I just got a system with a Core i7-4790 in a Temjin TJ08-e. It is quiet enough at idle but too noisy when loaded heavily. I am hoping that a better HSF will help, but I also hope I won't have to install one of the giant ones that are needed by overclockers.

The way things are, all the fans have to blow up to full speed to maintain a temp below 75c, which is some kind of threshold for the motherboard I am using. The cases fans (especially the front) are making the most noise.

Here is my BOM:
* Core i7-4790
* Silverstone Temjin TJ08-e case
* Stock 180mm front intake fan
* Scythe Kama flow 2 rear exhaust fan
* Stock Intel HSF
* Asus Gryphon Z97 mobo
* Antec VP450F PS

It would be nice if the HSF were good enough to keep things cool without needing the case fans to go faster than about 900 RPM.

What am I to do??

Check SPCR Scythe Kotetsu CPU Cooler: A Compact King, got the editors choice, and for what it costs is among the most recommend CPU cooler, Scythe Cooling Motherboard SCKTT-1000.

Thanks, but that looks pretty big to me. A couple of years ago, I used a Scythe Samurai http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1049-page1.html in some Sandy Bridge builds. Those are no longer available.

Is there anything on that scale that is currently recommended for my purpose?

Well i would consider the kotestu as one of the thinner towers, there might be smaller in towers but not worth it imo specially on the TJ08-E that allows even a HR02 Macho easily. Now you can can go smaller, there are tons of coolers in the market, but a much smaller heatsink will have harder time cooling a hot running cpu, thus in most cases needing more rpms... that equates to more noise. There are diminishing returns, like huge heatsinks really dont improve that much, but the size of the Kotetsu imo is like sweet spot, even the SPCR review i linked shows how it beats a lot of towers and probably among the best you can get atm for i7 imo for price/performance/noise. And also consider the benefits of the TJ08-E is the massive frontal 180 where pushes a ton of air, a tower will also follow the same flow.

A last thing to keep in mind, is that Sandy Bridge is much easier to cool than Haswell, even my Sandy Bridge hyperthreaded Xeon 4 cores 8 threads never even passes 65C under hours of prime95, but my i7 4770K and 4790K can reach 80C easily under prime95. Intel changing the soldering for paste and moving the vrms to the chips, really increase a lot the temperatures on haswell, specially on multithreaded cpus.

Now if you prefer have to go with something smaller, then consider Noctua NH-12L, Scythe Big Shuriken RevB, Thermalright AX200.

Either way, im interested if you go with a small cooler to share your results in terms of temperatures under load on 4790, specially the rpms it takes the fans to keep it on that temps.

Good luck,

The cause of your current problems is that the stock Intel cooler cannot cope with a heavily loaded i7 4790. This is hardly surprising, it is after all a 3.6 Ghz four core processor which turbos if I remember to 4.0 Ghz. In addition although the Intel turbo plan sets out that only one core should hit 4.0 Ghz manufacturers of performance motherboards commonly allow all four cores to reach that speed. Your Asus Gryphon Z97 is probably one of them. So for your processor only a 160mm or thereabouts tower is likely to be sufficient. For example something like the Noctua NH-U12S. This cooler comes with a second set of fan clips so an additional fan could be applied. In your case this could be a good idea, requiring a second Noctua NF-F12.

Obviously there are other cooler and fan choices. But fitting a cooler in this category, particularly with twin fans, should reduce the CPU temperature significantly under load conditions. As you have already identified Asus motherboard fan control sets a temperature at which all fans go to 100% and this is around 70 to 75C. If you can reduce the CPU temperature under load by 15C to 20C then the fan speeds will drop substantially and so will the noise. A smaller cooler would perform better than the stock unit but with a risk that CPU temps would not be reduced enough under load to impact on fan noise.

Wow, good information here.

BTW, is it possible to increase the threshold of the Gryphon up to, say, 80c, just to see what happens? This would help me see how much improvement is needed.

Current Asus motherboards usually allow a Manual fan profile to be set and this facility lets the maximum CPU temperature limit be varied from the default of 70C up to 90C. I am not aware that this can be done with automatic fan control by the BIOS and/or the Asus fan control software. Using a Manual fan profile and setting the limit to 80C would prevent the fans from being sent a 100% duty cycle signal at 70C.

As others have pointed out, the stock Intel box cooler is crap for i5 and i7. For my i5 build, the box cooler let the CPU to go to 100C and throttle with Prime95. Replacing it with a Scythe Mugen 4 reduced the stress temp to 66C. Highest core temp while gaming went from 64C to 45C. The Kotestu has similar performance.

You've all convinced me to look at something like the Kotetsu. However, Kotetsu is not easily available in the USA as far as I can tell. So I guess something else on that scale is what I'm looking for.

http://www.amazon.com/Scythe-SCKTT-1000 ... B00JZCHSOK

Or, you could purchase directly from Platinum Micro (they are in So Cal),

A search via Google shopping pulls up a few more vendors.

As Steve showed, amazon has a ton of 3rd party suppliers, they also sell directly (when in stock). I have bought multiple items from Platinum micro, and i have no complains.

But directly in the same line of slim and not so big tower, the Noctua NH-U12S should be similar, just more expensive.

I need to get this through a local shop that will install, because I've had so much trouble installing them in the past (I'm not that mechanical, I guess).

They have the NH-12s and may have or be able to get the Thermalright TS-120 or Ultra-120, which would save a few bucks. These should all work fine, right?

In germany our local shops do mount coolers supplied by their customers, they might charge a few bucks premium for it, but they'll do it.

But yes, all of those will work fine, albeit the Thermalrights have an inferior fan compared to the Noctua.

Just "inferior"? I would have said pretty bad, rather.

I got the Noctua NH-U12s installed. This thing is a champ!

It keeps the CPU around 55c spinning about 700 rpm (on prime95 max torture). The two cases fans can now stay below 600 rpm, so things are very quiet. Thanks for the advice!

Only one remaining issue: occasional hard drive noise.

Rubber suspension or at least soft mount. Please describe how the Hard drives are mounted and which models are.