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Best LGA 2011v3 HSF?

G

GV00

n00b
Joined
Feb 2, 2014
Messages
17
I'm looking at building a new system from scratch, and it's looking like it'll likely be based around a 6850K. I'm not willing to go for water cooling, and though I briefly looked at sealed water loops the short pump life (3 years or so seemed about the norm) made them seem like they weren't worth the trouble. I do hope to OC the chip somewhat, but nothing crazy. If I can get it up to 4 GHz comfortably I'll be very pleased.


So now I'm looking for the best air cooling option. I'll be building this into a desk, so dimensions of the HSF only matter if they interfere with RAM or motherboard components. Vertical clearance is effectively not an issue. Part of the reason I'm building it all into a desk is dust control -- it'll have a large filtration element at the bottom and will likely feature several large fans venting air out the rear. As long as it doesn't scream like a production server under abuse, noise probably won't be a big deal -- it'll be somewhat dampened by the desk, after all, though I'd prefer something that does throttle fan speed based on temperature.

Price is a low consideration since this will probably be the only thing I use for the next 6-8 years.

If there's a self-contained water option that will last 5+ years reliably and has a very low risk of leakage, I'm also willing to entertain that.

Suggestions?
 
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The Raijentek Tisis is on sale today, and that will be plenty of cooling for a decent overclock. Just don't go for ram with tall heatspreaders (not that DDR4 needs lots of cooling with it's low voltages), as the fans can't be adjusted up or down. I honestly wouldn't go with water unless just for fun as they don't really seem to add a ton of performance, especially if you are not going for a balls out bleeding edge overclock. Usually a comparable twin tower would start at like $70, if the Tisis wasn't so reasonably [roce at the moment I would recommend the Reeven Justice, [H] had a very positive review recently.
 
Phanteks PH-TC14PE or Nocua NH-D15 are my heatsink suggestions because... I'm familiar with them. Maybe Corsair H110gtx / H115 for the closed-loop-cooler. I think the Corsair pump units are rated at 50K hours MTBF, which is about standard for ball-bearing fans as well. Some fans have much longer 100K Hour+ ratings, however.

Asus motherboards have both DC and PWM control on every fan header. You can use PWM splitters if you have a lot of fans.

ThermalBench.com is a good place to check for fan performance reviews.

Top 140mm fans based on performance/noise: NB-eLoop B14-ps (PWM version), EK Vardar F1, Corsair ML140. (There are higher speed options within the eLoop and Vardar series of course, but if 1200 RPM is enough, these will be best).

Top 120mm: Corsair ML 120, followed by the venerable Scythe GT series.

The Scythe GT and EK Vardar are ball bearing, and will exhibit some low level of ball bearing noise that seems to bother some people.
The Corsair ML series has no bearing noise due to be it being magnetically levitated. ML series is designed for PWM.
The eLoop fans have, apparently, not much bearing noise due to design. I think the bearing is rated to something like 150K+ hours MTBF.

And of course... everyone seems to love Noctua.
Phanteks has some good fans as well.
 
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