tower coolers/hsf

jimmy818

n00b
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
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58
im gonna be building an i7 system soon,
last time i used a huge HSF was with a lga775 p4 3.2ghz with a thermaltake tower cooler

1) it was a bitch to install
a) mb had to be off
b) it was hard to apply even pressure to the cpu and/or tight yet not too tight so the mb doens't snap
2) the thing didnt' look too secure
3) it was loud...
4) it wasn't that great of a cooler

for my q6600 system i just went with the stock intel cooler, but i find it to be rather loud (i think its the loudest thing in my system right now)

so anyways since its been a good few years, im wondering if technology has improve substantially for me to consider tower HSF's again

what im eye-ing right now is the noctua nh-u12p se2, from reviews it looks pretty sturdy with a good mounting system, will the heatsink be another pain in the ass again?

1) what im looking for is something thats quieter than stock (very important) yet cools as well or better

mobo is gigabyte x58a-ud3r
case is antec p182

2) the mobo is listed as compatible on gigabyte's website, from experience or hear-say, will the HSF block the first ram slot?

3) will it fit in a P182 case height-wise?

4) will there be enough clearance BEHIND the mobo to accmodate the mounting hardware? (irrc theres a backplate thing that goes on top of the backplate thats already on the mobo

5) 2 fans or 1 fan? (what im worried about here is a push-pull configuration emitting resonance noise (or whatever its called)

thanks!
 
I'm also using a q6600, and on it is a zalman cnps9500, modified with a quieter fan on its lowest speed. It's very quiet, and even though my modification job was quite sub-optimal, (i.e. I'm using a very inexpensive, old 80mm fan that came with an old cheap case) I'm still getting about 47C average idle. That isn't really an incredible figure by itself, but it is still a significant performance improvement over stock for me.
For comparison, very quiet to me means the loudest part in my system is a 500gb 7200rpm hard drive.

I'd say go for it. If noise is a concern, many tower coolers have been essentially proven to perform better than the stock coolers, and at a (sometimes much much) lower noise level. I can't say that the mounting system will be any less complicated, though. Many do require you to remove your motherboard from the case.

For 3, I'm not positive, but my experience with the p182 would lead me to believe that is has plenty of room to accommodate large coolers.

And for 5, two identical fans running at the same speed right next to each other do sometimes create a bit of annoying resonance, and adding the second fan adds a bit more fan noise anyway. I say try it out with one fan first, that will probably be the quietest configuration.
 
thanks =)

yaaa im ok with having the mobo off for install, but i only want to do it once and done right without the need for me to readjust haha
 
If you're concerned about installation and space, the Corsair h50 is a great choice - comparable to most tower coolers.
 
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