I put this system together over the holidays, here is what I used:

MSI H87i mini-ITX mobo
Antec ISK300-150 case
Arctic Freezer 11 LP CPU cooler
16GB (2x8GB) of RAM DDR3-1600
Thin Samsung DVD drive
Seagate 240GB SSD

This is a lot of CPU to be putting in a tiny case like this but I wanted to give it a go. The CPU cooler is rated at 100W and this Haswell CPU has a TDP of 84W but the case is kind of cramped. I will post pictures later today or tomorrow but the first issue that I had is that I wanted to orient the CPU cooler so that the airflow from the case fans would go through the fins (this would be on the way out of the case). But I could not do this as the heatpipes from the CPU would obstruct at least the first RAM slot. I guess I could put the system together by only using one 8GB stick of RAM but I wanted the full 16GB. Therefore the airflow from the case fans was obstructed by the side of the CPU heatsink. Cramming all of the cables into the case was a bit of a challenge, especially the thicker cables like the USB 3.0 header that goes to the front USB ports and somewhat blocks the case fan airflow. I supplemented the stock Antec TriCool fan with a Noctua 80mm fan.

I fired everything up and gave it a go, installing Win7 Pro. Here are the temperature results (readings are from CoreTemp - Speedfan consistently read about 6 deg cooler):

Cover Off
Idle temp was in low 30s. Running Prime95 for a couple of hours took the first three cores up to the low 90s. The fourth core stayed a few degrees cooler. Running Handbrake and using H.264 encoding also took the CPU up to the same temps as CPU usage went to 100%. Turning on QuickSync made a huge difference in speed and drastically reduced the CPU load as expected - for me this was the main reason for getting a higher end PC - to reduce Handbrake encoding times.

Cover On
Same idle temp. Running Prime 95 for a few hours took the temps of the first three cores up to the high 90s - pretty close to throttle range. Using Handbrake also gave similar results and at least one of the cores did hit 100. But I didn't notice any throttling in that the FPS number didn't decrease in Handbrake.

So what to do? Should I just leave it as I doubt I will be stressing the system too much? And if you google you will see that lots of folks see their Haswell chips getting up into the 90s.

Should I try reseating the heatsink? I fiddled around with it a lot trying to figure out which orientation so maybe it isn't making a good thermal bond as I applied the heatsink to the CPU several times without reapplying thermal paste. Should I pull it off and reapply the thermal paste?

Should I consider another heatsink that can be oriented to allow for better air flow as I am theorizing that the orientation of the current heatsink is part of the reason for the high temps? To test this theory I will try temporarily putting a fan that blows air across the fins . The problem is that whatever heatsink that I end up using can't be very wide due to the proximity of the RAM and it can't be more than about 65mm high.

Any suggestions on what other heatsink to get, here are a few options with dimensions:

(Current cooler) Arctic 11LP 115x106x53 rated for 100W arctic to Arctic

Other possible:
Alpine 7GT 90x86x66 (rated at 70W but can be oriented either way)
Kozuti 110x103x40
Big Shiruken 125x135x58 (probably too big unless the RAM clearance of 33mm is enough which is doubtful)
Shuriken Rev B 105x116x64
Noctua NH-L12 128x125x66
Zalman CNPS2X 84x84x27

The Noctua would have to be used without the top fan but it is still kind of big at 20mm wider and longer. But it may fit since the wider part is higher up above the mobo. I will check the clearance which is 43mm above the mobo for the HS It also may work since the end with the pipe is only 62mm from the centre of the CPU. But it is the most expensive and I don't want to wast my purchase on this if the size won't work.

But I am wondering if the radial design of a Zalman cooler would work better, especially given the orientation issues of my initial heatsink. The CNPS2X is very interesting looking and it seems tiny. I don't think it has been tested at SPCR but I have read another test - the thermal results weren't great but that was with a 125W CPU. Some of the others may be too big length and width wise. They may not all be rated for an 84W CPU but if they allowed better airflow I am wondering if they will do a better job than my existing heatsink? The other issue of RAM clearance is worrying me. It looks like standard RAM is about 32MM high - I don't have big heatsinks on my RAM. Allowing for another couple of mm for the slot and minimu clearance would be about 34MM.

Anyone have any recommendations or am I just crazy to try to but this CPU in such a small case.

Your results seems fine, haswell quads run extremely hot, specially 4770/4771/4770K that have enable hyperthreading, mine can reach close to 80C with a big cooler like the HR22, so your results seem well in line with a smaller case with limited cooling.

You should always reapply thermal paste when when you uninstal/reinstall the heatsink, paste will spread and when you re place it air bubbles might interfere, the contact might not be as good, themal paste like Artic MX-4 its very cheap and you can do a lot of installations with a single tube.

One thing to consider is deliding the chip, some people have gotten more than 15C drop outs from redoing the paste inside, this would void your warranty and there is a chance you will damage the chip, only you can decide if its worth the risk or not.

Out of your list, the best is the Noctua NH-L12 but since you mention you cant use it with the top fan, it will get diminished a lot, so i wouldn't consider it unless you find a way to use the top fan.

While im not a big fan of TomsHardware reviews, they did recently a review of a lot of low profile cooler, and has some that you are considering, might be worth a look, Eight Low-Profile CPU Coolers For Your Compact PC, Reviewed, in it the NH-L12 seems like the best but again since you cant use it due to height restriction on the top fan, i would probably check out the ZALMAN CNPS8900 Quiet has a height of 60mm, and its cheap. That said i dont think you will get much better temps just with the cooler, its more the chip that run hot and needs bigger heatsink and more airflow.

You should get lower temps on a slightly bigger case like LIAN-LI PC-Q11] and fit a tower cooler like Scythe Mugen 4, this will make fitting a standard PSU impossible, but a picoPSU should do the trick like PicoPSU 160XT, lian li even sells covers for the back PSU section like Lian Li Vented Power Supply Bracket Cover - Silver, or you can make one with plastic/metal plate.

Thanks for your input. Do you think that I am right to be concerned about the direction of the fins in the heat sink? Would it make much difference if the heatsink could be rotated 90% so that the air could flow out to the fans at the side of the case?

Here is a photo. See how the fins are oriented perpendicular to the case fans - would it make a big difference if I could get a cooler that could allow the air to flow across the fins of the heatsink, like the Zalman flower type of cooler - assuming that It gave me enough clearance for the DIMMs


This photo shows how the end of the heatpipes push against the DIMMs when oriented the other way.

What about the smaller Zalman the CNPS2X? It would leave a lot more space for air to move around although the heatsink is quite small.

Idk if its such a good idea, it will depend into how good the heatsink is, but overall i doubt it will cool much better being so small.

My suggestion is try to rotate 90 your current heatsink, if the mounts allows, maybe it plays better with the airflow and the fins, but idk how much it could help, and this time apply new thermal paste.

The way i see it, these are your problems,
1) Paste used by intel on haswell chips sucks
2) Intel design of haswell is even hotter than previous chips
3) The case is very small, and doesn't allow big heatsinks
4) Airflow on the case is not ideal, from what i remember there was no intakes for fresh air, this might not be a big deal as the other 3.

Btw what memory you using, cant say for sure if its standard or taller, just wondering as the Zalman 9800 Quiet might go over them, but from what i seen pics on the web, seems that only standard height, not tall heatspreaders.

I guess he used some new paste, with the new cooler, no?

As said by Abula, maybe low profile RAM would work for changing the orientation.
(Since you are thinking of changing the heatsink, maybe it's worth looking at the RAM also. Either exchanging or reselling yours.)
Or using a single 16GB?

There was some paste pre-applied and I did use some additional paste with the cooler but first I tried it in the optimal direction, but it didn't fit properly so then I rotated it 180 degrees and it still wouldn't fit so I finally rotated it another 90 degrees - but the heatsink was just put somewhat loosely on the CPU until I found the right direction - I didn't tighten down the screws each time. But I guess that could mess up the paste somewhat.

Maybe first I should take the heatsink off and reapply the paste and try the thermal tests again.
I guess the other thing to try temporarily is to take out the first stick of memory and try the heatsink rotated 90 degrees and see how the temps look.

LP RAM looks fairly hard to get from the local shop where I bought my stuff, as are 16GB sticks of RAM. It is also over a month since I bought my components so it may be harder to replace it and just buy it online.

Do you know the model of you ram? its important as its not that you need LOW profile, but standard.

The following pictures are from an EVGA Z77 Stinger mITX + Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet





The distance from the CPU socket to the memory is the same (vertical, horizontal your cpu is lower but this doesnt affect the distance to the ram), so in essence the CPU cooler goes over the ram, and as long as the ram is standard size (not higher than the normal ram), it will also not touch, but this is why i was asking the model of your memory.

Now remember this is 60mm height cooler, and you said the clearance you have is 65mm, so that leaves 5mm of clearance between the heatsink and the top of case, its little room for it to breath, weather its better or not than your current its hard to say. Now if you are into doing some small mods, you could cut a hole on the top and cover it with something like Mod Smart 120mm Anodized Aluminum Fan Filter - Black, there are other options like grills or magnetic dust filters, etc.

My current RAM is made by Kingston I think, but I am not at home right now so I can't check. I think it is the standard height of 30mm - it does not have heat fins on the top. Why do you say that I need standard rather than low profile? Wouldn't low profile be even better. Or do you mean that I should still be able to get away with standard height RAM with the Zalman?

There is a tray that holds the SSD and optical drive but half of the tray isn't really needed, although I would prefer not removing it if given the option. Look at this picture from the SPCR review of the ISK300-65 (the only difference is the PS):

I am not sure if the 65mm includes clearance for the tray - my current Arctic 11 LP (58mm high) has the fan somewhat protruding through this hole - that makes me think that the 8900 might not fit. But then I could remove the rivets that you see and the left half of the tray in this photo would be gone (note that this is suggested in the SPCR review of this casefrom 2009
That would give me more room. The downside is that the tray would only be secured by the two screws at the front of the case. This proably wouldn't matter as everything is stuffed so tightly that the cage is resting on cables and the only moving part to cause vibrations here would be the optical drive.

The other potential issue, which you don't see in the above photo from SPCR (since it is a slightly different model) but which is visible in my photo, is that the AC power connector protrudes into the rear of the case which could also interfere with the Zalman but I might just make it - the current cooler is 115x106 while the Zalman is 120mm in diameter. I think I will buy a Zalman and try it out - they have one at a store nearby for about $40 - they are cheaper online but this is faster and no shipping.

If the heatsink ends up touching the tray is that an issue? I am guessing not - it might even be desirable if it could conduct some heat away from the heatsink.

Any ideas on how to fasten the cables to the case to tidy things up. I am not really left with anyplace to secure tie wraps and there isn't much room to put in those sticky plastic loops.

@Abula - Thank you very much. You have been most helpful.

Damn, didnt know there was a bracket on top.... this will complicate things even further, as your motherboard CPU socket is at the bottom, and the Zalman goes over the ram, so the bracket might touch or not allow to be used... complicated and probably not worth it.

I'm sorry im out of suggestions, the case imo is not design for what you were trying to achieve, its more for atoms and dual cores, but haswell quads are too high for the case/cooler, if it was only peaks you might be fine, but as doing encoding/transcoding you will drive them to full load easily, one thing that you might want to consider is limiting the clocks on windows to kinda nerf what he can reach to pull it down to safer temperatures, kinda sucks to have to do this with such a capable CPU, but thats what i would in your situation. Here is an example of limiting the clocks via power options on windows, limiting my 4770K 3500mhz to 60% = 2100mhz, but test it in your setup, my guess is you might be able to do between 80-95%.



Else consider another case/cpu heatsink, like Fractal Design Node 304 + Scythe Mugen 4 + Seasonic G360 (posting canada links =)), its going to be very similar in length/wide but it will be taller, but this is what allows the use of tower heatsink and thus allowing better cooling for your 4770. All three items were reviewed by SPCR and got editors choice awards, ill leave you the links of the review for you to read and decide if its worth it or not,

Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX Case
Scythe Mugen 4 CPU Cooler: Scythe Strikes Back
Seasonic G360 PSU: High efficiency & performance, low price

Actually using the Quick Sync option (which is available in the beta/nightly builds version of Handbrake) doesn't stress out the CPU. And according to what I have read in tests the quality from QS is much better than it was in Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge. See Andrew Van Til's work here http://missingremote.com/review/intel-q ... erformance.

But I found a shop that has the Zalman 8900. I will pick one up after work and give it a go. I may have to remove the rivets from the frame but I would prefer that to the other options.

Intersting, thanks for the link.

Personally idk how it will work out, specially with the brackets, i would probably wouldnt do it, but each to its own. Just one thing, there are multiple versions of the 8900, i believe there is an extreme version also (transparent fan), so be careful what you buy, the one i link you and was reviewed on tomshardware was the Quiet version (black fan), crosscheck the labeling on it.

Hope everything works out for you,

Yes - I noticed the quiet and extreme. I am getting the quiet. I didn't check all of the details but I imagine the difference would be the fan. And if I don't like the fan on the quiet I can probably replace it with a better fan.

I won't bet on that option: you'd better delidding the CPU, if you dare to do it.

Why do you say that - I know that with Zalman coolers from a few years ago that a fan change was not too hard to do. And if I screw up the Zalman cooler is only about 10% of the cost of the CPU.

I'm not aware of any fan mod for those Zalman flowers (so if you point out any source for that fan swap it will be appreciated), and about that 110mm PWM fan I never heard of any direct/exact replacement.

At any rate, I just know that the 8900 is a modest cooler, not quiet (for SPCR standards) and at the same time not very effective: so I don't think you'll gain so much with it.
Just for example, the 58mm Scythe Big Shuriken 2 is far more quiet and far more effective, and if you should have 13mm more of spare space, then you may even add to it a regular 1 inch fan.

Personally not a big fan of Zalman, and i also agree that there might be very little difference, the size of the coolers are very similar, so it might be slightly better or worst... but i dont think a big change will happen. But on the noise, even though i dont trust Tomshardware testing, the noise was the lowest of all with the Noctua, so even if the measurement is not accurate with SPCR chaimber standards, it should be with in each other, it still netter the lowest of all the ones tested, that said im not going to recommend it always, just in here he was restricted a lot by space, simply the case isn't meant to run with a haswell quad.

Now on the Big Shuriken 2, i think the idea is great with a full 25mm fan, but idk if it will fit (as i don't know if the zalman will fit either), but according to specs, seems like 65mm clearance, the 58mm height of the Bigshuriken 2 includes the low profile fan on it, so adding a 25mm should add another 13mm more, this will take it to 71mm, what im not sure is if the 65mm is with the bracket or not.... or if the case will work fine without, either way i think its a good idea, probably even better than the zalman as long as it fits.

If I recall correctly, THG tests the cooler with the LNA adapter, where the L12 should exhibit at least 21-22dB (extrapolating from SPCR data and Noctua online specs sheet).
So the CNPS8900 Quiet is somewhat louder than TWO fans combined, a larger 120mm one running at 1200rpm and a not so smaller 92mm fan running at 1300rpm.
Moreover that Zalman have a minimum fan speed of 1000-1100rpm, and phisically at that speed a 110mm fan cannot be very quiet. Ultimately, I've some rational fear about the expected Zalman quietness.

Anyway, he should just try it and see.

For what it's worth, I stand by my opinion: if you wanna quietly run such a CPU into such a cramped space, you have to delid the CPU itself in order to replace the thermal interface material. Is it risky? Yes, it is (and it could be not enough).

A quick update - before changing anything I decided to rerun some tests with Prime95. It looks like the temps are down a few degrees from my initial tests - perhaps there was some curing of the thermal paste.

Here are my results before doing anything from Fri-Sat, again running Prime95 Torture Test for 12 hours or so (readings from CoreTemp):
Cover off: Core Max temps 89,88,87,81 - the average from casual observation was around 80. That seems not bad for this CPU.
Cover On: Core Max temps 98,96,95,88 with the average around 90. Pretty hot but about 3-5 degrees cooler than my initial tests.

I can probably live with those temps but I decided to take off the CPU and see if the Zalman cooler would fit and also to redo the paste. Here is what the paste looked like on the CPU - I might have been OK after all:


Now to the Zalman. I took off the existing cooler and cleaned off the paste. I then attempted to place the Zalman cooler on the CPU. Without the drive cage in it just barely fits in place with a bit of clearance over the RAM DIMMs as you can see in one of the photos. But the drive case would require a major hacksaw job. Not only would I have to remove the back half of the cage, I would also have to remove another arm at the back of the part of the cage before the rivets. And then it would still be dicey. So the Zalman will go back to the shop. I would have perhaps tested it but you have to remove the mobo to install the cooler and I didn't want to go to that hassle - and it will be easier to return since I never put any paste on the cooler.


So I reattached my original Arctic 11 LP and put everything back in place.

Here are my current test results. This is with the cover off and Prime95 running for about 12 hours:
Core Max temps 87,87,84,79 - the average from casual observation was around 78. So around two degrees cooler than before reapplying the thermal paste - and the temps seem lower now that the tests have been running for over 11 hours so perhaps the high temps are curing the paste as seemed to happen before I redid the thermal paste. I have yet to run new tests with the cover on.

One thing that I forgot to do is to remove the first RAM DIMM and try reorienting the CPU cooler by 90 degrees. This will tell me whether it runs cooler in that direction and whether it is worth going to LP DIMMs. I may still do that later today - I am really become expert at mounting this CPU cooler.

One recommendation that I would have to Antec regarding the case is to come up with a new drive cage system that doesn't restrict the height for a CPU cooler in the back half of the case. They could probably design something that just attaches to the front half of the case, perhaps screwing it to the PSU or the case fan holders. Or you could just have thin bars that run along the very edge of the case.

After a brief SPCR scanning I'm pretty sure that the 58mm Big Shuriken fits WITH a somewhat minimal hacksaw work:



Alternatively I also guess you may try to slide the fan a tad on the right, probably without an hefty thermal penalty,



So I'm not certain that your 60mm Zalman requires some more serious mod, but you know better than me what it needs.

Anyway, your temps (even the newer ones) look like too much high, in my very humble opinion, and I think that your Antec/AC combo definitely can't handle your Core i7 safely and quietly.

Thanks for finding that photo. That appears to be a different mobo than mine and the CPU is more towards the bottom in mine which may require work on both sides of the drive bracket. I did reorient the cooler yesterday to that the airflow from the case fans should draw through the CPU heatsink however my temp results are not really any better. In order to do this I did have to remove the first stick of RAM so I am running right now with 1x8GB RAM DIMM.

I will post more results later on today - it seems that with the new orientation the temps may be lower on average but they still peak very high. I still hit 100 on the first few cores with Prime95 running a tuorture test.

This is the SPCR mobo:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/screenshots/original/2009/02/9300-ITX-WIFI-1_copy.jpg

And this is your mobo:

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/13-06-03/10b.jpg

They have different orientation, but judging by the PCI-E position, and given that the Big Shuriken has a squared footprint, it would look like that you should work just on the right bracket, maybe for about 1cm /half an inch more to the front (with reference to the 775 setup).

About the RAM sticks, something like the Crucial Ballistix Sport should certainly work whichever the cooler is, even with 2 DIMMs.

You probably don't want to keep buying new heatsinks and fans, but the Noctua NH-L9i might be worth a try.

I just built a server using a Xeon E3-1230v3, which is only a step or two down from your i7-4770... thermals should be very similar. If you look at my build, I have even less free space than you, and no pair of 80mm fans blowing directly over the CPU cooler. I ran prime95 for less than two hours, and my peak temp for any one core was 93 degrees C. That's hotter than I'm comfortable with if my server were going to be doing encoding like you, but my system should be idle practically all the time. (The CPU is total overkill for my needs, I'm even considering disabling a core. I'd underclock if the BIOS allowed it.)

Note that I have the fan on the NH-L9i running at max, which may not be quiet enough for you (my server is stuffed in a closet in the basement, so noise isn't much of a concern).

Since you have those two 80mm fans, it might also be possible to find a heatsink that is more "substantial" in terms of metal, and make it short by not direct-attaching any fans. Use the cases twin 80mm fans to push air across the CPU heatsink. You might even get some carboard and try building a duct.

Hi Wayner,

Did you manage to keep this big i7 into the small case?
Or you had to move to bigger?