small 1156 cooler?

[fruitylooper]

hello,

so i'm sick of my whining i5 750 stock cooler and have been looking at some alternatives. unfortunately i don't have much space to play with at all.

my pci express slot is really close to the cpu and my graphics card has a great big heatsink on it, giving me only about 47mm clearance to the center of the cpu. then there is my g skill ripjaw ram with tall heatspreaders.

so, if i want to mount the fan in the correct orientation (airflow from front to back) i would have to get something with a 92mm fan (94mm space). OR i could get something with a 120mm fan and mount it so the fan pulls air from the top of the case (as long as it clears the 41mm tall ram) - not ideal i know but i wonder if this would be better than using a 92mm fan?

i was looking at a scythe katana 3 which should JUST fit as its 94mm wide. or maybe a zalman cnps9500 mounted the wrong way? which would be better? anything else i should be looking at?

noise is the most important thing for me, though i would like overclock as long as it doesn't get too noisy. looking to spend up to about £30.

thanks

[Das_Saunamies]

For a 92mm tower, the Noctua NH-U9B SE2 would be my choice. Might be on the expensive side of things, since they insist on including two fans, but you get quality for sure.

The SPCR build guide for a silent gaming system suggests the Scythe Samurai ZZ should be good for cramped spaces.

[cordis]

I'll second that, I have an nh-u9b (single fan) on my i7 860 in my strange htpc case, and it seems to work. Well to be fair, the cores hover right around 90c, but I have it OCd and fold on it, so it takes a lot of abuse.

[Das_Saunamies]

I'll second that, I have an nh-u9b (single fan) on my i7 860 in my strange htpc case, and it seems to work. Well to be fair, the cores hover right around 90c, but I have it OCd and fold on it, so it takes a lot of abuse.

Could be seen as not really a vote of confidence.

Does the 860 actually run at those temperatures without throttling (tjunction max)?

[fruitylooper]

hmm, unfortunately that noctua is too expensive for me, also at 95mm wide it is 1mm too big!! though i could probably squeeze it in.

from what i've read the scythe katana 3 is better than the samurai zz. cost about the same and they should both fit.

any others that anyone recommends?

what about using a bigger cooler mounted the other way?

[Das_Saunamies]

95mm with fan, but it's 71mm without, and you can choose the side you put the fan on - guess the dual-fan design has its advantages. But if it's too expensive (really?) then it's out anyway.

Mounting a heatsink with the fan blowing towards the top of the case should work out okay, as long as the fan used is good for horizontal mounting and heatsink use. I wouldn't set it to blow the hot air into the case because that's just not gonna work very well.

[fruitylooper]

95mm with fan, but it's 71mm without

it's 95mm WIDE with or without the fan, (71mm deep without fan) - but yeah, its more than i want to spend anyway.

I wouldn't set it to blow the hot air into the case because that's just not gonna work very well.

with a cooler wider than 94mm, that would be the only way i could do it due the heat sink on my graphics card getting in the way. unless i mount the fan so it pulls air rather than pushes it?

[alleycat]

I'm thinking of getting a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 for my next build. It's fairly compact and looks like good value.

[loimlo]

The 2800RPM fan on TX3 is pretty loud by SPCR standard. You may put yourself at the mercy of motherboard's fan control implementation.

[cordis]

Could be seen as not really a vote of confidence.

Does the 860 actually run at those temperatures without throttling (tjunction max)?

Yeah, that's just the temps from SpeedFan, and I've begun not to trust those, at least from i7 cpus. I have an i7 960 that it reports having a couple cores at 70C and a couple others at 95C, which seems like a pretty big gradient. And the i7 980x I just put on a new motherboard had a couple cores at -3C at idle, according to speedfan. So yeah, just the fact that it folds 24 hours a day with no errors gives you a much better sense of the reliability of the cooling solution that the actual temps. Wonder if there's a newer speedfan version out there...

And yeah, the Coolermaster Hyper tx3 is cheap, I had one on an old Core 2 Quad, but damn, the mounting on that thing drove me nuts, and it never cooled as well as the nh-u9. It's that annoying push pin mounting, and I never was convinced that it was on tight enough. If you have a choice, take anything from Scythe over the hyper tx3, no contest. Always check the mounting!

[alleycat]

Youre right, after looking around I see that a lot of people are having hassles with the push pins.

[carloswith47]

85 mm fan, but it is a 52 mm air, and you can choose half to put the fan guess dualfan design has its advantages. But if it is too expensive. So in any case, Heat sink assembly with the fan blowing towards the top of the box should work fine, until the fan is used for horizontal mounting.