower, airflow parallel to motherboard. The fan blows air in to the fins and the back of the heatsink is open for the air to flow out, the only difference to others is the closed sides.

Intel mounting is square so you can freely rotate it to point any way you like. If you open the top vent on the case then straight up and out may work very well, other wise blowing to the front of the case I would guess. Rear fan takes in cool air and blows in to the i30 fan that blows through the heatsink towards the front fan that exhausts the warm air from the front of the case. All in one direction, which is most efficient and therefore quietest.

My experience of the 2500k is that at stock clock it's quite cool running and you shouldn't have any problem cooling it quietly. Also temps can and will be higher than with previous generations or AMD chips. I would suggest under 80°C full loaded is fine.
My i7-2600k runs around 80°C full load most of the time with no issues so far, apart from when Speedfan acts up (or I mess with it and forget) and basically runs super quiet idle fan speeds under max load. The CPU temp gets up to 97-98°C! I guess it throttles at this point but doesn't crash and doesn't seem any the worse for it, yet!

If you over-clock the 2500k you can make it as a hot a CPU as you like. If you leave it at "stock" voltage and then find the max stable clock that would be a good compromise. Once you start increasing the voltage (I suggest reasonably conservative max of 1.4V but opinions vary a lot) the heat goes up rapidly and you will likely max out the cooling available. My 2600k (which is basically Hyper-threaded 2500k and somewhat hotter than it) is a good 50w more @4.5GHz than at stock clock of 3.4GHz.

I did originally run it with Freezer 13 which is smaller than the i30, 92mm fan vs 120mm fan and it could cope fine at stock clocks. Could be throttled right down at idle and be very quiet and not too loud under load, IIRC 1000-1200rpm. Once I started over-clocking it needed to run at full speed 2000rpm and even then getting 80-85°C!
The NH-C14 I have now is better but not as mind blowingly as I'd hoped for 4x the price! However my case won't take a 120mm fan tower nor does it have any 120mm case fans for watercooling etc so I'm rather limited... I know I should change the case but I like the one I have and anyway a challenge is part of the fun!

preacher
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 12:21 am

Re: Will it fit??

Post by preacher » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:42 pm

Thanks for that, really informative. My big concern was if the small clearance would hinder the airflow but I have been reading some horror stories about the H60 so I'm ruling that out anyway.

Completely new to over clocking (apart from blowing up an Athlon 2000XP), so will try keeping stock voltages.

Cheers

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